The military escalation between Israel on the one hand, Iran and Hezbollah on the other, raises fears of an uncontrollable situation in the Middle East, one year after the unprecedented attack carried out on October 7, 2023 by Palestinian Hamas on Israeli soil, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Faced with a risk of widespread conflict in the region after Tuesday’s Iranian strikes on Israel, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he was opposed to the idea of Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Information to remember
⇒ Israel says it targeted Hezbollah’s “intelligence HQ” in Beirut
⇒ Israel says it “eliminated” three senior Hamas leaders in Gaza three months ago
⇒ Lebanese army says it responded to Israeli fire for the first time in a year
4:05 p.m.
Biden convinced that ‘nothing will happen’ on Thursday regarding an Israeli response against Iran
Joe Biden affirmed this Thursday that “nothing would happen” during the day regarding an Israeli response against Iran, after the missile attack launched Tuesday by the Islamic Republic against Israel. “Nothing will happen today (Thursday),” said the American president in response to a question on the subject, during a brief exchange with the press before leaving the White House for a trip to the south of the United States.
3:45 p.m.
New strikes on Beirut: Israel says it targeted Hezbollah’s “intelligence HQ”
The Israeli army said this Thursday that it had struck Hezbollah’s “intelligence headquarters” in the Beirut region.
In the afternoon, fighter jets struck “the intelligence headquarters” of the Lebanese Islamist movement, the army said in a statement accompanied by a poor quality video showing a strike destroying what appeared to be a building isolated on a hill.
2:45 p.m.
Lebanese army says it responded to Israeli fire for the first time in a year
The Lebanese army announced Thursday that it had responded to Israeli fire for the first time in a year, after the death of a second of its soldiers in southern Lebanon. “A soldier was killed after the Israeli enemy targeted a military post in the Bint Jbeil area in the south, and military personnel responded to the fire,” the army said in a statement.
2:30 p.m.
New Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut
Three new Israeli strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, stronghold of Lebanese Hezbollah, this Thursday after an intense night of bombing, the Lebanese national press agency reported.
“Enemy planes launched three strikes on the southern suburbs” of Beirut, the agency announced. An AFP journalist saw columns of smoke rising from the affected area. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the targeted building housed the office of the information department of the pro-Iranian group. “The office had been evacuated.”
11:40 a.m.
Israel says it “eliminated” three senior Hamas leaders in Gaza three months ago
The Israeli army announced Thursday that it had “eliminated” three senior Hamas leaders in a strike “about three months ago” in the Gaza Strip, where the army has been at war against the Palestinian Islamist movement for nearly a year. year. During this strike, “the following terrorists were eliminated: Raouhi Mouchtaha, Sameh al-Siraj, Sami Oudeh,” the army wrote in a press release. Mouchtaha was a member of the Hamas political bureau for Gaza, responsible for finances, Siraj sat in the same body, as responsible for security affairs. Oudeh was head of Hamas’s Internal Security Agency.
11:15 a.m.
Two Belgian journalists injured in Beirut
While covering an airstrike on the city center of the Lebanese capital, two journalists from the Belgian television channel VTM were injured during the night from Wednesday to Thursday in Beirut, their editorial staff announced. War reporter Robin Ramaekers, suffering from “facial fractures”, and cameraman Stijn De Smet, injured in a leg, were both hospitalized. Their editorial staff was able to speak with them by telephone and they are not in danger of death, a spokesperson for the DPG Media group, owner of VTM and the Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, told AFP. The exact circumstances of the incident are still unknown at this stage. DPG Media explained that the two journalists were injured “while they wanted to report” on a bombing that struck downtown Beirut overnight.
11:00 a.m.
15 Hezbollah fighters killed in southern Lebanon strike
The Israeli army said Thursday that 15 fighters from the armed Islamist movement Hezbollah were killed in an overnight airstrike in one of their strongholds in southern Lebanon. “Around fifteen Hezbollah terrorists were eliminated” in a strike on “the building of the municipality of Bint Jbeil”, in which “large quantities of Hezbollah weapons (were) stored”, affirmed the army in a statement. press release.
11:00 a.m.
Strike in central Beirut leaves seven dead
The Israeli strike on a Hezbollah relief center in the heart of Beirut this Thursday before dawn left seven people dead, according to a new report.
10:55 a.m.
Hezbollah says it repelled an attempted Israeli advance in southern Lebanon
Hezbollah claimed this Thursday to have repulsed an Israeli attempt to advance on the border in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army says it is carrying out limited and localized operations. Hezbollah “repulsed with artillery fire an attempt by Israeli enemy forces to advance towards the Fatima Gate”, on the concrete and wire fence along the border between Israel and Lebanon, according to the pro movement’s press release. -Iranian.
09:05
Yemen: Houthi rebels say they carried out drone attack against Israel
The Houthis carried out “a military operation targeting a major target in the Jaffa region (a district of Tel Aviv, editor’s note) in occupied Palestine with a certain number of drones”, declared this Thursday morning their military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, without specifying when the attack took place. “The drones reached their target without the enemy being able to intercept or shoot them down,” he added.
The Israeli army for its part claimed during the night to have “intercepted a suspicious aerial target off the coast of the Dan region, in central Israel”, without giving further details. On Wednesday, the Houthis had already said they had fired three missiles at Israel, the day after an Iranian missile attack against Israeli territory.
07:00
New deadly Israeli strike on Beirut
For the second time, a strike hit the very heart of the capital, reaching Hezbollah’s “civil protection center” in the Bachoura district, according to a source close to the pro-Iranian movement. The death toll stands at six dead and seven injured, the Ministry of Health said.
Israel continued its offensive in Lebanon overnight, with 17 raids in total on Beirut and its southern suburbs, according to the official Lebanese agency NNA. This is the second Israeli strike targeting the heart of the Lebanese capital since the start of the conflict between the pro-Iranian Islamist movement and Israel on October 8, 2023. The strike on the Bachoura neighborhood comes after a series of bombings targeting the southern suburbs on Wednesday evening, the third series of Israeli raids targeting this Hezbollah stronghold outside Beirut in less than 24 hours and regularly targeted for around ten days.
06:50
Nasrallah’s son-in-law killed in Israeli strike in Damascus
Four people were killed on Wednesday, including the son-in-law of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli raid targeting the Mazzé neighborhood in Damascus for the second day in a row, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) said.
“An Israeli raid targeted an apartment in a residential building in the Mazzé neighborhood, frequented by leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” leaving four dead: Hassan Nasrallah’s son-in-law, Hassan Jaafar al-Qasir , a young woman, a member of Hezbollah and an unidentified person, said the OSDH. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that Hassan Jaafar al-Qasir was the brother of Jaafar al-Qasir, responsible for the transfer of weapons from Iran to Lebanon, whom Israel announced it had killed on Tuesday in a strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut.
06:45
New evacuation order for areas of southern Beirut
The Israeli army issued a new order to evacuate areas of southern Beirut overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, announcing strikes against Hezbollah. “You are near Hezbollah-linked facilities and interests, against which the Israeli army will act in the near future,” she said in a statement, pointing to buildings located in the Shiite areas of Haret. Hreik, Burj al-Barajneh and Hadath Gharb.
06:30
46 deaths in Lebanon in the last twenty-four hours
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, Israeli strikes on Wednesday caused the death of 46 people and injured 85 in several regions of the country. The Lebanese Crisis Center announced before the publication of this daily report that 1,928 people had been killed in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire in October 2023.