Lebanon

October 17, 2024 12:43 PM

Israeli strike on Lebanese municipal building kills 16, including mayor

The mayor of a major town in south Lebanon was among 16 people killed when an Israeli airstrike destroyed its municipal headquarters in the biggest attack on an official Lebanese state building since the Israeli air campaign began. Lebanese officials denounced the incident, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel's campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state. The Israelis "intentional...

October 15, 2024 6:58 PM

U.N. refugee agency says 25% of Lebanon under Israeli evacuation orders

The U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday it had received reports that most of the 22 victims of an Israeli air strike on a building in northern Lebanon were women and children. "What we are hearing is that amongst the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children," U.N. human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing in response to a question about a strike on Aitou on Monday. "We understand it was a four-story residential building that was struck. With thes...

October 15, 2024 10:47 AM

Israel strikes north Lebanon town, UN expresses concern about peacekeepers

Israel expanded its targets in its war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 21 people in an airstrike in the north, health officials said, while millions of Israelis took shelter from projectiles fired back across the border. So far the main focus of Israel's military operations in Lebanon has been in the Bekaa Valley in the east, the suburbs of Beirut, and in the south, where incidents involving Israeli troops and U.N. peacekeepers have created tension. The U.N. Sec...

October 14, 2024 12:21 PM

US to send anti-missile system and troops to Israel

The United States said on Sunday it will send U.S. troops to Israel along with an advanced U.S. anti-missile system, in a highly unusual deployment meant to bolster the country's air defenses following missile attacks by Iran. U.S. President Joe Biden said the move was meant "to defend Israel," which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on Oct 1. The United States has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response t...

October 14, 2024 11:51 AM

UN says Israeli tanks burst into peacekeeper base, while Hezbollah drones kill four

The United Nations said Israeli tanks had burst into its base in southern Lebanon on Sunday, the latest accusation of Israeli violations against peacekeeping forces, as Hezbollah unleashed a deadly "swarm of drones" on an Israeli military camp. Israel disputed the U.N. account and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the peacekeepers to withdraw, saying they were providing "human shields" for Iran-backed Hezbollah during an upsurge in hostilities. The UNIFIL peacekeeping force ...

October 11, 2024 11:06 AM

Israeli strikes kill 22 in Beirut as Hezbollah leader evades assassination

Israeli strikes killed 22 people and injured more than 100 in central Beirut on Thursday, Lebanese authorities said, as a senior Hezbollah official evaded an Israeli assassination attempt in the city, according to three security sources. In Lebanon's south, two United Nations peacekeepers were injured when an Israeli tank fired at a watchtower at the force's main headquarters in Naqoura, prompting the U.N. to say its personnel were facing increasing danger. The conflict between Israel and Hezb...

October 8, 2024 10:58 PM

Netanyahu says Israel has ‘taken out’ Nasrallah’s successors

Israeli forces have killed the would-be successors of late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, without naming them. "We've degraded Hezbollah's capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah's replacement, and the replacement of the replacement," Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded video message. Earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hashem Safieddine, the man expected to r...

October 8, 2024 4:14 PM

Who is Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy chief?

Hezbollah's deputy secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassem, who said on Tuesday that the armed group supported efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon, has been a senior figure in the Iran-backed movement for more than 30 years. Speaking in front of curtains from an undisclosed location, Qassem said the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel was a war about who cries first, and Hezbollah would not cry first. The group's capabilities were intact despite "painful blows" from Israel. But he added th...

October 8, 2024 3:50 PM

Israel begins ground operations in southwest Lebanon as Iran sends warning

Israel's military said on Tuesday it had begun ground operations in southwest Lebanon, expanding its incursions to a new zone a year after exchanges of fire began with armed group Hezbollah and amid pleas by the U.N. for a diplomatic solution. The regional tensions triggered a year ago by Palestinian armed group Hamas's attack on southern Israel have spiralled to a string of Israeli operations by land and air over Lebanon and direct attacks by Iran onto Israeli military installati...

October 8, 2024 11:48 AM

Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, Hamas vows to rise again

Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel's third-largest city of Haifa and Hamas vowed to rise again as Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon, a year after the devastating Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war. Israelis held ceremonies and protests on Monday to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and fanned fears of an all-out regional war. Hamas, which has seen...