Page 7 - Lebanon

Red Cross launches international emergency appeal urging aid for Lebanon

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Tuesday launched an international emergency appeal asking donors to provide resources for Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war. IFRC also called on all parties to protect paramedics in the conflict that has left thousands of people dead and wounded, many of them over the past six weeks. Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told The Associated Press in Beirut that needs are just growing so fast. He met with officials and toured shelters housing people displaced by the conflict. The IFRC said its emergency appeal for 100 million Swiss Francs (USD 115.8 million) is aimed at helping Lebanon and the Lebanese Red Cross through the ongoing conflict. The 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah has killed more than 3,000 people, wounded over 13,000 in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of the displaced are staying in shelters around the small ..

Netanyahu visits Lebanon border, vows to push Hezbollah beyond Litani River

Netanyahu's visit to the Lebanese border included an assessment with the commanders regarding the operational picture

Israel's path of destruction in Lebanon raises fears of buffer zone

Perched on a hilltop a short walk from the Israeli border, the tiny southern Lebanese village of Ramyah has almost been wiped off the map. In a neighbouring village, satellite photos show a similar scene: a hill once covered with houses, now reduced to a gray smear of rubble. Israeli warplanes and ground forces have blasted a trail of destruction through southern Lebanon the past month. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel. Even United Nations peacekeepers and Lebanese troops in the south have come under fire from Israeli forces, raising questions over whether they can remain in place. More than 1 million people have fled bombardment, emptying much of the south. Some experts say Israel may be aiming to create a depopulated buffer zone, a strategy it has already deployed along its border with Gaza. Some conditions for such a zone appear already in place, ...

Israel pummels Gaza, Lebanon, killing dozens in latest waves of airstrikes

Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes across Lebanon and Gaza that killed at least 24 people in Lebanon's northeast on Friday, according to the state-run National News Agency, and transformed once-bustling neighbourhood blocks in Beirut into smoldering ruins. Meanwhile in central Gaza, Palestinians recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli attacks that began Thursday, hospital officials said. Israel said it targeted Hamas infrastructure near the Nuseirat refugee camp. The latest violence comes against the backdrop of the Biden administration's renewed diplomatic push days before the US election to reach temporary cease-fire deals. Israel has stepped up its war against Hamas' remaining fighters in Gaza, pulverizing areas in the north and raising fears of worsening humanitarian conditions for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still there. Israel has broadened its strikes in Lebanon to bigger urban hubs in recent weeks after initially targeted smalle

Israeli strikes kill 25 persons in central Gaza, 13 people in Lebanon

The death toll from Israeli strikes in the central Gaza Strip rose to 25, including five children, as more bodies were recovered, while officials said that 13 people were killed in airstrikes in Lebanon on Friday. Sixteen people had initially been reported killed in two strikes on Thursday on the Gaza Strip's central Nuseirat refugee camp, but officials from the Al-Aqsa hospital said bodies continued to be brought in. Overall, the hospital said they had received 21 dead from the strikes, including some transferred from the Awda hospital, where they had been brought the day before. One of the strikes killed an 18-month-old and his 10-year-old sister the children's mother was missing as of Friday while the father was killed by an Israeli airstrike four months ago, the family told The Associated Press at Aqsa hospital. Strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and on a house in Deir al-Balah on Friday killed four more people, the hospital officials said, bringing the overall toll to 25. Th

Middle East: Israel pounds Beirut suburb Dahiyeh with airstrikes overnight

Israel's air force pounded Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight, destroying dozens of buildings in several neighbourhoods, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Friday. There was no immediate word on casualties. Recently, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on the northeastern city of Baalbek and nearby villages, as well as different parts of southern Lebanon. International mediators are ramping up efforts to halt the wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, circulating new proposals to wind down the regional conflict. Lebanon's Heath Ministry said more than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 wounded since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets almost daily into Israel, drawing retaliation. The death toll from more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has passed 43,000, Palestinian officials reported this week, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7,

Rocket fire from Lebanon kills 7 in Israel amid US push for ceasefires

Rocket barrages from Lebanon into northern Israel killed four foreign workers and three Israelis on Thursday, Israeli medics said, the deadliest cross-border strikes in Israel since it invaded Lebanon. Israel kept up airstrikes it says targeted Hezbollah militants across Lebanon, where health authorities on Thursday reported 24 people killed. U.S. diplomats were in the region pushing for cease-fires in both Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to wind down the wars in the Middle East as the Biden administration enters its final months. Pressure has been building ahead of the U.S. election next week. In northern Gaza, Israeli forces struck one of the last functioning hospitals, according to the World Heath Organization said, destroying much-needed supplies that the U.N. agency had delivered to the facility. The strikes set off a fire that affected the dialysis unit, destroyed water tanks, damaged the surgery building and injured four medics trying to extinguish the blaze, said the hospital's ...

Rocket fire from Lebanon on Israel kills 5, including 4 foreign workers

Rocket fire from Lebanon killed five people in northern Israel on Thursday, including four foreign workers, in the deadliest such attack since Israel's invasion earlier this month. The attack came as senior US diplomats were in the region to push for cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to wind down the wars in the Middle East in the Biden administration's final months. The Hezbollah militant group has been firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel, and drawing retaliatory strikes, since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies backed by Iran. The conflict along the border escalated into a full-blown war last month, when Israel launched a wave of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his deputies. Israeli ground forces pushed into Lebanon at the start of October. The Metula regional council reported Thursday's attack, without detailing the number or ty

Top US officials to visit Mideast for talks on Gaza, Lebanon amid tensions

During a press briefing, the Press Secretary said that White House officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, along with other top officials, would be travelling to address various matters

War with Israel to continue for proper cease-fire terms: Hezbollah's Kassem

Hezbollah's newly named leader Naim Kassem said in his first public comments aired Wednesday that the militant group will keep fighting in its ongoing war with Israel until it is offered cease-fire terms it deems acceptable. "If the Israelis decide to stop the aggression, we say that we accept, but according to the conditions that we see as suitable," Kassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a pre-recorded televised address. "We will not beg for a cease fire as we will continue (fighting)... no matter how long it takes." The speech came as international mediators have launched a new push for negotiated cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza. More than 2,790 people have been killed and 12,700 wounded in Lebanon since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel, drawing retaliation, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. The conflict escalated sharply last month and Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October. Some 1.2 million .

Who is Sheikh Naim Qassem - the new face of Hezbollah after Nasrallah?

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant labels Sheikh Naim Qassem's appointment a 'temporary' measure while predicting his term would not last

Two Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza strip kill 88, say officials

Two Israeli airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed at least 88 people, including dozens of women and children, health officials said, and the director of a hospital said life-threatening injuries were going untreated because a weekend raid by Israeli forces led to the detention of dozens of medics. Israel has escalated airstrikes and waged a bigger ground operation in northern Gaza in recent weeks, saying it is focused on rooting out Hamas militants who have regrouped after more than a year of war. The intense fighting is raising alarm about the worsening humanitarian conditions for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in northern Gaza. Concerns about not enough aid reaching Gaza were amplified Monday when Israeli lawmakers passed two laws to cut ties with the main U.N. agency distributing food, water and medicine, and to ban it from Israeli soil. Israel controls access to both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and it was unclear how the agency known as UNRWA .

Hezbollah names Naim Qassem as leader; Israel says he won't last long

"Temporary appointment. Not for long," Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted on X with a photo of Qassem

Israel's strikes into Lebanon heighten fear in communities with refugees

Dany Alwan stood shaking as rescue workers pulled remains from piles of rubble where his brother's building once stood. An Israeli airstrike destroyed the three-story residential building in the quiet Christian village of Aito a day before. His brother, Elie, had rented out its apartments to a friend who'd fled here with relatives from their hometown in southern Lebanon under Israeli bombardment. Things were fine for a few weeks. But that day, minutes after visitors arrived and entered the building, it was struck. Almost two dozen people were killed, half of them women and children. Israel said it targeted a Hezbollah official, as it has insisted in other strikes with high civilian death tolls. This strike in northern Lebanon, deep in Christian heartland was particularly unusual. Israel has concentrated its bombardment mostly in the country's south and east and in Beirut's southern suburbs Shiite-majority areas where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence. Strikes in

Detained 100 suspected militants in raid on Gaza hospital, says Israel

Israel's military said it detained 100 suspected Hamas militants in a raid on a hospital in northern Gaza over the weekend. Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya on Friday, detaining 44 male staff, according to the World Health Organisation. Palestinian medical officials said the hospital, which was treating some 200 patients, was heavily damaged in the raid. Israel has raided several hospitals in Gaza over the course of the yearlong war, saying Hamas and other militants use them for military purposes. Palestinian medical officials deny those allegations and accuse the military of recklessly endangering civilians. The Israeli military has called on Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza, where it has been waging a large offensive for more than three weeks. The UN said earlier this month at least 400,000 people are still in northern Gaza and hunger is rampant as the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the north has plummeted over the past month. Israel's offensiv

At least three 'journalists killed' in Israeli strike in Lebanon's Hasbaya

Those killed included cameraman Ghassan Najjar and engineer Mohamed Reda who worked for pro-Iranian news outlet Al-Mayadeen and one cameraman who worked for Hezbollah's Al-Manar

First tranche of India's humanitarian assistance handed over to Lebanon

On October 18, India had dispatched the first tranche of 11 tons of medical supplies to Lebanon as part of a humanitarian effort to support the nation amid rising tensions and the ongoing conflict

France to provide 100 million-euro aid package to support Lebanon: Macron

France pledged to provide a 100-million euro (USD 108-million) package to support Lebanon at an international conference Thursday, as President Emmanuel Macron said massive aid is needed to support the country where war between Hezbollah militants and Israel has displaced a million people, killed over 2,500 and deepened an economic crisis. In the immediate term, massive aid is needed for the Lebanese population, both for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war and for the communities hosting them, Macron said in his opening speech at the conference. French organisers hope participants' financial pledges of humanitarian aid will meet the USD 426 million the United Nations says is urgently needed. Italy this week announced new aid of 10 million euros (USD 10.8 million) and Germany on Wednesday pledged an additional 60 million euros (USD 64.7 million) for people in Lebanon. Macron condemned Israel for continuing its military operations in Lebanon, "in the South, in ..

Paris conference aims to get military, humanitarian support for Lebanon

France on Thursday hosts an international conference for Lebanon to rally military and humanitarian aid for the country where war between Hezbollah militants and Israel has displaced a million people, killed over 2,500 and deepened an economic crisis. Paris also seeks to help restore Lebanon's sovereignty and strengthen its institutions. The country, where Hezbollah effectively operates as a state within a state, has been without a president for two years while political factions fail to agree on a new one. But the international conference comes as critics say French President Emmanuel Macron's diplomatic approach in the Middle East has been blurred by his apparent evolving approach and sometimes chaotic communication. Still, France's historic links with Lebanon, a former colony, and its influential diplomacy give Paris momentum to coordinate a proper response to the massive challenge that the war in Lebanon now poses, said Middle East expert Rym Montaz, editor in chief of Carnegie

Displacement from Israel-Hezbollah war transforms Beirut's famed street

Inside what was once one of Beirut's oldest and best-known cinemas, dozens of Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians displaced by the Israel-Hezbollah war spend their time following the news on their phones, cooking, chatting and walking around to pass the time. Outside on Hamra Street, once a thriving economic hub, sidewalks are filled with displaced people, and hotels and apartments are crammed with those seeking shelter. Cafes and restaurants are overflowing. In some ways, the massive displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from south Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut's southern suburbs has provided a boost for this commercial district after years of decline as a result of Lebanon's economic crisis. But it is not the revival many had hoped for. The displacement revived Hamra Street in a wrong way, said the manager of a four-star hotel on the boulevard, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the problems the influx has caused for the neighbourhood. For th