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Several dozen people were killed on Sunday by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, ravaged by more than a year of war between Hamas and Israel, which carried out new deadly bombings in Lebanon, particularly on the center of Beirut.
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November 17, 2024 – 8.54pm
(Keystone-ATS) Triggered on October 7, 2023 by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil, the war in Gaza has spread to Lebanon, where the Israeli army is carrying out intense bombings against strongholds of the pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah, which opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas from October 8, 2023.
At least 60 people were killed in Israeli raids in the Palestinian territory on Sunday, according to Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.
The deadliest strike took place overnight from Saturday to Sunday in Beit Lahia, in the north, on a five-story building: at least 34 bodies, including women and children, were removed from the rubble and dozens people are still missing, Mr. Bassal told AFP.
“The chances of rescuing more injured people (trapped under the rubble) are decreasing,” the spokesperson said.
26 dead elsewhere in Gaza
The Israeli army launched a major ground operation in northern Gaza on October 6 to, it said, prevent Hamas fighters from reconstituting their forces. It announced on Sunday the death of two of its soldiers in the sector.
“Terrorist activities continue in the Beit Lahia region,” the army told AFP, adding that “several strikes” had been carried out “against terrorist targets”.
Twenty-six other people, including women and children, died in bombings in the south, in Rafah and Khan Younes, and in the center, in Nousseirat and Al-Bureij, Bassal added.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas commandos infiltrated from the neighboring Gaza Strip carried out an attack of unprecedented scale in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to a count by the AFP based on official data, including hostages killed or died in captivity.
That day, 251 people were kidnapped. In total, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
In response, the Israeli army launched a campaign of destructive aerial bombardments followed by a ground offensive in Gaza which left 43,846 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Violent strikes in Beirut
Alongside its offensive in Gaza, Israel is fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon. After a year of cross-border violence, the Israeli army launched an intense aerial bombardment campaign against the Islamist movement on September 23 and a ground offensive in the south of the country on September 30.
Israel wants to distance the Lebanese movement from the border regions of southern Lebanon and stop its rocket attacks which have displaced some 60,000 inhabitants of northern Israel.
Hezbollah media chief Mohammad Afif was killed in a targeted raid in Beirut on Sunday while he was at the offices of a Syrian party in the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood, a security source said .
When contacted, the Israeli army did not immediately comment on this information. Israel has decimated Hezbollah’s leadership in recent months by killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 27, as well as several military and political leaders.
Another Israeli raid left two dead and 13 injured, including two seriously, on Sunday evening in the shopping district of Mar Elias, in the heart of Beirut, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Schools closed
This raid hit an electronics store, according to a security source.
Firefighters used their water cannons to put out the flames of the fire which ravaged both floors of the store, according to AFP.
Schools in the capital and its surrounding areas will be closed Monday and Tuesday, the Lebanese Ministry of Education announced.
The Lebanese news agency ANI also reported a “violent” Israeli strike targeting the village of Khiam (south), on the outskirts of which Hezbollah claimed three attacks against Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli army, for its part, said it had bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut, located near the international airport, and the south of the country, including the thousand-year-old city of Tyre.
According to the Israeli army, the Lebanese Islamist movement fired around twenty projectiles towards the western Galilee and the Bay of Haifa, in northern Israel. Some were intercepted.
She also claimed to have struck “more than 200” targets in Lebanon over the past 36 hours.
More than 3,480 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 8, 2023, according to the Ministry of Health, the majority since September 23.
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