Early on Wednesday morning, Israeli raids struck the south suburbs of Beirut, as confirmed by live witnesses from Reuters, raising fears of escalating regional tension due to the growing death toll. The attack happened right after the US expressed its disapproval of the intensity of Israeli offensives in the city.
Smoke was seen billowing from two different areas in the southern suburbs of Beirut following the sound of two explosions. This occurred following an evacuation order issued by Israel in the early hours of Wednesday, specifying only one building.
Over the past weeks, the Israeli military has been launching attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut, often without forewarning, or sometimes using decoy warnings for one zone while attacking a wider range. They confirmed carrying out a strike on an underground weaponry store of Hizbullah located in Dahieh, a suburb in the south of Beirut.
The Israeli military claimed that several measures were taken prior to the strike to limit the risk to civilians, which included prior warnings to the local population. The UN refugee agency further noted that evacuation orders from the Israeli military were impacting over a quarter of Lebanon, two weeks after Israel started infiltrations into the south of the country, allegedly to repel Hizbullah.
There have been calls from some western countries for a ceasefire between the two neighbouring countries as well as in Gaza. However, the US claims it continues to support Israel and is even dispatching an anti-missile system and troops.
Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, confirmed on Tuesday that the US had raised its issues with Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in relation to the recent offensives. He expressed that the US had made its concerns clear regarding the scope and character of the bombing campaign observed in Beirut over the past few weeks, displaying a much sterner stance than previously demonstrated by Washington.
On Tuesday, Najib Mikati, the interim prime minister of Lebanon, stated that his discussions with U.S officials had led to a type of assurance that the intensity of the Israeli attacks on Beirut and its south suburbs would be reduced.
On 10th October, Beirut suffered a devastating attack near the city centre that resulted in the death of 22 individuals and the collapse of various edifices situated in a heavily occupied locality. Security personnel from Lebanon indicated during that period that Wafiq Safa, a Hizbullah official, was the probable target, though he luckily survived the assault. Israel did not make any statement regarding this incident.
Israel has stepped up its efforts to pressure Hizbullah, an Iran-sponsored organisation. After executing Hizbullah chiefs and senior officers, including its longstanding secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah the preceding month, Israel began its operations inside Lebanon. This was the most severe blow to the group in several decades.
Mr Netanyahu, during a telephonic discussion with France’s president Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, expressed his disapproval of a one-sided ceasefire and was taken aback by Macron’s proposal to host a conference on Lebanon, as per an Israeli brief. “Don’t forget, it was the successful War of Independence and not a UN resolution that marked the founding of the State of Israel…,” Mr Netanyahu’s office announced in a separate statement.
As per information from Tuesday, the Israeli military disclosed that it had captured three members of Hizbullah’s top Radwan units and transferred them to Israel for an inquiry. No comments have been made by Hizbullah about this development.
In a pre-recorded speech, Naim Qassem, the deputy head of the group, previously stated on Tuesday that the Iran-supported organisation would inflict pain upon Israel but also proposed a ceasefire. After reaching an indirect concurrence post-ceasefire, the settlers would return to the north alongside the implementation of other actions, Qassem proposed.
Israeli operations have claimed the lives of roughly 2,350 individuals in the past year and nearly 11,000 have been injured, the Lebanese health ministry reports. It also says that over 1.2 million people have been forced to relocate due to these operations. The information available does not differentiate between civilians and military personnel, but it does reveal hundreds of casualties to be women and children.
These statistics highlight the intense burden the Lebanese populace is bearing in the wake of Israel’s relentless efforts to dismantle the infrastructure of Hizbullah, the Iran-funded militant group. This conflict resumed a year prior when Hizbullah began launching rocket attacks on Israel in solidarity with Hamas at the outset of the Gaza war.