Israeli strike kills 10 firefighters in Lebanon - health ministry

Smoke rises over Dahiyeh in Beirut's southern suburbs after overnight Israeli air strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon, October 7, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 07 October 2024
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Israeli strike kills 10 firefighters in Lebanon - health ministry

  • Hezbollah vows to keep fighting Israeli ‘aggression’
  • The Israeli army deployed another division to participate in operations in Lebanon

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said on Monday an Israeli strike in south Lebanon overnight killed 10 firefighters.
“An Israeli strike overnight targeted a local firefighting center in Baraasheet where 10 civil defense members were present,” municipal official Reda Ashour said.
The health ministry reported the “killing of 10 firefighters” who were “in the building ready to go out on rescue missions,” adding efforts to remove the rubble were ongoing.
The latest report brings to 115 the number of rescuers killed in a year since the start of cross-border fire between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Monday vowed to keep up the fight against Israeli “aggression,” on the anniversary of its militant group ally Hamas’s October 7 attack that triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese have paid a “heavy price” for the Iran-backed group’s decision to open a “support front” for Gaza on October 8, but “we are confident... in the ability of our resistance to oppose the Israeli aggression,” it said in a statement, calling Israel a “cancerous gland that must be eliminated, no matter how long it takes.”

Additional troops

Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli troops in a south Lebanon border village on Monday, as the Israeli army said it had deployed another division to participate in operations in Lebanon.
Hezbollah fighters “bombed... a gathering of Israeli forces in the Maroun Al-Ras park with a rocket salvo,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement, after announcing separately it had targeted several areas of northern Israel and military positions across the border.

The Israeli army on Monday said it had deployed another division to participate in operations in Lebanon — making it the third troop grouping at division strength to be used in the ground fight against Hezbollah.
“The soldiers of the 91st Division began localized and targeted operational activity in southern Lebanon,” said a statement from the army.

 


US imposes sanctions on commanders of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group

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US imposes sanctions on commanders of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on three commanders of the Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ​over their role in the 18-month siege and capture of Al-Fashir, accusing the group of carrying out systematic and widespread killings.
The US Treasury Department in a statement announcing the sanctions accused the RSF of perpetrating “a horrific campaign of ethnic killings, torture, starvation, and sexual violence” during the ‌siege and ‌capture of Al-Fashir.
Darfur’s Al-Fashir ​fell ‌to ⁠RSF ​forces in ⁠October 2025 after a long siege that led to mass killings.
The Treasury said that once the city was captured in October, RSF fighters accelerated systematic and widespread killings, detentions, and sexual violence, leaving no survivor, including civilians, unharmed. The Treasury ⁠accused the group of engaging in a ‌systematic campaign to ‌destroy evidence of mass killings by ​burying, burning and disposing ‌of tens of thousands of bodies.
More than 100,000 ‌were estimated to have fled Al-Fashir since late October after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took control there following an 18-month siege that plunged the city into ‌famine.
Survivors reported ethnically-motivated mass killings and widespread detentions during and after the ⁠takeover. Many people ⁠remain unaccounted for in Al-Fashir and surrounding areas.
“The United States calls on the Rapid Support Forces to commit to a humanitarian ceasefire immediately. We will not tolerate this ongoing campaign of terror and senseless killing in Sudan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement.
Among those targeted by the Treasury on Thursday were an RSF brigadier general the department said filmed himself ​killing unarmed civilians, as ​well as a major general and RSF field commander.