BEIRUT: A Lebanese couple and their son were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a house in the southern border village of Hula, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel have traded deadly cross-border fire on a near-daily basis since war broke out in October between Israel and Gaza’s rulers Hamas, a Hezbollah ally.
“The three civilians, Hassan Hussein, his wife, Ruwaida Mustafa, and their 25-year-old son, Ali Hussein, were killed in the enemy raid on a three-story house in Hula,” NNA said.
“Search operations and the removal of rubble are continuing,” it added.
Shortly before the strike, Hezbollah said it had targeted the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona in response to Israeli attacks on “civilian homes,” particularly Bint Jbeil.
The Lebanese Shiite movement also said it carried out several attacks on Israeli military positions on the border on Tuesday.
NNA had reported on Monday evening that Israeli air raids targeted Bint Jbeil, but no casualties were reported.
Also on Monday, a missile fired from Lebanon killed a foreign worker in Israel, according to the army, and three Hezbollah-affiliated paramedics were killed in an Israeli raid on southern Lebanon, according to Hezbollah.
It came as US envoy Amos Hochstein said a diplomatic solution was key to ending nearly five months of intensifying hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
“A diplomatic solution is the only way to end the current hostilities” and achieve “a lasting fair security arrangement between Lebanon and Israel,” he said, adding “a temporary ceasefire is not enough.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said there will be no let-up in Israeli action against Hezbollah even if a Gaza ceasefire is secured.
The fighting has killed at least 302 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 51 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed.
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Three civilians killed in Israel strike on Lebanon
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Three civilians killed in Israel strike on Lebanon
- Shortly before the strike, Hezbollah said it had targeted the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona in response to Israeli attacks on ‘civilian homes’
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said there will be no let-up in Israeli action against Hezbollah even if a Gaza ceasefire is secured
Libya’s security authorities free more than 200 migrants from ‘secret prison’, two security sources say
BENGHAZI: Libya’s security authorities have freed more than 200 migrants from what they described as a secret prison in the town of Kufra in the southeast of the country after they were held captive in inhuman conditions, two security sources from the city told Reuters on Sunday.
The security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the security authorities had found an underground prison, nearly three meters deep, which the sources said was run by a Libyan human trafficker.
One of the sources said this person had not yet been detained.
“Some of the freed migrants were held captive up to two years in the underground cells,” this source said.
The other source said what the operation had found was “one of the most serious crimes against humanity that has been uncovered in the region.”
“The operation resulted in a raid on a secret prison within the city, where several inhumane underground detention cells were uncovered,” one of the sources added.
The freed migrants are from sub-Saharan Africa, mainly from Somalia and Eritrea, including women and children, the sources said. Kufra lies in eastern Libya, about 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the capital Tripoli.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via dangerous routes across the desert and over the Mediterranean since the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
The oil-based Libyan economy is also a draw for impoverished migrants seeking work, but security throughout the sprawling country is poor, leaving migrants vulnerable to abuses.
At least 21 bodies of migrants were found in a mass grave in eastern Libya last week, with up to 10 survivors in the group bearing signs of having been tortured before they were freed from captivity, two security sources told Reuters.
Libya’s attorney general said in a statement on Friday the authorities in the east of the country had referred a defendant to the court for trial in connection with the mass grave on charges of “committing serious violations against migrants.”
In February last year, 39 bodies of migrants were recovered from about 55 mass graves in Kufra. The town houses tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees who fled the conflict that erupted in Sudan in 2023.
The security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the security authorities had found an underground prison, nearly three meters deep, which the sources said was run by a Libyan human trafficker.
One of the sources said this person had not yet been detained.
“Some of the freed migrants were held captive up to two years in the underground cells,” this source said.
The other source said what the operation had found was “one of the most serious crimes against humanity that has been uncovered in the region.”
“The operation resulted in a raid on a secret prison within the city, where several inhumane underground detention cells were uncovered,” one of the sources added.
The freed migrants are from sub-Saharan Africa, mainly from Somalia and Eritrea, including women and children, the sources said. Kufra lies in eastern Libya, about 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the capital Tripoli.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via dangerous routes across the desert and over the Mediterranean since the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
The oil-based Libyan economy is also a draw for impoverished migrants seeking work, but security throughout the sprawling country is poor, leaving migrants vulnerable to abuses.
At least 21 bodies of migrants were found in a mass grave in eastern Libya last week, with up to 10 survivors in the group bearing signs of having been tortured before they were freed from captivity, two security sources told Reuters.
Libya’s attorney general said in a statement on Friday the authorities in the east of the country had referred a defendant to the court for trial in connection with the mass grave on charges of “committing serious violations against migrants.”
In February last year, 39 bodies of migrants were recovered from about 55 mass graves in Kufra. The town houses tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees who fled the conflict that erupted in Sudan in 2023.
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