BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon’s health ministry said Thursday that Israeli strikes in the south had killed one person and wounded seven, while the Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah and its allies.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, however, insisted Israel’s strikes targeted “civilian facilities,” condemning what he said was a breach of a ceasefire negotiated last year.
“The repeated Israeli aggression comes as part of a systematic policy aimed at destroying productive infrastructure, hindering economic recovery, and undermining national stability under false security pretexts,” Aoun said.
Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire, which followed more than a year of hostilities with the Iran-backed militant group that culminated in two months of open war.
The Lebanese health ministry, which earlier said six people had been wounded, said one person was killed in a strike in the eastern town of Shmistar.
One person was wounded in Bnaafoul, in the Saida district and six in Ansar, in Nabatieh district, it added.
An Israeli army statement said it had “struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure... in the Mazraat Sinai area in southern Lebanon.”
It also said it had struck facilities used by Green Without Borders, an NGO under US sanctions that Israel considers to have “operated under a civilian cover to conceal the presence of Hezbollah in the border area with Israel.”
Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill one and wound seven
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Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill one and wound seven
- Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire, which followed more than a year of hostilities with the Iran-backed militant group that culminated in two months of open war
UN humanitarian chief’s fresh funding call as Sudan crisis passes 1,000 days amid famine, mass displacement
- ‘Today we are signaling that the international community will work together to bring this suffering to an end,’ Tom Fletcher tells fundraising event in Washington
- Sudan is a central pillar of the UN’s global humanitarian plan for 2026, which aims to save 87m lives worldwide, he adds
NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Tuesday launched a renewed appeal for funding and the political backing to address what it described as the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Sudan, which has now been locked in civil war for more than 1,000 days.
Speaking at a fundraising event for Sudan in Washington, organized by the US Institute for Peace, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, said the scale of the suffering in Sudan had reached intolerable levels marked by famine, mass displacement and widespread sexual violence against women and girls.
“The horrific humanitarian crisis in Sudan has endured more than 1,000 days — too long,” he said. “Too many days of famine, of brutal atrocities, of lives uprooted and destroyed.”
The global community was now united in its desire to halt the suffering and ensure life-saving aid reaches those most in need, Fletcher said.
“Today we are signaling that the international community will work together to bring this suffering to an end,” he added.
Sudan is a central pillar of the UN’s global humanitarian plan for 2026, which aims to save 87 million lives worldwide, Fletcher explained as he thanked donors, including the US, the EU and the UAE, for stepping forward.
“Sudan is the most important component of that plan,” he said, noting that humanitarian operations there have been chronically underfunded and plagued by danger. “We have lost hundreds of colleagues in Sudan, colleagues of incredible courage.”
The UN plans to provide food, medicine, water and sanitation services to more than 14 million people across Sudan this year, as well as protection for vulnerable groups, Fletcher said.
He stressed that funding alone would not be sufficient, however, and called for stronger measures to protect civilians and aid workers, secure humanitarian access and support a temporary truce between the warring factions.
“The money is not enough,” he said. “We need the air assets, the security, the medical support for our teams, and the mediation work that has to underpin the access.”
The UN will work, through the Sudan Humanitarian Initiative, with the so-called “Quad” group of international partners (the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and others to identify priority areas for urgent action and remove obstacles to the delivery of aid, Fletcher said.
He added that the UN seeks visible progress toward a humanitarian truce in Sudan within the next few weeks, and called for those guilty of any violations in the country to be held accountable.
“We have set a target date of the beginning of Ramadan to make visible progress on this work,” Fletcher said. Ramadan is expected to begin on or around Feb. 17 this year.
Quoting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he added that the urgency of ending the conflict was growing as the third anniversary of its outbreak on April 15, 2023, approaches.
“The guns must fall silent and a path to peace must be charted,” Fletcher said, adding that the UN fully supports efforts to secure a humanitarian truce and rapidly scale up aid across Sudan.
“Today, we’re saying, ‘Enough.’ Let today be the signal that the world is uniting in solidarity for practical impact.”
