A municipal worker stands next to a damaged building in the aftermath of an overnight Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 29, 2024.| Photo by AFP
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed more than 100 people on Sunday, after Israel’s military said it had kept up its bombardment of Hezbollah targets there and also struck Yemen.
The health ministry in a revised toll issued late Sunday put the total killed at 105 and 359 wounded.
The attacks come after an air strike on Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs on Friday killed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group which has engaged in cross-border fire with Israel for almost a year.
READ MORE:
Israel and Hezbollah exchange intense fire, world leaders alarmed
New Israeli strikes on Lebanon after 492 killed
Nasrallah’s body found – source close to Hezbollah
Hezbollah says it is acting in support of Hamas militants in Gaza, who attacked Israel on October 7, triggering the war in the Palestinian territory.
After Israel turned its focus north from Gaza to Lebanon and cross-border fire escalated, Israeli attacks have killed hundreds since last Monday, the deadliest day since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Lebanon’s health ministry said there had been deadly air raids near the main southern city of Sidon Sunday, while dozens more had died in the east, in the south and in and around Beirut.
France’s foreign ministry said Sunday a second French national had been killed in Lebanon, after a woman died following a south Lebanon blast on Monday.
The announcement came as French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot arrived in Lebanon, the first high-level foreign diplomat to visit since the Israeli air strikes intensified.
Barrot spoke earlier with Prime Minister Najib Mikati and said Paris sought “an immediate halt” to Israeli strikes.
Fear of ‘conflagration’
France also appealed for Hezbollah and its backer Iran to abstain from any action that could lead to “regional conflagration”.
Pope Francis, asked about Israeli air strikes on civilians, said a country “goes beyond morality” when defence is not proportional to the attack.
Israeli military operations in Lebanon seek to downgrade Hezbollah’s capacity to attack Israel, eliminate the group’s military leadership and “clean” the border areas from fighters, an Israeli security official said Friday.
Israeli leaders say they want their citizens displaced from the north to be able to safely return.
Israel’s military said dozens of its warplanes had attacked targets of Iran-backed Huthi rebels in war-ravaged Yemen Sunday, including around Hodeida port, a key entry point for fuel and humanitarian aid.
Huthi media reports said the strikes had killed four people and wounded 33.
The Yemen raids came a day after the Huthis said they targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport with a missile, trying to hit it as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from New York.
Separately, Israel’s military said the air strike that killed Nasrallah had “eliminated” another 20 Hezbollah members, after earlier strikes killed Nasrallah’s right-hand man Fuad Shukr and the head of the elite Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil.
Israel also said Nabil Qaouq, a member of Hezbollah’s central council, was killed in a strike on Saturday.
Hezbollah has yet to officially announce his death, but a source close to the group said Qaouq had been killed.
Seismic blow
Israeli bombardment has killed more than 700 people in a week, including 14 paramedics over a two-day period, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel’s military said late Sunday it had hit 120 Hezbollah targets.
Hezbollah said it had again fired rockets at the northern Israeli town of Safed.
Hezbollah is a powerful political, military and social force in Lebanon, but the killing of Nasrallah — its figurehead who enjoyed cult status among supporters — has dealt it a seismic blow.
Netanyahu said Israel had “settled the score” with his killing.
But in the northern Israeli town of Rosh Pina, Matan Sofer had mixed feelings. Sofer, 24, welcomed the “good news” of Nasrallah’s death but wondered if “we risk it getting worse”.
US President Joe Biden — whose government is Israel’s top arms supplier — said Sunday a wider war “really has to be avoided”.
Analysts told AFP Nasrallah’s death leaves a bruised Hezbollah under pressure to respond.
For Tehran, his killing “has not altered the fact that Iran still does not want to get directly engaged” in the ongoing conflict, said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.
Iran said a member of its Revolutionary Guards was also killed alongside Nasrallah.
‘Largest displacement’
UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said “well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon” and more than 50,000 have fled to neighbouring Syria.
Prime Minister Mikati said up to one million people may have been uprooted, in potentially the “largest displacement movement” in Lebanon’s history.
In Gaza, the territory’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes Sunday killed several people.
Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,595 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.