Israel unleashes more airstrikes across Lebanon
26/9/2024 6:11
Israel's military
chief told troops on Wednesday that its heavy airstrikes on
Lebanon were preparing the way for a possible ground operation
by Israeli forces against Hezbollah militants while a flurry of
diplomacy sought to prevent all-out war.
The U.S. and France were trying to hammer out an interim
accord to halt hostilities with a view to opening broader talks
that would include efforts to achieve a long-sought ceasefire in
Gaza, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides told Reuters on
the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
U.S. President Joe Biden told ABC television that all-out
war was possible, but added: "We're still in play to have a
settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region."
Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday and
Lebanon's health minister reported at least 51 people were
killed and at least 223 wounded in Wednesday's strikes.
Israel shot down a missile that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah
movement said it had aimed at the headquarters of the Mossad
intelligence agency near Israel's biggest city, Tel Aviv.
Israeli officials said a heavy missile had headed towards
civilian areas in Tel Aviv, not the Mossad HQ, before being shot
down.
"You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,"
General Herzi Halevi told Israeli troops on the border with
Lebanon, according to a military statement.
"This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry
and to continue degrading Hezbollah."
World leaders expressed concern that the conflict - running
in parallel to Israel's war in Gaza against Hamas, a Palestinian
militant movement backed by Iran - was escalating rapidly as the
death toll in Lebanon rose and thousands fled their homes.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington and
its allies were working tirelessly to avoid a full-blown war
between Israel and Hezbollah, which has said it will not back
down until the Gaza war ends.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he was dispatching his
foreign minister to Lebanon this week as part of efforts to stop
war breaking out.
"There cannot be, must not be war in Lebanon," he said in a
speech on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the 193-member
United Nations.
CEASEFIRE PROPOSALS
Three Israeli sources said no significant progress had been
made in the French-U.S. effort as yet.
"Risk of escalation in the region is acute ... The best
answer is diplomacy, and our coordinated efforts are vital to
preventing further escalation," Blinken said at a meeting with
Gulf Arab state officials and ministers in New York.
Israeli airstrikes this week have targeted Hezbollah leaders
and hit hundreds of sites deep inside Lebanon, where hundreds of
thousands have fled the border region, while the group has fired
barrages of rockets into Israel.
On Wednesday, Israel said its warplanes were hitting south
Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold further
north, and that it was calling up two more reserve brigades for
operations on Israel's northern border.
In a video message that made no comment on diplomatic
efforts to secure a ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said Hezbollah was being hit harder than it could ever
have imagined.
Israel has made a priority of securing its northern border
and allowing the return there of some 70,000 residents displaced
by near-daily exchanges of fire since war broke out in October
between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on Israel's southern border
Lebanese hospitals have filled with the wounded since
Monday, when Israeli bombing killed more than 550 people in
Lebanon's deadliest day since its civil war ended in 1990.
Hezbollah said it had aimed the missile at Mossad
headquarters "in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in
the Gaza Strip ... and in defence of Lebanon and its people".
It blamed the Mossad for assassinations of its leaders.
It also accuses the intelligence agency of booby-trapping
Hezbollah members' pagers and radios that exploded last week,
killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Israel has neither
confirmed nor denied involvement in those attacks.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a pro-Iranian militant
group, said it targeted Israel's southernmost city of Eilat with
drones on Wednesday. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
ISRAEL EXPANDS STRIKES IN LEBANON
Israel has expanded the zones in Lebanon that it had been
striking since Tuesday night, with attacks for the first time on
the beach resort of Jiyyeh, just south of Beirut.
It also attacked Bint Jbeil, Tebnin and Ain Qana in the
south, the village of Joun in the southerly Chouf district near
Sidon, and Maaysrah in the northern Keserwan district.
As many as half a million people may have been displaced in
Lebanon, its foreign minister said. In Beirut, thousands of
people displaced from southern Lebanon were sheltering in
schools and other buildings.
More than 60 people were evacuated from the Christian town
of Alma Chaab, along the border, following strikes overnight.
"At least two houses were completely destroyed but
thankfully they were empty and we had no deaths," said Milad
Eid, a resident.
|