Several dozen people were killed by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, ravaged by more than a year of war between Hamas and Israel, which has carried out new deadly air raids in Lebanon, notably on the center of Beirut.
Triggered on October 7, 2023 by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil, the war in Gaza has spread to Lebanon, where the Israeli army is carrying out intense strikes against strongholds of the pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah, which has opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas from October 8, 2023.
At least 60 people were killed in Israeli raids in the Palestinian territory on Sunday, according to Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.
The deadliest strike took place overnight from Saturday to Sunday in Beit Lahia, in the north, on a five-story building: at least 34 bodies, including women and children, were removed from the rubble and dozens people are still missing, Bassal told AFP.
Beit Lahia “completely destroyed”
“The chances of saving more injured people (trapped under the declines) are decreasing,” specifies the spokesperson.
“They (Israel) bombed us heavily last night, they (…) completely destroyed Beit Lahia,” Omar Abdel Aal, a Palestinian displaced from the city, told AFTV.
The Israeli army launched a major ground operation in northern Gaza on October 6 to, it said, prevent Hamas fighters from reconstituting their forces. It announced on Sunday the death of two of its soldiers in the sector.
“Terrorist activities continued in the Beit Lahia region,” the army told AFP, adding that “multiple keystrokes” had been carried out “against terrorist targets”.
Twenty-six other people, including women and children, died in bombings in the south, in Rafah and Khan Younes, and in the center, in Nousseirat and Al-Bureij, Bassal added.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas commandos infiltrated from the neighboring Gaza Strip carried out an attack of unprecedented scale in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, according to an AFP count based on official data, including hostages killed or died in captivity.
That day, 251 people were kidnapped. In total, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
In response, the Israeli army launched a campaign of destructive aerial bombardments followed by a ground offensive in Gaza which left 43,846 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Violent strikes in Beirut
Alongside its offensive in Gaza, the Israeli army is fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
On Sunday, the pro-Iranian movement announced the death, in an airstrike in central Beirut, of its main spokesperson, Mohammad Afif.
Son “elimination” was confirmed in the evening by the Israeli army, which described him as “head of propaganda” of the Shiite militia.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, at least six people were killed on Sunday in two strikes in the center of Beirut.
A first bombing killed Mohammad Afif in Ras el-Nabaa in the heart of the capital on Sunday, a security source told AFP.
This strike has “lead four dead, including a woman, and 14 injured, including two children”, indicated the ministry in an upwardly revised assessment.
A second bombing took place Sunday evening in the Mar Elias shopping district, leaving two dead and 13 injured, according to the same source.
After a year of cross-border violence, the Israeli army launched an intense aerial bombardment campaign against the Islamist movement on September 23 and a ground offensive in the south of the country on September 30.
Israel wants to keep Hezbollah away from the border regions of southern Lebanon and stop its rocket attacks which have displaced some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
Schools in the capital and its surrounding areas will be closed on Monday and Tuesday, the Lebanese Ministry of Education announced.
The Lebanese news agency ANI also reported an Israeli strike “violent” having targeted the village of Khiam (south), on the outskirts of which Hezbollah claimed three attacks against Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli army, for its part, said it had bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut, located near the international airport, and the south of the country, including the thousand-year-old city of Tyre.
In several villages surrounding this city, 11 people were killed and 48 others injured in Israeli raids on Sunday, according to the Health Ministry.
According to the Israeli army, the Lebanese movement fired around twenty projectiles towards the western Galilee and the Bay of Haifa, in northern Israel. Some were intercepted.
More than 3,480 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 8, 2023, according to the Ministry of Health, the majority since September 23.
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