Lebanon state media says civilians injured in Israeli strike

A Lebanese army soldier checks the wreckage of a vehicle after an Israeli air strike targeted the area near the village of Burj Al-Muluk, some 18km (11 miles) from the town of Nabatiyeh on July 20, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
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Updated 20 July 2024
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Lebanon state media says civilians injured in Israeli strike

  • Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas

BEIRUT: An Israeli air strike in Lebanon about 30 kilometers from the border injured civilians on Saturday, Lebanese state media said, after Hezbollah and its Palestinian ally Hamas fired rockets and explosive-laden drones at Israeli positions.
Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli enemy launched a raid on the town of Adloun” in south Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency said, adding that “a number of civilians have been injured” and traffic on the highway interrupted in both directions.
Videos circulating online showed several big explosions in the coastal town.
“Shrapnel from the explosions flew to surrounding villages,” the NNA said.
Earlier Saturday, NNA said Syrian nationals, including children, had been injured after an “enemy drone targeted an empty four-wheel drive” near their tent, close to the border.
Doctor Mouenes Kalakesh, who heads the Marjayoun government hospital, said a woman and her three children, two of them minors, had been admitted for shrapnel injuries after the strike outside Burj Al-Muluk.
Among them was an 11-year-old boy in critical condition after he sustained shrapnel injuries and a head wound, Kalakesh told AFP.
Hezbollah said it launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” on Dafna, an area in Israel’s north that the group said it was targeting for the first time, “in response to the attack on civilians.”
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said they also fired a rocket salvo from south Lebanon toward an Israeli military position in the Upper Galilee “in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
Later on Saturday, the Iran-backed Hezbollah said it also had launched “explosive-laden drones” targeting “artillery and missile positions” and Israeli troops at a site in the Golan Heights as well as Iron Dome platforms.
Before the drone attack, the Israeli army said a total of 45 “projectiles” had been fired from Lebanon Saturday afternoon, toward the occupied Golan Heights and the Galilee, reporting no casualties.
The army said it struck “the launcher in southern Lebanon from which the projectiles were launched toward the Golan Heights,” also targeting “an additional Hezbollah launcher.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned that his Iran-backed group would hit new targets in Israel if more civilians were killed in Israeli strikes.
Israeli strikes on Thursday killed at least five people in Lebanon, including the commander of a Hamas-allied group, a security source and militant groups said.
The violence since October has killed at least 515 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.
Most of the dead have been fighters, but they have included at least 104 civilians.
On the Israeli side, 18 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.


Lebanese president worried Israel may not fully withdraw by Tuesday deadline

Updated 17 February 2025
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Lebanese president worried Israel may not fully withdraw by Tuesday deadline

  • Joseph Aoun: ‘We are afraid that a complete withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow’
  • Aoun urges sponsors of ceasefire deal to help pressure Israel to withdraw troops by Tuesday deadline

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday voiced concern that Israeli troops may not fully withdraw by a truce deadline the following day, saying the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons was a matter for the Lebanese.

“We are afraid that a complete withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow,” Aoun said according to a statement from the presidency, adding that “the important thing is to achieve the Israeli withdrawal, and Hezbollah’s weapons come as part of solutions the Lebanese agree on.”

Aoun also urged sponsors of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah to help pressure Israel to withdraw troops by a deadline the following day.

“We are continuing contacts on several levels to push Israel to respect the agreement and to withdraw on the scheduled date, and return the prisoners,” Aoun said, according to a presidency statement.

“The sponsors of the deal should bear their responsibility to assist us,” he added.

A fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group has been in effect since November 27 after more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war during which Israel launched ground operations.

Under the deal, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.

Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River – about 30 kilometers from the border – and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.

A committee involving the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel and UN peacekeepers is tasked with ensuring any ceasefire violations are identified and dealt with.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Sunday said it was the government’s responsibility to ensure the Israeli army fully withdraws by Tuesday’s deadline.

Last week, Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, said Washington had told him that while Israel would withdraw on February 18, “it will remain in five locations.”

Lebanon has rejected the demand.

On Sunday, Israel said it carried out strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah military sites, as official media reported three raids in the country’s east.

The official National News Agency also said Israeli gunfire killed a woman in the border town of Hula on Sunday as people tried to go home.

On Saturday, Israel said it targeted a senior militant from Hezbollah’s aerial unit, as Lebanese official media reported two dead in an Israeli strike in the south.

Karim Bitar, lecturer in Middle East studies at Sciences-Po university in Paris, said “it appears that there is a tacit if not an explicit US agreement to extend the withdrawal period.”

“The most likely scenario is that Israel would maintain control over four or five hills that basically oversee most of south Lebanon’s villages,” he said.

Ramzi Kaiss from Human Rights Watch said Monday that “Israel’s deliberate demolition of civilian homes and infrastructure” was making it “impossible for many residents to return.”


UN appeals for $6 billion for Sudan crisis aid in 2025

Updated 17 February 2025
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UN appeals for $6 billion for Sudan crisis aid in 2025

  • The aim is to provide assistance to nearly 26 million people this year, UN bodies say
  • Civil war has displaced 12 million people, of whom around 3.5 million have fled the country

GENEVA: The UN appealed Monday for $6 billion to provide desperately-needed aid to people in war-ravaged Sudan and millions of refugees fleeing “appalling” conditions.
The aim is to provide assistance to nearly 26 million people this year, the United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA and refugee agency UNHCR said in a joint appeal.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The UN agencies said the civil war has displaced 12 million people, of whom around 3.5 million have fled the country.
They stressed that at the same time, nearly two-thirds of Sudan’s population needs emergency aid, as swathes of the country face famine conditions.
“Sudan is a humanitarian emergency of shocking proportions,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement.
“Famine is taking hold. An epidemic of sexual violence rages. Children are being killed and injured. The suffering is appalling.”
Famine conditions have already been reported in at least five locations in Sudan, including in displacement camps in Darfur and in the western Nuba Mountains, the UN statement said.
And “catastrophic hunger is expected to worsen by May when the lean season begins,” it warned.
The UN said it was appealing for $4.2 billion to reach nearly 21 million people inside Sudan with life-saving aid and protection.
Fletcher said the UN plan would provide “a lifeline to millions.”
The United Nations said it would also need $1.8 billion to support 4.8 million people – both Sudanese refugees and their host communities – in the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda.
“Today, one-third of Sudan’s entire population is displaced,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in the statement, highlighting that “the consequences of this horrific and senseless conflict spread far beyond Sudan’s borders.”
The UN cautioned that without immediate funding, two-thirds of refugee children would be denied access to primary education, “threatening an entire generation.”
And “up to 4.8 million refugees and host community members will continue to face severe food insecurity, with at least 1.8 million going without food assistance,” it said, warning that “already strained health systems may collapse.”
Last year, humanitarian organizations received $1.8 billion for Sudan – 66 percent of the $2.7 billion requested – and managed to reach more than 15.6 million people across the country.
They also provided life-saving food assistance to over a million people in neighboring countries, as well as medical support to half a million and protection services to over 800,000, the statement said.


Israel kills Hamas official in southern Lebanon

Civil defence workers and Lebanese soldiers gather next to remains of burned car that was hit by an Israeli drone strike.
Updated 8 min 42 sec ago
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Israel kills Hamas official in southern Lebanon

  • Israeli military said Muhammad Shaheen was the head of the operations department of Hamas in Lebanon
  • A Hamas official confirmed Shaheen’s killing to Reuters

BEIRUT: Israel killed on Monday a Hamas leader in southern Lebanon’s Sidon area, the Israeli military and a Hamas official said.
The military said Muhammad Shaheen was the head of the operations department of Hamas in Lebanon and that he had recently been involved in promoting “terrorist plots” with Iranian direction and funding from Lebanese territory against Israeli citizens.
A Hamas official confirmed Shaheen’s killing to Reuters.
An Israeli strike on a car in Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon targeted an official in the Palestinian militant group, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters earlier.
Lebanon’s state news agency said rescuers had removed one body from the car but did not identify the victim.
The Israeli military has been carrying out strikes against members of Hamas, allied Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and other factions in Lebanon, in parallel with the war in Gaza.
Those armed groups have launched rockets, drones and artillery attacks across the border into northern Israel.
Under a truce brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah since early October.
That deadline was later extended to February 18, but Israel’s military requested that it keep troops in five posts in southern Lebanon, sources told Reuters last week.


Cairo building collapse kills 10: state media

Updated 17 February 2025
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Cairo building collapse kills 10: state media

  • Eyewitnesses told the state-owned outlet that “a gas cylinder explosion” caused the collapse

CAIRO: A building collapse in the Egyptian capital killed 10 people and injured eight more on Monday, with several others believed to be missing under the rubble, state media reported.
Ambulances were dispatched to the scene in the working class neighborhood of Kerdasa, where civil defense teams searched for people thought to be missing under the rubble, according to the Al-Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper.
Eyewitnesses told the state-owned outlet that “a gas cylinder explosion” caused the collapse, and a police investigation was under way.
Building regulations are unevenly enforced in the sprawling metropolis of Cairo, home to over 26 million people.
The city has seen a number of deadly building collapses in recent years, both due to the dilapidated state of some and, at times, failure to comply with building regulations.


500 days of the Israel-Hamas war, by the numbers

Updated 17 February 2025
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500 days of the Israel-Hamas war, by the numbers

  • The current phase of the truce is set to expire in early March and it is unclear if the sides will extend it

Monday is the 500th day of the war triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel.
A tenuous ceasefire in the Gaza Strip has held for nearly a month. But the current phase of the truce is set to expire in early March and it is unclear if the sides will extend it, begin negotiations for a more lasting ceasefire or resume fighting.
Here are some numbers that show the scale of death and devastation. Sources include the Israeli government, the Gaza Health Ministry and UN agencies.
People killed in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023: Around 1,200
Hostages taken into Gaza: 251
Hostages remaining in Gaza: 73, including 3 taken before Oct. 7, 2023
Hostages in Gaza believed to be dead: 36, including one from before Oct. 7, 2023
Palestinians killed in Gaza: Over 48,200 (This figure from the Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but the ministry says more than half of the dead were women and children)
Palestinians wounded in Gaza: Over 111,600
Israeli soldiers killed since Oct. 7, 2023: 846
Rockets fired at Israel from Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023: Over 10,000
Percentage of Gaza’s population displaced: Around 90 percent
Palestinians who have crossed into northern Gaza since the ceasefire began: 586,000
Israelis displaced by attacks from Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon at their peak: Over 75,500
Housing units damaged or destroyed in Gaza: Over 245,000
Primary roads damaged or destroyed in Gaza: Over 92 percent
Health facilities damaged or destroyed in Gaza: Over 84 percent