Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade fire as residents in Lebanon look for safety

Up to date September 24, 2024 at 07:39 AM ET

Israeli forces and Hezbollah have continued to commerce cross-border missiles by way of the night time and into Tuesday morning, following the deadliest day of airstrikes within the nation for nearly 20 years.

In a single day, the Israeli navy mentioned that it initiated airstrikes alongside tank and artillery hearth on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah introduced early Tuesday it had fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel, geared toward a number of navy installations, an airbase and a munitions manufacturing facility.

Israeli authorities say a regional hospital was broken as sirens sounded all through giant swathes of northern Israel. The Israeli missile interception batteries compelled a number of the rockets down, the Israeli navy mentioned, however a number of buildings had been broken and firefighting crews had been working to extinguish blazes that resulted.

Lebanon’s well being ministry mentioned on Tuesday that 558 individuals have been killed since Israel launched its strikes on Monday. Amongst them, in line with Well being Minister Firass Abiad, 50 victims had been youngsters and 94 had been ladies. Abiad mentioned 1,835 individuals have been injured, and that medical employees are working “above and past to take care of all sufferers.”

Elsewhere, Israeli strikes in Gaza’s southern metropolis of Khan Younis early Tuesday killed a minimum of seven, Palestinian officers mentioned.

And in an interview with CNN, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that the Israeli strikes danger pushing the area into wider battle. “We should not permit for Lebanon to change into one other Gaza by the hands of Israel,” Pezeshkian mentioned within the CNN report.

On Monday, Hezbollah fired roughly 100 missiles, a few of them deep into Israel and across the northern metropolis of Haifa, had been largely intercepted and Israeli emergency providers solely reported a handful of accidents.

The overwhelming majority of the individuals killed on Monday had been within the south of Lebanon, in line with the Lebanese Well being Ministry, in a area the place the militant group Hezbollah has initiated a lot of its cross-border assaults on targets inside Israel since October seventh.

1000’s fled their houses and headed northwards away villages, cities and cities in that border area. On a four-lane freeway with two lanes of site visitors often passing in each instructions, all 4 lanes had been stuffed with escaping vehicles and buses, filled with passengers. Kids sat atop some automobiles or had been crammed into the again of vegetable vans, with some males sitting within the trunk of a automobile as Lebanese troopers waved them by way of.

Residents from southern Lebanon described being informed to depart their houses in nameless telephone calls. “Please go away all of your work and go exterior,” Bilal Hemadi mentioned he was informed by somebody talking in damaged Arabic on an Israeli telephone quantity that known as his residence’s landline quantity. The businessman, who lives in a border village known as Nabatieh, mentioned he responded, “‘OK, thanks,'” and along with his spouse and three youngsters he quickly headed north to Beirut, the place he’ll shelter with pals.

With little discover, lots of the hundreds fleeing had little time to pack belongings, and never all had been positive in conversations the place they might go.

One in every of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders informed individuals mourning at a funeral in Beirut this previous weekend that this battle now represented an open-ended struggle, whereas the Israeli navy has mentioned it won’t rule out a floor invasion throughout the border into Lebanon’s territory.

This newest escalation in cross border violence follows the hundreds of sudden pager and walkie-talkie explosions that left members and allies of Hezbollah useless or severely wounded. Civilians, together with youngsters, had been additionally injured or killed throughout these explosions throughout Lebanon, and shortly after an airstrike Friday within the Lebanese capital killed dozens of different civilians, together with youngsters, in addition to Hezbollah fighters and the senior commander of the group that the Israeli navy mentioned it had focused.

In a video launched Monday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned individuals in Lebanon that Hezbollah – which is taken into account a terrorist group in a number of nations, together with america – was endangering them and they need to go away areas near the border within the nation’s south and east.

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