HASLi Karaké, targeted by the Israeli raid near Beirut, is Hezbollah’s number three military leader, a source added to AFP, without being able to specify his fate. The number two, Ibrahim Aqil, was killed in an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs on Friday and the number one, Fouad Chokr, in a similar raid on this Hezbollah stronghold on July 30. Earlier in the day, Israeli strikes killed nearly 300 people, injured hundreds and forced thousands of families to flee.
This escalation between the Israeli army and the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah, supported by Iran, raises fears of an uncontrollable spiral, worrying the international community.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced “a plan to destroy” his country, where hospitals have been put on alert in the south and east in the face of an influx of wounded while schools have closed for two days across the country.
The human toll continued to rise throughout the day. Israeli strikes concentrated in the south left 274 dead, including 21 children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad announced in a new count late in the afternoon.
Thousands of families displaced
“It’s a catastrophe, a massacre,” Jamal Badrane, a doctor at the Secours Populaire hospital in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, told AFP. “The strikes haven’t stopped, they bombed us while we were removing the wounded,” he said.
Thousands of families have been displaced from the area in panic, Abiad said. Concern has also spread to the capital, Beirut, where residents and offices – including some in the Information Ministry – have received Israeli warning messages on their phones.
The Israeli army announced that it had struck “around 800 targets” of Hezbollah in Lebanon during the day, which has been firing rockets into Israeli territory for almost a year in support of the Palestinian Hamas, which is at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was shifting the “balance of power” in the north of the country, where it is determined to allow the return of tens of thousands of residents who fled the border area.
“Israel’s policy is not to wait for threats but to anticipate them,” he said at a security meeting in Tel Aviv, according to his office.
The army announced it was expanding the scope of its bombings and carrying out new “large-scale” strikes on the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon. It asked its residents to move away from the Islamist movement’s weapons depots, repeating an appeal made to the population in the south.
Hezbollah said on Monday that it had launched dozens of rockets in response into northern Israel, specifying that it had targeted “the main warehouses” of the army for the northern region of Israel, and a military barracks. It had announced earlier that it had struck three targets in the area.
“Avoiding a wider war”
The United States, Israel’s main ally, has “urged” its citizens to leave Lebanon. “We will do everything we can to prevent a wider war from breaking out,” President Joe Biden said.
China on Monday called on its citizens to leave Israel “as soon as possible” while the Kremlin expressed deep concern.
Egypt has said it fears a “total war” in the region, warning that the escalation between Israel and Hezbollah could undermine efforts for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern that Lebanon was becoming “another Gaza.”
In nearly a year, violence between Israel and Hezbollah has left hundreds dead in Lebanon, mainly fighters, and dozens dead in Israel and the occupied Golan.
