Israel strikes Hezbollah strongholds after rejecting Lebanon ceasefire
Israel conducted strikes targeting Hezbollah's main bastion and a city in southern Lebanon where it holds sway on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed calls for a ceasefire.
The strike on south Beirut, the militant group's main stronghold, was the first in several days of calm in the area, after an intense period of bombardment earlier in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Israel's army said its warplanes struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, where the Lebanese group and its ally Amal hold sway.
The Lebanese health ministry said six people were killed and 43 injured in the strikes on two municipal buildings in Nabatiyeh, adding that rescuers were searching through the rubble for survivors.
The mayor was among the dead, a local official told AFP, adding that the strikes "formed a kind of belt of fire" in the area.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack, saying that Israel "deliberately targeted a meeting of the municipal council that was discussing the city's services and relief situation".
In response to the Nabatiyeh strikes, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said that "civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times".
The strikes sent a thick plume of smoke billowing over houses, palm trees and the blue-tipped minaret of a mosque in the city.
Also on Wednesday, Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli army tank with a guided missile near a border village.
Israel ramped up its bombardment mainly of Hezbollah strongholds in late September, and sent ground troops across the Lebanese border on September 30.
The Israel-Hezbollah war has left at least 1,356 people dead in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
Hezbollah started low-intensity strikes on Israel in October last year, in support of its ally Hamas following the October 7 attack that triggered the Gaza war.
With Hamas weakened but not crushed, Israel widened the focus of its military operations to include Lebanon, vowing to fight until tens of thousands of Israelis forced by Hezbollah's fire to flee their homes are able to return.
Lebanon has suffered years of economic and political crisis, and the war has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.
- No ceasefire -
The latest strikes came a day after Netanyahu told French President Emmanuel Macron he was "opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon," according to his office.
Netanyahu and the Israeli military have insisted there must be a buffer zone along Israel's border with Lebanon where there are no Hezbollah fighters.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem said the only solution was a ceasefire, while threatening to expand the scope of its missile strikes across Israel.
Hezbollah has long vowed there could be no truce in Lebanon unless the war in Gaza ends and there was no indication from Qassem's speech of any shift in that position.
He did, however, vow the militant group would continue targeting Israel.
"Since the Israeli enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place" in Israel, he said.
The US government -- Israel's top arms supplier -- has criticised Israel's air strikes in Lebanon.
"We have made clear that we are opposed to the campaign the way we've seen it conducted over the past weeks" in Beirut, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.
In a letter sent to the Israeli government on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also warned that the United States could withhold weapons deliveries unless more humanitarian aid was delivered to Palestinians in Gaza.
- 'Merciless bombings' -
Despite the need for food, medical supplies and shelter in Gaza, a spokesman for the UN's children's agency UNICEF said Tuesday that aid was facing the tightest restrictions since the start of Israel's offensive over a year ago.
"Several days in the last week (where) no commercial trucks whatsoever were allowed to come in," spokesman James Elder said.
For over a week, Israeli forces have engaged in a sweeping air and ground assault targeting northern Gaza and the area around Jabalia amid claims that Hamas militants were regrouping there.
Nidal al-Arab lost 10 of his family members during Israeli strikes on Jabalia.
"People are trapped. If they don't die of shelling, they will soon die of thirst and hunger because the siege is getting tighter," the 40-year-old told AFP.
People in other other Gaza neighbourhoods told a similar story.
"The whole area has been reduced to ashes," said Rana Abdel Majid, 38, from the Al-Faluja area.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza after the October 7 attack by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures, including hostages killed in captivity.
The Israeli campaign has killed 42,409 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory which the UN considers reliable.
- Iran retaliation? -
Israel is also weighing how to respond to Iran's launch of around 200 missiles at the country on October 1. Iran said the attack was itself retaliation for an Israeli strike in Beirut days before that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian general Abbas Nilforoushan.
Iran's top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, warned UN chief Antonio Guterres that Tehran was ready for a "decisive and regretful" response should Israel attack his country.
Araghchi's conversation with Guterres was the latest in a string of diplomatic efforts by Iran, which also says its main goal is protect peace in the region.
During a call with Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian called for "more pressure on the supporters" of Israel to "stop the killings" in Gaza and Lebanon, according to the Iranian presidency.
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