By The Independent (World News) | Created at 2024-10-03 12:20:26 | Updated at 2024-10-05 15:18:07
2 days ago
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At least nine people have been killed after Israeli launched an airstrike in Beirut, targeting a building near the parliament, making it the closest an air assault has come to the central downtown district.
Lebanese health officials said seven people were wounded, while a photo circulated online showed a heavily damaged building with the first floor on fire.
The Israeli military have also issued fresh evacutation warnings for residents in 25 towns in the southern regions, telling them to leave immediately to “save your lives”.
It comes after Israel suffered its first military casualties in its ground invasion of southern Lebanon, with eight Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers killed in intense clashes against Hezbollah.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to defeat Iran’s “Axis of Evil”, saying: “We are at the height of a difficult war... we will stand together and with God’s help, we will win together.”
Hezbollah confirmed it was engaged in clashes with Israeli forces, claiming to have destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks.
Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden stated that the US will not support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites, saying, “the answer is no” following Iran’s missile attacks on Israel after its invasion of Lebanon.
Hezbollah says it has detonated bomb against IDF
Militant group Hezbollah says it has detonated a bomb against Israeli forces infiltrating a southern Lebanese village.
Holly Evans3 October 2024 12:49
Iran rejects G7 statement on Iran's attack against Israel as 'biased'
Iran has accused the G7 of being “biased and irresponsible” after the group condemned its attack on Israel, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Iran launched more than 180 missiles at Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for the killings of militant leaders and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.
Abbas Nilforoushan, a deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was also killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut a week ago that killed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
In a statement on Wednesday, Group of Seven (G7) leaders condemned Tehran’s attack. They expressed “strong concern” over the crisis in the Middle East but said a diplomatic solution was still viable and a region-wide conflict was in no one’s interest.
Holly Evans3 October 2024 12:46
Russia begins evacuating citizens from Lebanon
Russia has started evacuating citizens from Lebanon and a special flight left Beirut on Thursday with the family members of Russian diplomats, Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov said.
About 60 people will arrive in Russia from Lebanon on Thursday, his ministry said.
“The evacuation is carried out on the instructions of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the ministry said.
Russia often also helps evacuate citizens from other former Soviet republics in such situations.
Holly Evans3 October 2024 12:22
Second evacuation flight scheduled for Thursday afternoon
A second UK government evacuation flight is on its way to Beirut. Up to 180 British citizens and their dependents are likely to board the charter jet to Birmingham via Bucharest.
Flight DN9999 will repeat the pattern of Wednesday’s first flight, and uses the same plane, belonging to the Romanian airline, Dan Air. It is a 15-year-old Airbus A320 – a standard low-cost jet equipped with 180 seats. After an overnight stop in Birmingham, it is heading back empty nonstop to Beirut.
On Thursday afternoon it is scheduled to depart from Beirut at 3.40pm, Lebanese time, with another technical stop at Bucharest to refuel and change crew.
More evacuation flights are planned. The government says they “will continue for as long as the security situation allows”.
Simon Calder3 October 2024 11:57
Death toll from Beirut strike rises to nine
Lebanon’s health ministry have said that at least nine people were killed in an Israeli strike in central Beirut.
DNA tests on remains are currently ongoing to identify those killed, while people were injured in the strike on an amartment building. Hezbollah said that seven paramedics and rescue workers from its medical arm the Islamic Health Committee were killed in the strike that hit its office in Bashoura.
Prior to the attack, the ministry said that 55 people were killed and 156 others were wounded in Israeli strikes over Lebanon on Wednesday.
Holly Evans3 October 2024 11:45
Israeli military warns more southern Lebanon residents to evacuate
The Israeli military have warned citizens in 25 more areas in southern Lebanon to evacuate and head north.
In a new update on social media, the Israel Defence Forces’ Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee urged civilians to “save your lives”.
Holly Evans3 October 2024 11:29
Netanyahu knows Western allies can do little about his Lebanon invasion – it is up to him how far this goes
Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly in New York last Friday was a bombastic defence of Israel’s war in Gaza and the cross-border exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since 7 October.
The starkest message Netanyahu wanted to send was to Iran, Israel’s bitter enemy and supporter of both Hamas and Hezbollah. The Israeli leader warned that there was nowhere in Iran or across the Middle East at large that Israel’s military could not reach. It was a message that he would repeat on Monday just hours ahead of his forces crossing Israel’s northern border – the beginning of the first invasion into Lebanon since the 2006 war with Hezbollah.
But that UN speech would have sent an equally stark message to Washington. Less than 48 hours before his address, US officials were briefing that America, alongside a number of other allies, had thrashed out a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire. Washington felt secure enough to go public with it, with officials suggesting it would be a case of when, not if, both Israel and Hezbollah signed on.
Read the full analysis here:
Holly Evans3 October 2024 11:25
UK government charters more flights to help UK nationals
The UK government have chartered more flights to help UK nationals leave Lebanon, a day after an evacuation flight left Beirut.
The government said in a statement that the flights will continue as “long as the security situation allows” and that it’s working to increase capacity on commercial flights for British nationals.
Defence secretary John Healey visited a British military base on Cyprus on Wednesday, where around 700 troops, Foreign Office staff and Border Force officers have been deployed to help with evacuation plans.
British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under the age of 18 are eligible. Dependents who aren’t British nationals will need a valid visa granting a maximum six-month stay in the U.K.
Holly Evans3 October 2024 11:15
Watch live: Lebanese refugees fleeing Israeli strikes arrive in Turkey
Holly Evans3 October 2024 11:03
At least 41,788 killed in Gaza, says health ministry
At least 41,788 Palestinians have been killed and another 96,794 wounded by Israeli military action in Gaza since Oct. 7, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry have said.
Ninety-nine Palestinians have been killed and 169 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
Medics said scores of people were killed a day before in an Israeli strike that hit a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City, while another struck the Al-Amal Orphan Society, which also houses displaced persons.
Holly Evans3 October 2024 10:52
