Hezbollah rockets cause damage near Tel Aviv

25/11/2024 6:10

        Lebanon's Hezbollah
        movement fired heavy rocket barrages at Israel on Sunday, with
        Israeli media reporting that a building had been hit near Tel
        Aviv, after a powerful Israeli airstrike killed at least 29
        people in Beirut the day before.
        
        Israel also struck Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern
        suburbs, where intensified bombardment over the last two weeks
        has coincided with signs of progress in U.S.-led ceasefire
        talks.
        
        Hezbollah, which has previously vowed to respond to attacks
        on Beirut by targeting Tel Aviv, said it had launched precision
        missiles at two military sites in Tel Aviv and nearby.
        
        Police said there were multiple impact sites in the area of
        Petah Tikvah, on the eastern side of Tel Aviv, and that several
        people had minor injuries. Television footage showed an
        apartment damaged by rocket fire in Petah Tikvah, and video from
        the medical service MDA showed cars burning.
        
        The Israeli military (IDF) said Hezbollah had fired 170
        rockets at Israel on Sunday, of which many were intercepted. At
        least four people had been injured by shrapnel.
        
        Video obtained by Reuters showed a projectile exploding as
        it smashed into the roof of a building in the northern Israeli
        city of Nahariya.
        
        The military warned on social media that it planned to
        target Hezbollah facilities in southern Beirut before strikes
        which security sources in Lebanon said demolished two apartment
        blocks. Afterwards, the IDF said it had hit command centres
        "deliberately embedded between civilian buildings".
        
        On Saturday, it had carried out one of its deadliest and
        most powerful strikes on the centre of Beirut.
        
        Lebanon's health ministry on Sunday raised the death toll
        from 20 to 29. It said 84 people had been killed in all on
        Saturday, taking the death toll to 3,754 since October 2023.
        
        The IDF did not comment on Saturday's strike in the capital
        or say what it had attacked.
        
        Israel went on the offensive against the Iran-backed
        Hezbollah in September, pounding the south, the Bekaa Valley and
        Beirut's southern suburbs with airstrikes after nearly a year of
        hostilities ignited by the Gaza war.
        
        
        
        US CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL AWAITS ISRAEL'S RESPONSE
        
        The Israeli offensive has uprooted more than 1 million
        people in Lebanon.
        
        Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of
        thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket
        attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at
        the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
        
        U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein highlighted progress in
        negotiations during a visit to Beirut last week, before
        travelling to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
        Defence Minister Israel Katz, and then returning to Washington.
        
        European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday
        said a U.S. ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from
        Israel.
        
        "We must pressure the Israeli government and maintain the
        pressure on Hezbollah to accept the U.S. proposal for a
        ceasefire," he said in Beirut after meeting Lebanese officials.
        
        Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had convened a
        meeting of his security cabinet for 5 p.m. (1500 GMT).
        
        Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on U.N.
        Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006
        Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters
        back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the
        Lebanese army to deploy in the buffer zone.
        
        The Lebanese army said on Sunday at least one soldier had
        been killed and 18 more injured in an Israeli strike that caused
        severe damage at an army centre in Al-Amiriya near the southern
        city of Tyre.
        
        The Israeli military said it regretted and was investigating
        the incident, and that it was fighting against Hezbollah, not
        the Lebanese Army.
        
        Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the
        attack "represents a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts
        to reach a ceasefire, strengthen the army's presence in the
        south, and implement ... 1701".
        
        Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200 million euros
        ($208 million) to support the Lebanese army.
        ($1 = 0.9600 euros)