Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut has killed nine people
An Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in the Lebanese capital has killed nine people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September, but has rarely struck in the heart of Beirut.
There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit the building close to the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defense unit said seven of its members were killed.
Israel is also conducting a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, while also conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Here is the latest:
UNITED NATIONS – U.N. peacekeepers are remaining in their positions on Lebanon’s southern border despite Israel’s request to vacate some locations before it launched its recent ground operation, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said.
Jean-Pierre LaCroix said the commander and liaison officers from the force, known as UNIFIL, also remain in constant contact with their counterparts in the Israeli Defense Force and the Lebanese Armed Force, which he called “very important” to protect the U.N.’s more than 10,000 peacekeepers which is paramount.
UNIFIL is also “the only channel of communications between the parties,” he stressed. “The peacekeepers are also working with partners to do what they can to protect the population.”
He told a news conference Thursday that UNIFIL had anticipated the scenario of “a limited, targeted ground operation” by Israel and had thoroughly discussed whether U.N. peacekeepers should stay or not — and they decided to stay for now.
But LaCroix stressed that “we’re constantly reviewing the situation” and contingency plans are ready, both for good and bad scenarios, which he refused to discuss. He stressed that the parties have an obligation to protect the U.N. peacekeepers, “and I want to insist on that.”
Israeli ground forces crossed into southern Lebanon early Tuesday, which marked a significant escalation of its offensive against Hezbollah militants. The offensive also marks a new front against Hezbollah’s Iranian backers following the Israeli airstrike that killed the group’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. The U.N. expanded its mission following the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to deploy along the Israeli border.
The U.N. Security Council resolution ending that war demanded that all armed groups — including Hezbollah — be disarmed, and for the Lebanese army to deploy to the Israeli border. After 17 years, neither has happened.
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that he thought all-out war could be avoided.
“I don’t believe there’s going to be an all out war. I think we can avoid it,” he told reporters as he arrived back to the White House from a trip to areas damaged by Hurricane Helene. “I think we can avoid it, but there’s a lot to do yet. A lot to do yet.”
He added that “we’re going to help Israel.”
BEIRUT — A series of massive blasts has rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs, shaking buildings kilometers away in the Lebanese capital.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reports there were more than 10 consecutive airstrikes in the area late Thursday. It isn’t clear what was targeted or if there are casualties.
The strikes come amid an ongoing escalation in the yearlong conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council has affirmed its full support for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after Israel banned the U.N. chief from entering the country.
In several messages Thursday almost certainly aimed at Israel, the 15-member council “underscored that any decision not to engage with the U.N. secretary-general or the United Nations is counterproductive, especially in the context of escalating tensions In the Middle East.”
The U.N.‘s most powerful body also “underscored the need for all member states to have a productive and effective relationship with the secretary-general and to refrain from any actions that undermine his work and that of his office.”
Switzerland’s U.N. Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl, the current council president, read the statement to reporters late Thursday.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced Wednesday that Guterres is “persona non grata” — not welcome — in the country, accusing the secretary-general of being biased against Israel.
Israel’s accusations of U.N. bias and antisemitism date back decades but the rift has intensified since Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attacks in the country’s south that killed about 1,200 people, mainly civilians.
The Israeli military says it has killed a senior Hezbollah militant involved in the group’s development of precision guided missiles.
It says Mohammed Anisi was killed in a recent airstrike that targeted the militant group’s intelligence branch in Beirut.
Hezbollah has not commented on the Israeli military’s claim. If it is true, it would mark the latest in a string of assassinations of top Hezbollah officials in recent weeks, including its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
WASHINGTON — U.S. military leaders have been talking to Israel about how to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile attack, a defense official said Thursday.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh says Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown Jr. spoke with Israeli military’s chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, on Wednesday. And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has held “almost daily” conversations with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant since the attacks, Singh says.
Iran fired almost 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, raising concerns about the possibility of all-out war in the region.
“We are discussing with them what a response to Iran should look like,” Singh says. “I certainly think any response, we will be part of those discussions.”
The Palestinian Health Ministry says 14 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on a refugee camp in the northern West Bank
The Israeli army says it carried out a strike in Tulkarem, a militant stronghold. It says the operation Thursday was carried out in coordination with the Shin Bet internal security service.
The army provided no further details on the target.
Violence has flared across the Israeli-occupied territory since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last October. Tulkarem and other northern cities have seen some of the worst violence.
WASHINGTON — The State Department says the U.S. Embassy in Beirut is prepared to provide emergency loans to Americans who wish to leave Lebanon on U.S.-contracted flights after the cost of tickets sky-rocketed in recent days.
Some Americans have complained that fares for tickets to even close destinations such as Cyprus have become unaffordable as commercial airline service in and out of Beirut has dwindled. The Lebanese flag carrier Middle East Airlines is the only commercial airline operating international flights.
MEA has set aside about 1,400 seats on its flights for Americans over the past week and several hundred had taken them, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Thursday.
Miller says the U.S. government has no regulatory oversight over MEA flight costs. He says the maximum fare for a U.S.-organized contract flight is $283 per person.
WASHINGTON — The State Department says roughly 250 Americans and their immediate families, including non-U.S. citizens, have left Lebanon in the past two days on government-organized contract flights.
Spokesperson Matthew Miller says 134 American citizens and family members left Beirut on a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, on Thursday. That’s in addition to more than 100 who left on a similar flight on Wednesday.
Miller says the U.S. will continue to organize such flights as long as the security situation in Lebanon is dire and there is demand. More than 6,000 American citizens have contacted the U.S. Embassy in Beirut seeking information about leaving since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began to escalate.
Miller says some Americans, many of them dual U.S.-Lebanese nationals and long-time residents of the country, may choose to stay. He says the U.S. Embassy in Beirut is prepared to offer loans to those who choose to stay in Lebanon but need to relocate to a safer part of the country.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s crisis response unit says nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes in Lebanon because of the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Among them are more than 250,000 Syrian citizens and 82,000 Lebanese citizens who have crossed into Syria between Sept. 23 and Sept. 30, according to the report released Thursday, citing figures provided by Lebanese General Security.
Nearly 164,000 are living in group shelters in Lebanon.
Among them is Fatima Abdul Nabi. Her daughter turned 10 days old on Sept. 23, when Israel began a widescale bombardment of southern Lebanon to drive the militant group Hezbollah back from the border.
“They began hitting our village and said we had to leave the village, so we fled,” Abdul Nabi said. It took them 11 hours to get to the coastal city of Sidon, about 40 km (25 miles) away.
