Israel launches strikes on east Lebanon as its evacuation orders cover 25% of the country
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A destroyed building following an Israeli air strike in the village of Douris in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley on Oct 15.
PHOTO: AFP
JERUSALEM - Israel’s military launched several strikes on eastern Lebanon on Oct 15, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut”.
It comes as the UN refugee agency said on Oct 15 that Israel has issued military evacuation orders affecting over a quarter of Lebanon. The figures underscore the heavy price Lebanese are paying as Israel steps up its campaign to defeat Hezbollah and destroy its infrastructure in their one-year conflict.
Multiple Israeli air strikes hit the eastern Bekaa Valley, putting a hospital in Baalbek city out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
“It was a violent night in Baalbek, we have not witnessed a similar one since” the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, 50-year-old resident Nidal al-Solh told AFP.
Israeli strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds as well as other parts of Lebanon, including the northern Christian-majority village of Aito
The United Nations on Oct 15 demanded a “prompt, independent and thorough investigation” into the strike.
Mr Anis Abla, civil defence chief in the southern border town of Marjayoun, said “our rescue missions are becoming more and more difficult, because the strikes are never-ending and target us”.
At least 1,315 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel in September escalated its bombing there, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese Health Ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
The war in Lebanon has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to verified figures last week from the International Organisation for Migration.
The UN refugee agency’s Middle East director Rema Jamous Imseis told a press briefing in Geneva on Oct 15 that new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that over a quarter of the country was now affected.
“People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they’re fleeing with almost nothing.”
UN children’s agency Unicef and the World Food Programme on Oct 15 called for more funding to address increasing needs in Lebanon.
Israel says it wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since 2023 to return home safely.
Mr Netanyahu, visiting a military base in central Israel where four soldiers were killed on Oct 13 by a Hezbollah drone strike, said Israel would continue to attack the movement “without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon – including Beirut”.
Hezbollah’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said on Oct 15 that the group reserved the right to attack anywhere in Israel because its enemy has done the same in Lebanon.
He said more Israelis will be displaced and “hundreds of thousands, even more than two million, will be in danger at any time, at any hour, on any day”.
He said Hezbollah would inflict “pain” on Israel, but he also called for a ceasefire.
“The solution is a ceasefire, we are not speaking from a position of weakness, if the Israelis do not want that, we will continue,” he said in a recorded speech.
Hezbollah claimed several attacks early on Oct 15, including the targeting of Israeli troops in northern Israel with a salvo of rockets. It also said it downed an Israeli Hermes 450 drone overnight, without specifying where. Fighters from Hezbollah also clashed with Israeli troops in a Lebanese border village, and sent rockets towards the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, the group said.
Hezbollah says its strikes are also in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas, which attacked Israel
Israel’s military said on Oct 15 that about 20 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory after sirens sounded in the Haifa Bay and Upper Galilee areas, and that some were intercepted.
Israel has faced new criticism over injuries and damage sustained by Unifil,
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose country is the second-biggest contributor of Unifil peacekeepers, lashed out at the Israeli attacks.
The UN Security Council for the first time on Oct 14 expressed “strong concerns” over peacekeepers being wounded in Lebanon.
Unifil has refused Mr Netanyahu’s request for peacekeepers to “get out of harm’s way”, with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix saying the blue helmets will stay in their positions.
Qatar’s Emir accused Israel on Oct 15 of exploiting “international inaction” over the Middle East crisis to move beyond its “aggression” in Gaza to build more illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and send troops into Lebanon.
“Israel deliberately chose to expand the aggression to implement pre-planned schemes in other locations such as the West Bank and Lebanon because it sees that the scope for that is available,” Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said in his annual speech to open Qatar’s Shura Council. AFP, REUTERS
