Israel returned to bombing the southern suburbs of Beirut this Monday 21st and announced that it had hit around 300 military targets. Hezbollah in 24 hours in Lebanon, in an unrelenting war that the United States wants to end “as quickly as possible”.
The Israeli army said Hezbollah fired around 170 projectiles from Lebanon toward Israelwhile pro-Iranian Lebanese militia said it attacked an Israeli intelligence base near Tel Aviv.
The official Lebanese news agency (ANI) reported thirteen bombings in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday night, after the army asked residents of several districts to evacuate.
Rescuers linked to Hezbollah informed the AFP that at least three people died in the Ouzai neighborhood and that they were searching for survivors. “They left no room for people to escape. The attack occurred shortly after the warning,” declared one of them.
Another four people, including a child, were killed in another bombing near Lebanon’s largest public hospital, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said.
Blinken’s new spin
On a visit to Beirut, United States envoy Amos Hochstein stated that Washington is working to put an end “as quickly as possible” to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hochstein assured that UN resolution 1701, which ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, should be the basis for a new ceasefire, but that neither party “did anything to implement it”.
Under resolution 1701, only the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping force, Unifil, can move in areas south of the Litani River, close to the Israeli border.
Despite this resolution, Hezbollah remains present in southern Lebanon, where Israel — in parallel with its war against the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza Strip — launched a ground offensive on September 30, a week after beginning mass bombings against the Lebanese group.
In this context of tension, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will begin a new trip to the Middle East on Tuesday, to try to restart negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza and contain a regional escalation, after Israel promised to respond to an Iranian missile attack on its territory on October 1.
“Considerable damage”
The Israeli army said it had struck this Monday around 30 targets related to the financial organization Al Qard Al Hasan, in turn linked to Hezbollah, which Israel accuses of financing the group’s weapons.
Among those targets was a bunker that contained “tens of millions of dollars” in cash and gold, he added.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned this Monday the “considerable damage to civilian installations” resulting from these bombings against Al Qard Al Hasan.
This institution is sanctioned by the United States, which accuses Hezbollah of using it as a front for the group’s financial activities and to access the international financial system.
The Israeli army is also continuing its ground operations in southern Lebanon, with the aim of allowing around 60,000 Israelis displaced by the Shiite group’s projectile fire to return to their homes.
At least 1,489 people have died in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP survey based on official data. The UN counted around 700,000 displaced people in mid-October.
In Syria, the government said two civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on an embassy district in the capital, Damascus.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), a ceremony was taking place nearby in memory of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, murdered by Israeli soldiers in Gaza on October 16.
Two Hamas sources indicated that the Palestinian Islamist movement will be temporarily led by a committee based in Qatar.
“We will die of hunger”
The clashes on both sides of the Lebanese border began after the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to a survey based on official Israeli data, which includes the hostages who died during captivity in Gaza.
Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 97 remain captives in Gaza, including 34 who were declared dead by the army.
The attack triggered the war in Gaza, where the Israeli offensive has already killed 42,603 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Ministry of Health in the territory controlled by Hamas, considered reliable by the UN.
On October 6, Israel launched a major air and ground campaign in northern Palestinian territory with the aim, according to its army, of preventing Hamas fighters from reorganizing.
According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, at least 400,000 people are trapped in the north of the Palestinian territory.
“If we don’t die from the shelling and shooting, we will die from hunger,” declared Umm Firas Shamiyah, a 42-year-old displaced resident, demanding that humanitarian aid be sent to the north.
