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Middle East: Israel carries out new strikes against Hezbollah strongholds

Smoke rises over a southern Beirut suburb Wednesday evening after an Israeli strike.

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The Israeli army carried out airstrikes on Thursday on pro-Iranian Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon bordering Israel and in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Towards the capital, an area close to the country’s only international airport was affected.

The nighttime strikes on the suburbs of the Lebanese capital were preceded by a call from the Israeli army for residents to evacuate. They caused “minor damage” in buildings at Beirut international airport, “but not in the terminal,” an airport official who requested anonymity told AFP.

The Minister of Public Works and Transport, Ali Hamié, assured AFP that “planes take off and land” without problem. An AFP photographer saw a hangar adjoining the airport, badly damaged by the strike which occurred after Hezbollah announced on Wednesday that it had targeted a military base near Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s main airport.

2600 dead

The Israeli army is also continuing its strikes against Hezbollah in the south and east of Lebanon where it indicated having targeted dozens of targets and eliminated around “sixty terrorists” from the Shiite movement “in several strikes in Baalbeck (east). ) and north of the Litani River”, located around thirty km from the Israeli border.

On Wednesday evening, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported a toll of 40 dead and 53 injured in Israeli strikes in eastern Lebanon, particularly in Baalbeck.

More than 2,600 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the escalation between Israel and Hezbollah on September 23, the majority civilians, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad told AFP.

Naïm Qassem, the new leader of Hezbollah, supported by Tehran, displayed his determination on Wednesday to continue the fight against Israel, despite the blows inflicted on his movement since the Israeli army reoriented the war against him that it has been waging for over of one year against Palestinian Hamas, also supported by Iran.

Hezbollah weakened

Hezbollah, whose leadership has been largely weakened, ensures that its men repel Israeli incursions and announces daily shots on Israel.

The Lebanese National News Agency (official Ani) reported Thursday “violent fighting since midnight” between fighters of the Shiite movement and Israeli soldiers after an “attempted incursion by the Israeli enemy” into the territory. Lebanese from northern Israel.

On its southern border, Israel continues its war against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip and beset by a humanitarian disaster.

“Wrong approaches”

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the president-elect discussed on Wednesday by telephone the “Iranian threat” and “agreed to cooperate for Israel’s security” , according to Mr. Netanyahu’s office.

Tehran, which has maintained tense relations with the United States for decades, said Thursday that it hoped that the election of Donald Trump to the White House would allow Washington to “revisit the erroneous approaches of the past.”

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