BEIRUT: Israel launched fresh strikes on what it said were Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon after raids earlier Wednesday killed two people, the latest violence despite a year-old ceasefire with the militant group.
The state-run National News Agency said Israeli warplanes launched raids on buildings in several south Lebanon towns including Qanarit and Kfour, after the Israeli army issued evacuation warnings to residents identifying sites it intended to strike there.
An AFP photographer was slightly wounded along with two other journalists who were working near the site of a heavy strike in Qanarit.
The Israeli army said it was striking Hezbollah targets in response to the group’s “repeated violations of the ceasefire understandings.”
Under heavy US pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming Hezbollah.
But Israel has criticized the Lebanese army’s progress as insufficient and has kept up regular strikes, usually saying it is targeting members of the Iran-backed group or its infrastructure.
Earlier Wednesday, the health ministry said an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the town of Zahrani, in the Sidon district, killed one person.
An AFP correspondent saw a charred car on a main road with debris strewn across the area and emergency workers in attendance.
Later, the ministry said another strike targeting a vehicle in the town of Bazuriyeh in the Tyre district killed one person.
Israel said it struck Hezbollah operatives in both areas.
A Lebanese army statement decried the Israeli targeting of “civilian buildings and homes” in a “blatant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty” and the ceasefire deal.
It also said such attacks “hinder the army’s efforts” to complete the disarmament plan.
This month, the army said it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah, covering the area south of the Litani river, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border.
Most of Wednesday’s strikes were north of the river.
More than 350 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of health ministry reports.
The November 2024 truce sought to end more than a year of hostilities, but Israel accuses Hezbollah of rearming, while the militant group has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.
Two dead in wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon
https://arab.news/6dx8h
Two dead in wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon
- Israeli warplanes launch raids on buildings in several south Lebanon towns including Qanarit and Kfour
- Two people killed in earlier strikes in Sidon and Tyre
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.”
