Lebanon’s Health Ministry raises death toll to 6 from airstrike near central Beirut

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Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburb on October 3, 2024. (AFP)
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Smoke billows from the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb of Hadath on October 2, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 03 October 2024
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Lebanon’s Health Ministry raises death toll to 6 from airstrike near central Beirut

  • Israeli forces suffer deadliest day on Lebanese front in a year
  • Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli air raids killed at least 46 people over the past 24 hours

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: At least six people were killed in an Israeli air raid on a Hezbollah rescue facility in the heart of Beirut late Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The Israeli strike in the early hours of Thursday came after its forces suffered their deadliest day on the Lebanese front in a year of clashes against Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
Israel said it conducted a precise air strike on Beirut. Witnesses reported hearing a massive blast, and a security source said it targeted a building in central Beirut’s Bachoura neighborhood close to parliament, the nearest Israeli strikes have come to Lebanon’s seat of government.

Seven people were also wounded, Lebanese health officials said. A photo being circulated on Lebanese WhatsApp groups showed a heavily damaged building with its first floor on fire.
Three missiles also hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week, and loud explosions were heard, Lebanese security officials said. The southern suburbs came under more than a dozen Israeli strikes on Wednesday.
A day after Iran fired more than 180 missiles into Israel, Israel said on Wednesday eight soldiers were killed in ground combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbor.

The Israeli military said regular infantry and armored units joined its ground operations in Lebanon on Wednesday as Iran’s missile attack and Israel’s promise of retaliation raised concerns that the oil-producing Middle East could be caught up in a wider conflict.
Hezbollah said its fighters engaged Israeli forces inside Lebanon. The movement reported ground clashes for the first time since Israeli forces pushed over the border on Monday. Hezbollah said it had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with rockets near the border town of Maroun El Ras.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a condolence video, said: “We are at the height of a difficult war against Iran’s Axis of Evil, which wants to destroy us.
“This will not happen because we will stand together and with God’s help, we will win together,” he said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli air raids killed at least 46 people in the south and center of the country over the past 24 hours.
Iran said on Wednesday its missile volley — its biggest ever assault on Israel — was over barring further provocation, but Israel and the United States promised to hit back hard.
US President Joe Biden said he would not support any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites
in response to its ballistic missile attack and urged Israel to act “proportionally” against its regional arch-foe.
Biden joined a call with Group of Seven major power leaders on Wednesday to coordinate a response, including new sanctions against Tehran, the White House said.

G7 leaders voiced “strong concern” over the Middle East crisis but said a diplomatic solution was still viable and a region-wide conflict was in no one’s interest, a statement said.
Hezbollah said it repelled Israeli forces near several border towns and also fired rockets at military posts inside Israel.
The paramilitary group’s media chief Mohammad Afif said those battles were only “the first round” and that Hezbollah had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push back Israel.
Israel’s addition of infantry and armored troops from the 36th Division, including the Golani Brigade, the 188th Armored Brigade and 6th Infantry Brigade, suggested that the operation might expand beyond limited commando raids.
The military has said its incursion is largely aimed at destroying tunnels and other infrastructure on the border and there were no plans for a wider operation targeting the Lebanese capital Beirut to the north or major cities in the south.

1.2 million Lebanese displaced
Nevertheless, it issued new evacuation orders for around two dozen towns along the southern border, instructing inhabitants to head north of the Awali River, which flows east to west some 60 km (37 miles) north of the Israeli frontier.
More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that about 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Israeli attacks.
Malika Joumaa, from Sudan, was forced to take shelter in Saint Joseph’s church in Beirut after being forced from her house near Sidon in coastal south Lebanon with her husband and two children.
“It’s good that the church offered its help. We were going to stay in the streets; where would we have gone?“
Iran described Tuesday’s missile assault as a response to Israeli killings of militant leaders, including Nasrallah, attacks in Lebanon against the group and Israel’s war against Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.
There were no casualties from the missile onslaught in Israel, but one person was killed in the occupied West Bank. 


Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

Updated 10 sec ago
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Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

CAIRO: Hundreds of people fleeing war-torn Sudan arrive in neighboring Egypt every day, a UN official said Sunday, adding to more than 1.2 million who have found refuge there, according to official figures.
The war between rival Sudanese generals since April 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, with 3.1 million of them seeking shelter beyond the country’s borders, according to the UN.
Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, as well as others who are awaiting registration, said Christine Bishay, associate external relations officer at UNHCR Egypt.
A UNHCR report issued on Friday said that “recent data from the government of Egypt indicates that more than 1.2 million Sudanese have sought international protection in Egypt.”
This has made the North African country the largest host of Sudanese refugees despite imposing stricter entry requirements during the war in Sudan, which shares a long border with Egypt.
Sudanese nationals “now make up two-thirds of the country’s total registered refugee population” of 827,644 people representing 95 nationalities, including Syria, South Sudan and Eritrea, she said.
“Initially, at the very beginning of the conflict, thousands of Sudanese arrived in Egypt on a daily basis, before stabilising to a few hundreds per day,” Bishay added.
Cairo had initially waived visa requirements for Sudanese women, children and men over 50 at the start of the war.
But a month after the conflict erupted, the Egyptian government introduced visa entry requirements for all Sudanese, leaving many to resort to irregular crossings.
In September this year, Egypt further tightened entry requirements, obliging people entering from Sudan to obtain “prior security clearance” alongside a consular visa, according to Egypt’s interior ministry.
Raga Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a 27-year-old Sudanese woman who crossed into Egypt illegally in August, told AFP she had paid about 500,000 Sudanese pounds ($830) to travel in a pick-up truck with 16 others.
The desert journey, which took a gruelling day and a half, was “exhausting and terrifying,” Abdel Rahman said.
“We were constantly afraid of being stopped by RSF forces,” she added, referring to the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who have been battling the regular army.
Hundreds of thousands of others who fled Sudan have sought refuge primarily in neighboring countries, including Chad, South Sudan and Libya.
In the report published on Friday, UNHCR Egypt warned that the humanitarian crisis caused by Sudan’s war has placed “immense pressure on Egypt’s resources and infrastructure.”
Hanan Hamdan, UNHCR representative to Egypt’s government and the Arab League, said that “the burden on Egypt is unsustainable and requires immediate and substantial international assistance to ensure the protection and well-being of those affected by the conflict.”
UNHCR also noted that so far, just over half of the funding needed for an aid scheme for Sudanese refugees has been secured.
The Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan 2024 “has received $1.52 billion in funding, which is 56.3 percent of the required $2.7 billion,” the UN agency said.
“Despite this significant contribution, the funding gap remains substantial.”

Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

Updated 34 min 29 sec ago
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Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

  • Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers

TEHRAN: At least five members of Iran’s security forces were killed Sunday in a “terror attack” in the restive southeast, where authorities have been conducting operations against rebels, local media reported.
The Fars news agency reported that in a “terror attack in Saravan county, in the south of the Sistan-Baluchistan province, five members of the security forces were killed.”
Sistan-Baluchistan borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces. It is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.
For years it has faced unrest involving drug-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and extremists.
Fars said that after the attack in Saravan, “units stationed in the region were quickly deployed to pursue the criminals.”
Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers.
That attack was later claimed by the Pakistan-based Sunni jihadist group Jaish Al-Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice).
Local media reported that those behind the October attack have been killed in the current security operation.
Some 15 militants have been reported killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province since the October attack, including three on Sunday, state television said.
It also said more than 30 suspects have been arrested.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, Jaish Al-Adl is designated a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States.


Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

Updated 10 November 2024
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Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

  • Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-Sept.
  • They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he okayed a deadly September attack on Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon, the first time Israel has admitted involvement.
Hezbollah had previously blamed its arch-foe for the blasts that dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed militant group, and vowed revenge.
“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Strikes have intensified since war broke out in Lebanon in late September, when Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah and later sent ground troops into south Lebanon.


Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display.
Updated 10 November 2024
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Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

  • Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September
  • They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he okayed a deadly September attack on Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon, the first time Israel has admitted involvement.
Hezbollah had previously blamed its arch-foe for the blasts that dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed militant group, and vowed revenge.
“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Strikes have intensified since war broke out in Lebanon in late September, when Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah and later sent ground troops into south Lebanon.


Netanyahu says spoke again with Trump about Iran ‘threat’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Sunday he had spoken three times with US president-elect Donald Trump.
Updated 10 November 2024
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Netanyahu says spoke again with Trump about Iran ‘threat’

  • “We see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in every aspect,” Netanyahu said
  • Analysts believe Netanyahu had hoped for a Trump return to the White House

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Sunday he had spoken three times with US president-elect Donald Trump over the past few days about the “Iranian threat” to Israeli security.
“In the last few days, I have spoken three times with President-elect Donald Trump... Talks designed to further tighten the strong alliance between Israel and the US,” Netanyahu said, quoted in a statement issued by his office.
“We see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in every aspect,” he added during a weekly cabinet meeting, according to the statement.
Netanyahu also said he had talked to Trump about “great opportunities before Israel in the field of peace and its expansion.”
The United States is Israel’s top ally and military backer, and the election came at a critical time for the Middle East amid wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Analysts believe Netanyahu had hoped for a Trump return to the White House, given the longstanding personal friendship between the two as well as the former president’s hawkishness on Israel’s arch-foe Iran.
During his first term, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and helped normalize ties between Israel and several Arab states under the so-called Abraham Accords.