The leader of the feared Hezbollah security apparatus was, according to a source close to the group, the target of Israeli air strikes carried out Thursday on Beirut. They were the deadliest against the Lebanese capital since they began on September 23.
These strikes, which left 22 dead and 117 injured, according to the Ministry of Health, came at a time when Israel, at war on several fronts for the first time in decades, is preparing to leave on Friday evening to celebrate the Yom Kippur, the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar.
The raid targeted “the head of Hezbollah’s security apparatus Wafic Safa”, a source close to the pro-Iranian group told AFP, without further information on his fate. Subject to US Treasury sanctions, he has coordinated several prisoner exchanges with Israel in the past.
“New stage”
In the morning, residents of Basta, one of the two densely populated neighborhoods affected by the strikes, came to inspect the damage, some in tears. “Many families live here,” Bilal Othman is indignant, in the middle of piles of concrete and twisted iron, excavated by excavators. “Why did they (the Israelis) target” the sector, “do they want to tell us that there is no longer a safe place in the country?”
This is the third time that the Israeli army has directly targeted the capital, with Israel concentrating its strikes on the southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, since September 23. According to the source close to Hezbollah, this shows that Israel “has moved to a new stage, targeting political leaders” of the movement.
The United States supports Lebanon’s efforts to “assert itself” against Hezbollah, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared on Friday.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the neighboring country to “liberate” itself, otherwise it would suffer the same fate as Gaza, where its army continues a devastating war triggered by the Hamas attack on its soil, the October 7, 2023.
New Israeli shots on UNIFIL
Lebanon on Friday denounced new Israeli fire on a peacekeeper position in southern Lebanon, the day after a diplomatic outcry after similar fire injured two Indonesians.
Israeli fire against peacekeepers constitutes “a violation of international humanitarian law”, criticized UN chief Antonio Guterres on Friday.
The Israeli army, which has been carrying out ground incursions against Hezbollah in the region since October 30, claimed to have fired on Thursday “near” the UNIFIL headquarters, insisting that it had warned its personnel to protect themselves.
Since October 2023, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including nearly 1,200 since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official figures. The UN has estimated the number of people displaced within Lebanon at 600,000.
Tues you Hezbollah
Despite the blows to its leadership, Hezbollah claims to resist the Israeli army, and continues its fire against the country. On Friday, he announced that he had “launched a squadron of attack drones on an air base in Haifa” in northern Israel.
A Thai farm worker was killed by an anti-tank missile in northern Israel, Israeli emergency services announced, with the army reporting two civilians injured.
In this context, Mr. Blinken said Friday that the United States still hopes to prevent “a broader conflict” in the Middle East, at a time when Israel is preparing, according to its Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, a “deadly, precise and surprising” to the missile attack launched by Tehran against Israeli territory on October 1
Iran reaffirmed Friday that it is ready to “defend its sovereignty” against Israel, which it claims to have struck to avenge the assassination in Tehran of the leader of Hamas, as well as those of the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah and a general of the Guards of the Iranian Revolution in an Israeli strike near Beirut.
US “concerns” over aid to Gaza
Israel has concentrated its forces on the Lebanese front, after a year of incessant fire from Hezbollah which displaced 60,000 inhabitants of northern Israel. But citing an attempt by Hamas to reconstitute its capabilities in the north of the Gaza Strip, it has surrounded Jabalia there since Sunday, shelling the sector.
According to Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal, at least 140 people have died there since the start of the operation, and at least 400,000 people are trapped in the area, according to the UN.
The United States has expressed to its Israeli ally its “real concerns” about the lack of humanitarian aid in the sector, according to Mr. Blinken.
On Thursday, 28 Gazans were killed in an Israeli strike on a school in Deir el-Balah (center) housing displaced people, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Israeli army spoke of a “precise” airstrike on “terrorists”.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
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