Israel today attacked Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in the heart of Beirut, while ordering civilians in Lebanese villages north of the UN buffer zone to evacuate “immediately.”
Israeli warplanes “striked targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut, including terrorist operatives belonging to the unit, intelligence gathering facilities, command centers and additional terrorist infrastructure,” the military said in a statement.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported three airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP the target was an evacuated building housing the group’s media relations office.
The IDF separately warned the Lebanese people to evacuate more than 20 villages and the town of Nabatiyeh, all north of the UN buffer zone.
‘For your own safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and head north of the Awali River. Save your lives,” army spokesman Avichay Adraee said in X.
The airstrikes in the heart of Lebanon’s capital and the possible expansion of Israel’s invasion of its neighbor come after days of intense shelling in areas of southern Lebanon, which have killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds to flee their homes.
Israeli fighter jets ‘attacked targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut’
A man takes a photograph as smoke rises from a damaged building following Israeli airstrikes in Dahieh, a Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.
IDF has been conducting ‘ground raids’ throughout southern Lebanon
Israel, still at war in Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, says it has shifted its focus to securing its northern border and ensuring the safe return of more than 60,000 people displaced by Hezbollah attacks over the past year with “raids terrestrials”.
These raids have resulted in fierce fighting between Hezbollah and the IDF.
Hezbollah said it repulsed an attempt by Israeli troops to advance through the Fatima Gate on the border.
He also said he detonated two explosive devices against advancing Israeli forces while maintaining his cross-border rocket fire.
The military said an overnight attack killed 15 Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbeil, an area badly damaged during Israel’s last war with the militant group in 2006.
The Lebanese army later said one of its soldiers was killed when “the Israeli enemy attacked an army post in the Bint Jbeil area” – the third death among its troops in the current escalation – prompting retaliatory fire.
A Lebanese military officer said it was the army’s first response to Israeli fire since last October.
Clouds of smoke following an Israeli airstrike on a village in southern Lebanon
A view of the damage caused by earlier Israeli airstrikes, as smoke rises over the southern suburb of Beirut.
Israel, still at war in Gaza since the Hamas attack on October 7, says it has shifted its focus to securing its northern border and ensuring the safe return of more than 60,000 people displaced by Hezbollah attacks.
Earlier, Israel carried out a deadly airstrike in central Beirut, striking an emergency services rescue center run by Hezbollah and killing seven workers, the service said.
Hassan Ammar, 82, who was staying in the high-rise building whose walls were partially torn down by the attack after fleeing southern Lebanon, said: “We are peaceful civilians in our homes.”
Israel has not yet commented on the attack, but said it had hit about 200 Hezbollah targets “in Lebanese territory.”
According to Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad, more than 40 rescuers and firefighters have been killed by Israeli fire in three days.
The latest clashes between Hezbollah and Israel occurred after Hezbollah-supporting Iran launched its second direct missile attack on Israel, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn that Tehran would pay.
As Israel weighs retaliating for the Iranian missile attack, US President Joe Biden said his nation “fully supports” the ally but ruled out supporting an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Iran, which arms and finances Lebanon’s Hezbollah, said it would escalate its response if Israel counterattacked.
An activist holds an animal cage in the rubble of a building damaged during Israeli attacks as she searches for abandoned cats in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
A man inspects the damage at the Bachoura cemetery, which was damaged during an Israeli attack.
A view of the destroyed building after the Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, October 3, 2024.
Smoke rises after the Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, October 3, 2024.
Israel’s ground operations and strikes follow the killing in a massive bombing in southern Beirut of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders.
Israel intercepted most of the 200 missiles launched by Iran. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a Palestinian was killed by shrapnel.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that “those who attack the State of Israel pay a high price”, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned of a “stronger” response.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said its missiles were fired in retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah along with that of a general in the Guard’s Quds Force, as well as the July killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
A day after its military said it was launching ground operations in southern Lebanon, Israel on Wednesday reported the first death of a soldier in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a toll that later rose to eight dead.
The Israeli army said it had deployed a second division to support the fighting.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 46 people were killed and another 85 wounded by Israeli strikes over the previous 24 hours.
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah’s media office on October 3, 2024.
People and members of the press view a damaged building at the site of an Israeli attack in the Bachoura neighborhood of central Beirut.
A view of the damage caused to the cemetery after Israeli fighter jets hit a building in the Bachoura area of Beirut, Lebanon.
The war has also spread to neighboring Syria, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Israeli strike in Damascus killed four people, including Hassan Jaafar al-Qasir, Nasrallah’s son-in-law.
Iranian media said a military “advisor” to the Revolutionary Guard in Syria, Majid Divani, succumbed on Thursday to wounds sustained in an Israeli attack on Damascus earlier this week.
In Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial center, Liron Yori, 22, said he was worried about “where the war is going and I’m not comfortable with that.”
The fighting comes as many Israelis celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, on Thursday.
UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an end to the “disgusting cycle of escalation” in the Middle East and the G7 group of rich nations said a diplomatic solution was “still possible”.
But months of similar calls and mediation efforts have so far failed to bring about a truce in Gaza.
Hezbollah began its attacks on Israeli troops a day after Hamas carried out its October 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. which include hostages murdered in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,788 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-controlled territory’s Health Ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
