Beirut reports 1.2 million displaced // 374 thousand flee this week // Hezbollah loses contact with a high command
Ap, Afp and Reuters
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, October 6, 2024, p. 16
Tel Aviv., Israel yesterday expanded its bombing against Lebanon and reached the southern suburbs of Beirut with 12 airstrikes, in addition to hitting for the first time a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country, in an attack against Hezbollah and Hamas fighters in addition to continuing its offensive in the center and north of the Gaza Strip.
Last night, at press time, the Israeli army unleashed a multi-pronged offensive against the southern suburbs of Beirut, causing “massive explosions, with flames reaching the sky and sound reverberating around the Lebanese capital, while in Gaza they bombed the mosque Shahada al Aqsa in Deir al Balah, leaving at least 21 Palestinians dead and dozens injured because, according to the army, Hamas used the building as a command and control complexAl Jazeera reported.
Earlier, tens of thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees, were still fleeing the conflict in the region.
The attack on the Beddawi refugee camp, near the northern city of Tripoli, killed a leader of Hamas’s military wing, his wife and young daughters, the insurgent group said in a statement. Hamas later reported that another member of its military wing was killed in an Israeli attack in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Plumes of smoke dominated the horizon of the suburban towns south of Beirut, where Hezbollah has a strong presence.
The Israeli army charged that some 90 projectiles had been fired from Lebanon into its territory. Most of them were intercepted, but some fell in the Arab city of Deir al Asad, in the north of the country, where three people suffered minor injuries. At least six civilians were killed in more than a dozen Israeli attacks overnight and early yesterday, according to the National News Agency, Lebanon’s state news agency.
AP journalists documented the passage on foot of thousands of displaced people through the Masnaa Border Crossing, between Syria and Lebanon, even as Israeli airstrikes on Thursday left huge craters on the road leading to the site.
The Lebanese disaster management service noted that more than 2,000 people have died in Lebanon since October 2023, of which more than 1,000 have died since September 23.
The Lebanese government estimated around 1.2 million displaced people, including some 374,000 who fled to Syria in recent days, according to local authorities.
The Israeli defense forces stated that their special commandos were carrying out selective ground attacks against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon and that they also dismantled tunnel shafts used by the armed group to approach the Israeli border.
For its part, Hezbollah claimed that it launched rockets at the Israeli Ramat David air base near the city of Haifa, in northern Israel, located about 45 kilometers from the border with Lebanon.
Retaliation against Iran
Tel Aviv announced that it is on high alert ahead of the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack, which sparked the war in Gaza, and stated that it is still in response preparation to the aggression launched on Tuesday by Iran against its territory.
A Hezbollah source acknowledged that since last Friday they have had no communication with Hashem Safieddine, designated as successor to the dejected commander and leader of the armed group, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, after the Israeli army claimed that it destroyed a bunker of the pro-Iranian militia. Under anonymity, he said Safieddine was with Hajj Murtada, the group’s intelligence director, at the time of the attack.
More deaths in Palestine
On the Palestinian front, medical authorities said that Israeli strikes yesterday in northern and central Gaza killed at least nine people. One of the offensives hit a group of civilians in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least five, including two children, the Gaza Health Ministry reported. The other hit a house in the north of the Nuseirat refugee camp and caused at least four deaths, the Awda hospital reported.
Israeli bombers caused the death of two children in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, the Gaza civil protection group of rescuers recorded.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government warned Gazans to evacuate the area around the strategic Netzarim corridor, in the center of the besieged enclave. He also ordered residents in the Nuseirat and Bureij camps to leave for Muwasi, a coastal area that is a humanitarian zone.
Some 41,825 people have died in the Gaza Strip as a result of the military offensive launched by the Israel Defense Forces almost a year ago, in response to the attacks carried out by Hamas militiamen, which left 1,200 dead and some 240 Israeli hostages.