2024-09-23 18:51:52
Terrorism reigned on Monday, September 23, in southern Lebanon where the Israeli air force dropped a carpet of bombs, killing at least 356 people, including 24 children, the heaviest cost in a year of violence -violence. Concern has also spread to the capital, Beirut, so far from the conflict between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah and Israel, with residents receiving Israeli warnings on their mobile phones and land lines.
The crowd continued to rise throughout the day. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health announced that 356 people, including 24 children, had been killed and more than 1,240 injured in Israeli attacks in southern and eastern Lebanon, the highest death toll in a year. Among the dead are “42 women”, also explained the ministry, which has provided a preliminary estimate of 270 dead and more than 1,000 injured.
Since Monday morning, the Israeli army has attacked “more than 1,100 targets” of Hezbollah in Lebanon, it said in a statement, specifying that these are “houses, vehicles and infrastructure where rockets, missiles, (rocket) launch pads and stationary drones. danger” to Israel. “We are specifically targeting the combat infrastructure that Hezbollah has been building for twenty years,” added military chief of staff General Herzi Halevi, adding that the army is “preparing for the next stages” of the operation, according to to a military press release.
The army announced an expansion of its bombing and new “large-scale” attacks on the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah’s stronghold in eastern Lebanon. He asked his residents to leave the weapons stores of the Islamist group, repeating an appeal made to southern residents.
Monday’s attacks targeted the south, especially outside the coastal city of Tyre, and eastern Lebanon, spewing thick mushroom clouds of smoke, according to AFP reporters and witnesses. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recommended that Lebanese citizens “leave dangerous areas”. “Please leave the danger now. Once our work is finished, you will be able to return home safely,” he said in English in a video posted on social media.
Thousands of families were displaced in the south
The relentless attack forced thousands of southerners, who had remained at home until then despite the daily bombardment, to flee in terror. Hundreds of cars carrying families are stuck on the roads in Saida, a large southern city, according to AFP photographers.
Hundreds of vehicles were transporting families to Saida, the largest city in the south.
The Prime Minister of Lebanon, Najib Mikati, denounced his country’s “destruction plan”, where hospitals are shaken in the south and east in the face of the influx of casualties while schools are closed for two days in many areas.
Hezbollah official targeted in Beirut
In Beirut, an Israeli attack targeted Hezbollah frontman Ali Karaké on Monday. Lebanon’s Islamist movement said the leader was fine and had gone to safety. It was the second attack in the southern countryside, a Hezbollah stronghold, since Friday, when an Israeli strike killed the leader of the Lebanese Islamist group. The Israeli army, for its part, indicated that it had carried out “a strike” in Beirut, without immediately giving further details.
Hezbollah has exchanged daily crossfire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the October 7 Palestinian Islamist attack on Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, but violence has increased significantly in recent days. recent.
The UN said it was “extremely concerned” this Monday by the explosion of violence in Lebanon, judging that the spiral “must stop”, while the President of the United States Joe Biden said “we are working towards a reduction which will allow people to return to their homes safely.
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