“The extension, once again, of the aggression of the Israeli enemy (…) and the fact that it has once again targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut with destructive raids, are all indicators which confirm its refusal of all efforts made to obtain a ceasefire,” declared Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
In the Kafaat district, a building was still burning on Friday, emerging from a field of debris and charred cars, drowning the surrounding area in thick smoke. All around, Hezbollah militants, dressed in black, some carrying holstered machine guns, established a security cordon.
The Israeli army claimed to have struck Shiite movement targets in the Beirut and Nabatiyeh areas in the south.
Bombings also targeted the Baalbeck region, in eastern Lebanon, killing at least ten people according to Lebanese authorities, and the city of Tyre, in the south, where a building collapsed on the seafront, according to an AFP correspondent.
Lebanese news agency Ani also reported strikes on the areas of Aley, east of Beirut, and Bint Jbeil, in the south.
– Ancient cities “in danger” –
After repeated strikes on Baalbeck and Tyre, two cities classified by Unesco on its world heritage list, a UN official said she feared that the war would endanger the country's ancient sites.
“Ancient Phoenician cities, steeped in history, are in great danger of being left in ruins,” the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, wrote on X, adding that “the cultural heritage of Lebanon must not be another victim” of the war.
Israel is continuing its offensive against Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah, in the Gaza Strip, targeted by deadly strikes on Friday.
The war that has been raging since October 7, 2023 in the Palestinian territory has spread to Lebanon, where Israel has been increasing air strikes since September 23, accompanied since September 30 by a ground offensive in the south.
At least 1,829 people have been killed since September 23 across the country, according to an AFP count based on official data.
The World Health Organization said Friday it was “deeply concerned about the increase in attacks on health facilities.”
Israel says it wants to neutralize Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to allow the return of 60,000 inhabitants of the north of its territory, displaced by incessant rocket fire for more than a year.
A few days before the presidential election in the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received American envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk in Jerusalem on Thursday, who then left for Washington.
According to Israeli media citing government sources, the envoys carried a plan providing for a withdrawal of Hezbollah from the border areas of southern Lebanon, as well as the withdrawal of the Israeli army from this region, control of which would return to the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers.
But Israeli officials said soldiers would not withdraw from southern Lebanon until an agreement that would meet Israel's security requirements.
– “The morgue is full” –
In the Gaza Strip, nighttime strikes on houses left nine people dead in Jabalia, in the north, and Nusseirat, in the center, according to the Hamas health ministry.
“The morgue of Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah”, in central Gaza, “is full of bodies, mostly children and women”, after the strikes in Nousseirat, said an official of the ministry, Marwan al-Hams.
“After the strike, the whole neighborhood collapsed. People started to move out” the dead and wounded, Ezzeddine Abou Chawich, a resident of the bombed neighborhood, told AFP. “This happens every day, at noon, in the afternoon, at night. Yesterday there were six strikes,” he added.
The army announced that it had killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Jabalia sector and central Gaza, and had targeted “more than 200 targets” of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon since the day before.
The WHO also announced that vaccination against polio, interrupted in the north due to bombings, would resume on Saturday following a “humanitarian pause”.
The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack carried out by Hamas against Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. , including hostages killed or died in captivity.
Of 251 people kidnapped, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the Israeli army.
The retaliatory offensive by Israel in Gaza left 43,259 dead, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
