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The Lebanese mother of two had just awakened to prepare the pre-dawn meal before another day of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when Israeli warplanes began attacking southern Lebanon in retaliation for rockets and drones launched by Hezbollah. The family quickly packed up and headed toward Beirut, seeking safety from another deadly war between Israel and Hezbollah. With tens of thousands of others fleeing on that March 2 day, the usually one-hour trip from the southern city of Nabatiyeh took 15 hours. "I am against giving pretexts to Israel," said the 45-year-old woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the Hezbollah supporters she lives among. "I am totally against Hezbollah's decision to start with the first strike," said the woman, who is now living with her husband, their 17- and 12-year-old children, and her mother-in-law inside a school turned into a shelter in the Lebanese capital. As Hezbollah enters a new round of fighting with
The human rights group Human Rights Watch said in a report on Monday that the Israeli military "unlawfully" hit a village in southern Lebanon with shells containing white phosphorus, a controversial incendiary munition. Through geolocating and verifying seven images, Human Rights Watch said Israel fired white phosphorus using artillery at residential areas in the southern Lebanese village of Yohmor. It happened hours after the Israeli military warned the residents of the village and dozens of others in southern Lebanon to evacuate. Human Rights Watch said it couldn't independently identify if any residents were still in the area or if anyone was harmed. Human rights advocates say the use of white phosphorus is illegal under international law when the white-hot chemical substance is fired into populated areas. It can set buildings on fire and burn human flesh down to the bone. Survivors are at risk of infections and organ or respiratory failure, even if their burns are small. "The .
Israel has struck southern Lebanon and Beirut again early Sunday and killed 12 more people, the Lebanese health ministry said, as the war in the Middle East keeps escalating. Israeli officials said the strikes targeted commanders of the Lebanese branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised "many surprises" for the next phase of the conflict. Meanwhile, two border guards in Kuwait were killed when a swarm of missiles and drones hit the Gulf country. On Saturday, an Israeli attack hit an oil storage facility in Tehran, which sent up pillars of fire that could be seen in Associated Press video as a glow against the night sky. It appeared to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war. The war, which erupted on Feb 28 after joint US-Israeli strikes hit Iran, has so far killed at least 1,230 people in the Islamic Republic, more than 300 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials.
Israel renewed its assault on southern Lebanon on early Sunday, including targeting commanders of the Lebanese branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised "many surprises" for the next phase of the conflict. The Israeli military said in a statement that it would "not allow Iranian terrorist elements to establish themselves in Lebanese territory." The latest strikes in Lebanon followed an Israeli attack Saturday on an oil storage facility in Tehran, which sent up pillars of fire that could be seen in Associated Press video as a glow against the night sky. It appeared to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war. State media blamed "an attack from the US and the Zionist regime" at the site that supplies the capital and neighbouring provinces in the north. Elsewhere, Kuwait authorities said two border guards were killed when the Gulf country was hit by a swarm of missiles and drones. The .
Lebanese health officials said on Saturday that Israeli airstrikes killed at least 16 people and wounded 35 others in overnight Israeli airstrikes in the mountain town of Nabi Chit. The Lebanese Health Ministry offered the figure. The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed late Friday in the mountains of eastern Lebanon. Israel has yet to comment on the fighting there.
Israel launched a series of strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday after ordering all residents of the densely populated area to evacuate. Traffic was gridlocked in Lebanon's capital on Thursday as panicked residents tried to flee after Israel's military issued an evacuation notice telling residents to "save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately," and specified which routes they should take to escape. Hours later, strikes began to hit the Beirut suburbs. Since the resurgence of hostilities between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, Israel has struck sites in Beirut's suburbs and issued a blanket warning for residents south of the Litani River - an area in southern Lebanon stretching to the border with Israel - to evacuate their homes, but had not previously issued a blanket evacuation order for Beirut's southern suburbs. After the attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran triggered a new war in the Middle East, Hezbollah launched missiles and dro
At least 102 people in Lebanon have been killed since the onset of the latest conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, Lebanon's health ministry said in a statement. At least 638 others were wounded, the ministry said Thursday. The latest conflict between the two sides was sparked by Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel early Sunday. Israel has been striking large swaths of the country in response. Chaos sown by Iran's attacks across Persian Gulf is key to its strategy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For years, Iran's theocratic government warned it would blanket the Middle East with missile and drone fire if it felt its existence was threatened. Now, it's doing just that. Since the US and Israel launched the war Saturday, Iran has unleashed thousands of missiles and drones at Israel, American military bases and embassies, and energy facilities across the Gulf. Its basic strategy is to instill fear about the
Lebanese civilians fled the country's south and Beirut's southern suburbs Monday, seeking refuge in Lebanon's capital following a new and deadly escalation between Israel and the Iran-allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that left more than 50 people dead. The Hezbollah missile and drone attacks on northern Israel after midnight Sunday triggered waves of Israeli airstrikes and also brought the harshest criticism yet to the Iran-backed group from the country's leaders. Lebanon's Health Ministry reported at least 52 people were killed and 154 wounded in overnight strikes in the Beirut suburbs and southern Lebanon. The Ministry of Education said that schools will also be closed Tuesday because of the situation. During the day, Israel's military carried out dozens of airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs as well as southern and eastern Lebanon. Shortly after sunset, an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut neighbourhood caused widespread damage and the Israeli military said it targeted a
Iran fired missiles at Israel and Arab states Monday and the war expanded to include militias Tehran backs in the Middle East with an attack by Hezbollah on Israel, which struck back against the group in Lebanon and with the United States pounded targets in Iran. As the American and Israeli airstrikes kept hitting the country, top Iranian security official Ali Larijani said on X: "We will not negotiate with the United States." Trump, who a day earlier had encouraged Iranians to "take over" their government, signaled Sunday that he was open to dialogue with Iran's new leadership. Meanwhile, Iran's foreign minister suggested earlier that military units were acting independently from any central government control after being pressed about attacks on Gulf Arab nations that have served as intermediaries for Tehran in the past. More than 200 people have been killed since the start of the strikes that killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders, Iranian .
Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Lebanon's capital, Beirut, after the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired missiles across the border early Monday. It was the first time in more than a year that Hezbollah has claimed a strike against Israel. The Israeli military said it intercepted a projectile that crossed the border and that several others fell in open areas. No injuries or damage were reported. Hezbollah said in a statement that the strikes were carried out in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and for "repeated Israeli aggressions.
At least 12 people were killed and 24 wounded - including three children - in Israeli strikes in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley Friday, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. Another two people were killed by an Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp earlier in the day. Israel said it had hit "command centers" of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in Bekaa Valley. There was no immediate statement from Hezbollah. Local television footage from the scene of one of the strikes in the Bekaa showed the targeted site appeared to be an apartment building, and emergency crews were fighting a fire and searching in the rubble for survivors. Earlier Friday, another Israeli strike had hit a Palestinian refugee camp in the port city of Sidon, killing two people. The Israeli military said it hit a "Hamas command center" in the Ein el-Hilweh camp. Hamas acknowledged that two of its members had been killed in the strike but called the claim that a command center was struck a "flimsy pretex
Tiny Lebanon sits on one of the largest gold reserves in the Middle East and its government is weighing whether it can use that stockpile to restore a crippled economy while its citizens are looking at gold as a way to protect their battered assets. Lebanon's economy hobbled into 2026 with ongoing inflation and state decay, and no reforms to combat corruption in sight. Its banks collapsed in late 2019 in a crippling fiscal crisis that evaporated depositors' savings and plunged about half its population of 6.5 million into poverty, after decades of rampant corruption, waste, and mismanagement. The country suffered some USD 70 billion in losses in its financial sector, further compounded by about USD 11 billion in the 2024 war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. The price of gold recently soared to an all-time high of USD 5,354, before dropping back below USD 5,000, sparked by geopolitical instability and questions surrounding US President Donald Trump's desire to lower ..
Israel's air force struck areas in southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday and early Tuesday, including in the country's third-largest city. A strike around 1 a.m. Tuesday leveled a three-story commercial building in the southern coastal city of Sidon, a few days before Lebanon's army commander is scheduled to brief the government on its mission of disarming militant group Hezbollah in areas along the border with Israel. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said the area was in a commercial district containing workshops and mechanic shops and the building was uninhabited. At least one person was transported by ambulance and rescue teams were searching the site for others, but there were no immediate reports of deaths. On Monday, the Israeli army hit several sites in southern and eastern Lebanon saying they held infrastructure for the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas. Those strikes took place nearly two hours after Israel's military Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adra