Since the start of the week, Israel has been shelling the southern suburbs of Beirut, targeting Hezbollah military installations. The IDF called on residents to evacuate their homes.
The essentials
- Lebanon and more particularly Beirtouh, still under bombs. The Israeli army claimed this Monday to have struck 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in 24 hours. This Tuesday, October 22, the IDF claims to have struck Hezbollah military installations during the night, and more particularly a major naval base in the capital where the group stored military speedboats. “A training center and an experimentation zone” were also targeted, the army said in a press release.
- Thirteen people, including a child, were killed Monday evening in an airstrike by the Israeli army carried out near Beirut’s largest public hospital, Rafik Hariri, on the outskirts of the southern suburbs of the city, indicates a new report from the Ministry of Health. Additionally, 57 people were injured during the same attack. The area was known to be a stronghold of pro-Iranian Hezbollah.
- This Tuesday, the Israeli army called on residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut to evacuate their homes before new military operations against Hezbollah. “For your safety and that of your family, you must immediately evacuate these buildings and those surrounding them and move away at least 500 meters,” army spokesperson Avichay Adraee told X.
Latest updates
15:11 – 13 dead and 7 people in “critical” condition after hospital bombing
Monday evening, thirteen people including a child were killed in an Israeli raid near a large public hospital in Beirut. 57 people were also injured. In total, 17 people were hospitalized and 7 are in “critical condition”, specifies the press release from the Ministry of Health.
15:03 – Hezbollah claims responsibility for attack targeting Netanyahu
This Tuesday, Lebanese Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the drone attack that targeted the private residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Saturday in central Israel. “We announce our full and sole responsibility for the Caesarea operation which targeted the war criminal Netanyahu,” declared Mohammad Afif, head of media relations for the Lebanese Islamist movement, during a press conference.
14:59 – Israel strikes Beirut after Hezbollah press conference
A new raid by the Israeli army targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday after a leader of the pro-Iranian movement cut short a press conference being held there, according to an AFP photographer. Hezbollah’s media manager stopped the conference organized in the Ghobeiry sector after an evacuation order from the IDF, according to the same source. The neighborhood was indeed targeted by a strike, according to the Lebanese National Information Agency.
21/10/24 – 22:41 – The French Minister of the Armed Forces fears a civil war in Lebanon
While Israel affirmed this Monday evening on Telegram that nearly 170 projectiles were fired during the day from Lebanon against the Hebrew State by Hezbollah, the French Minister of the Armed Forces spoke about the situation in the Land of Cedar in LCI microphone. Sébastien Lecornu once again pleaded for a ceasefire in Lebanon, not hesitating to speak of “necessity for our collective security”. And the minister justifies: “Our position, at the moment, involves above all a fear […] of an imminent civil war in Lebanon”. The country “can completely collapse even more than it already is”, he added, pointing to the large number of displaced people, the very strong interfaith dynamics or further weakening of Hezbollah.
10/21/24 – 4:45 p.m. – Washington wants to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah “as quickly as possible”
The American President’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein, who began a visit to the Middle East, assured this Monday, October 21 that Washington wants to end the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel “as quickly as possible.” This statement comes on the eve of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, also traveling to the Middle East, in Jerusalem. The aim of the meeting is to obtain a ceasefire. The head of American diplomacy will then meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv according to The Times of Israel.
42,718. This is the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas terrorist offensive on October 7, 2023 in Israel. A figure communicated by the Ministry of Health of the Hamas government on Monday October 14, 2024 and which reveals the intensity of the fighting which has lasted for more than a year now. Over the months, tensions intensified, and as of October 27, 2023, Israel extended its ground operation to Gaza. The objective for Netanyahu and the IDF is clear: to “annihilate” Hamas. A one-week ceasefire nevertheless took place in November 2023. After a significant leap forward, on April 13, 2024, Iran launched its first massive attack on Israel. Hamas ally, Iran then fired nearly 350 explosive drones and missiles at the Jewish state. An attack in response to missiles fired at the embassy in Damascus, Syria on April 1, in which 11 people lost their lives, including seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Tuesday September 17, 2024, a new kind of attack broke into the war. Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies explode. Twelve deaths and nearly 3,000 injured have been recorded in Lebanon. Since its coordinated explosions, Israel has continued to strike Lebanon with air or ground raids. More than 1,000 people are killed in IDF strikes and thousands of Lebanese are forced to be displaced. On October 1, 2024, Iran responded by sending nearly 200 ballistic missiles directly to Israel. Since then, the two countries have been waging a merciless war. On October 8, 2024, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, threatened Lebanon with “destruction and suffering like those we see in Gaza” if the population of the country does not ” “liberated” not from Hezbollah. Comments described as “provocation” by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot.
Monday October 14, 2024, Lebanese Hezbollah threatened Israel with new attacks in a press release. As a reminder, Hezbollah had struck Haifa two days earlier, killing four Israeli soldiers and injuring no less than 60. At the start of the week, the terrorist organization indicated that “the resistance (…) promises the enemy”. The raid carried out “south of Haifa is only a foretaste of what awaits him if he decides to continue his attacks against our people”, she threatens. According to Palestinian doctors cited by Associated Press, the courtyard of a hospital in the Gaza Strip was then bombed by the Israeli army, killing at least four people and causing a fire in a camp for displaced people.