Israel ups assault on Lebanon

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, an official said, adding that the strikes “formed a kind of belt of fire” in the area.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack, saying 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 “civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times”.

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 late last month 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 Lebanese Health Ministry figures. Hezbollah started low-intensity strikes on Israel in October last year, in support of its ally, Hamas, after 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.

The latest strikes came a day after Netanyahu told French President Emmanuel Macron that he was “opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon”, his office said.

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, say the militant group would continue targeting Israel.

The US government, Israel’s top arms supplier, has criticised Israel’s air strikes in Lebanon.

In a letter to the Israeli government, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also warned that the US could withhold weapon deliveries unless more humanitarian aid was delivered to Palestinians in Gaza.

Despite the need for food, medical supplies and shelter in Gaza, the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, said aid was facing the tightest restrictions since the start of Israel’s offensive more than a year ago.

For more than 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. 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 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.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that the government was weighing up sanctions against far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

National Security Minister Smotrich and Finance Minister Ben Gvir, are vocal supporters of settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has announced that the UK, France and Algeria had called an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after UN reports that “barely any food has entered” North Gaza in the past two weeks.

Cape Times