Israeli strike hits north Lebanon as raids pummel Beirut suburbs

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi landed in Syria on Oct 5 for talks after a visit to Lebanon, in which he reiterated support for Lebanon and Hezbollah.

In Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, many buildings have been reduced to rubble. “We’re alive but don’t know for how long,” said Mr Nouhad Chaib, a 40-year-old man already displaced from the south.

On Oct 4, Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets into Israel, according to the Israeli military, and air raid sirens continued to sound in its north on Oct 5.

The latest bloodletting in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered by the Palestinian Hamas group’s attack on Oct 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 and in which about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly all of Gaza’s population.

The Lebanese government has accused Israel of targeting civilians, pointing to dozens of women and children killed. It has not broken its total death toll down between civilians and Hezbollah fighters.

Israel says it targets military capabilities and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. It accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.

Israel, which began ground operations targeting southern Lebanon this week, says they are focussed on villages near the border and has said Beirut “was not on the table”, but has not specified how long the ground incursion would last.

It says the operations aim to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments, which began on Oct 8, 2023, forced them to evacuate from its north.

Iran’s missile salvo was partly in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Nasrallah, a dominant figure who had turned the group into a powerful armed and political force with reach across the Middle East.

Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying that Hashem Safieddine, rumoured to be Nasrallah’s successor, had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut on the night of Oct 3, but his fate was not clear.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted a photo of Safieddine and Nasrallah on X on Oct 5 and urged Mr Khamenei to “take your proxies and leave Lebanon”.

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