The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, acknowledged, for the first time, on Sunday November 10, having given his approval to the pager attack against Hezbollah in September, announced his spokesperson, Omer Dostri, at the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Speaking during the council of ministers, Mr. Netanyahu claimed to have authorized this operation which had not previously been claimed.
Booby-trapped transmission devices – pagers, walkie-talkies – used by members of Hezbollah were exploded on September 17 and 18 in the southern suburbs of Beirut as well as in the south and east of Lebanon, strongholds of the Islamist movement. . These explosions left 39 dead and nearly 3,000 injured, according to the Lebanese authorities.
If this spectacular operation bore the mark of Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Israel had never openly recognized it.
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Forty-one dead on Sunday in Lebanon
On Sunday, the Israeli army continued its strikes in Lebanon, killing at least forty-one people. In the center-west of the country, the Israeli Air Force targeted the town of Aalmat, in the region of Jbeil (Byblos), “causing twenty-three deaths, including seven children, and six injured”specified the Ministry of Health, adding that the toll was likely to increase, “human remains” having been removed from the rubble. The strike targeted a house, shortly after the arrival of a member of Hezbollah who had come to visit displaced people, a security source told AFP, adding that he had succumbed to his wounds at the hospital.
At least twelve people were killed in the east, during strikes on the Baalbek region, and three others in the village of Al-Qasr, in the Hermel region, the Lebanese health ministry announced. The Baalbek region, where Hezbollah is very present, has been regularly shelled by Israel for several days, pushing thousands of residents to flee.
In the south of the country, three rescue workers, affiliated with Hezbollah, were killed in a bombing against their center in Adloun, according to the ministry.
At least nine people, including a Hezbollah commander in Syria, were killed Sunday in an Israeli strike on an apartment belonging to members of the Lebanese movement south of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. man (OSDH).
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In support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah confronted Israel from October 8, 2023, firing daily into Israeli territory from southern Lebanon.
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These hostilities degenerated into open war on September 23, with a campaign of intense Israeli strikes, mainly against the strongholds of the Lebanese movement, to which was added, since September 30, a ground offensive. More than 2,700 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, the majority civilians, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Twenty-five dead in Jabaliya, Gaza
The conflict also continues in the Gaza Strip where an Israeli bombardment hit a house at dawn, in Jabaliya, in the north of the enclave, one of the most densely populated areas of the Palestinian territory. According to Palestinian civil defense, thirteen children were killed in this bombing, which left at least twenty-five dead in total.
The building was razed, noted an AFP correspondent on site. The bombing occurred around 6 a.m. (5 a.m., in Paris) “at a time when the residents here wake up and have breakfast”testified one of the rare family members who survived. “There was a big explosion, to the point that, when we arrived, all the bodies were torn to pieces”he added.
For its part, the Israeli army assured that it had targeted a site in an area of Jabaliya “where terrorists were operating”representative “a threat” for his troops. “Before the strike, numerous measures were taken to limit the risk of injuring civilians”a military spokesperson told AFP. According to the family member interviewed by AFP, the house housed people who were protecting themselves from the bombings.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the « massacre » of Jabaliya, affirming that the house “was filled with more than fifty innocent civilians”. The majority were children and women, including people “who had been forcibly displaced by the occupation of the Jabaliya refugee camp”according to the Palestinian movement.
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Another Israeli strike hit a house in Gaza City, also in the north, killing five people, according to civil defense.
Since October 6, Israeli troops have been carrying out an air and ground offensive against the north of the Gaza Strip, particularly in Jabaliya, where Hamas is seeking, according to them, to regroup its forces.
Since the start of the war, Israel has besieged the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, most of whom have been displaced and are at risk of starvation, according to the UN.
“A large proportion of the more than two million people suffer from acute malnutrition and live in unimaginable conditions”lamented German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Sunday.
