The Israeli military continued its campaign of airstrikes in Lebanon on Sunday, saying it carried out a series of targeted attacks on targets of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah in Beirut overnight, including several weapons depots and other terrorist infrastructures.
The strikes caused large fireballs and huge plumes of smoke in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. Smoke was still billowing from the site at dawn. The Lebanese Ministry of Health has not released information on the victims.
The strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s international airport, as well as another building formerly used by the Hezbollah-run Al-Manar television station.
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The army said the strikes were preceded by a number of measures aimed at avoiding harm to civilians, including advance warnings.
The IDF accused Hezbollah of placing its weapons storage and production sites under residential buildings in the Lebanese capital, thereby endangering the population, and vowed to continue to forcefully strike the armed installations of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group .
On Sunday morning, Lebanese media reported a new major Israeli strike in Beirut. The army had no immediate comment.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israeli strikes left 23 people dead across the country the day before. Ninety-three other people were injured, according to the ministry, not counting the victims of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut after midnight. Health Ministry figures do not distinguish between civilians and terrorists.
The IDF said an airstrike killed the Hezbollah company commander in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kila who was responsible for a deadly anti-tank missile attack in January. Hader Ali Tawil was behind the attack that killed Barak Ayalon, 45, and his mother Miri Ayalon, 76, when an anti-tank missile slammed into their home in Kfar Yuval, according to the IDF.
The strikes came as Lebanon continued to fire rockets and launch drones into northern Israel on Sunday.
Two missiles fired at the northern coastal plain were shot down by air defenses, the military said. The surface-to-surface missiles triggered warning sirens between Haifa and Hadera, along the coast.
No injuries or damage were reported in this attack.
Additionally, several suspected drones launched from Lebanon were shot down by Israeli air defenses, the IDF said.
According to the army, the “suspicious aerial targets” did not cross Israeli airspace.
On Saturday, more than 110 rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon, with another 30 fired overnight into Kiryat Shmona.
A map of southern Lebanon showing the location of the Litani and Awali rivers, and the locations where the Israeli army asked residents to evacuate between October 1 and 4, 2024. (Credit: Nalini Lepetit-Chelle, Paz Pizarro , Sylvie Husson and Olivia Bugault/AFP)
Fighting continued in southern Lebanon and the IDF issued new evacuation alerts for residents of around 25 areas of southern Lebanon, asking them to immediately go north of the Awali River.
Meanwhile, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for “putting pressure on Israel” for a ceasefire, as the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah continues to fire rockets and launch drones into Israel. Mikati said he supported U.S. and French efforts toward a truce.
Lebanon said the start of the new school year was postponed until November 4 due to escalating fighting.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi said the start date of classes for more than a million students would be postponed due to “security risks.”
People checking the site of an Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah target in Dahiyeh, Beirut, southern Lebanon, October 6, 2024. (Bilal Hussein/AP)
Israel says it has expanded operations against Hezbollah to allow the safe return to their homes in the north of some 60,000 Israeli civilians who were evacuated when the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite terrorist group began firing rockets on October 8, saying he was doing so to support Gaza in the war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas taking place there.
So far, the border clashes have caused the deaths of twenty-six civilians on the Israeli side and, not counting the soldiers killed during the ground operation, the deaths of twenty-two soldiers and reservists of the Israeli army .
Two soldiers were killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and several attacks also took place from Syria, with no injuries reported.
The death toll from the IDF ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon stands at nine dead.
Hezbollah reported that 516 of its terrorists have been killed by Israel since October 8, mainly in Lebanon, but also in Syria.
Since Israel intensified its airstrikes against the Hezbollah terrorist group on Monday, more than 630 other deaths have been reported in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between terrorists and civilians.
Faced with the escalation, Hezbollah seems to have stopped naming its eliminated elements.
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