Israel and Hamas at war, day 354 | New Israeli strikes on Lebanon the day after a deadly day

(Beirut) Israel carried out new deadly strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Tuesday, after the bombings which left more than 550 dead the day before and raised fears of a flare-up in the region almost a year after the start of the war in Gaza.

“Lebanon is on the brink,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the UN General Assembly in New York, which opened as military escalation worsens between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, backed by Iran and allied with Palestinian Hamas.

The situation in the Gaza Strip “is a permanent nightmare that threatens to drag the entire region into chaos. Starting with Lebanon,” added Antonio Guterres, calling for an “immediate” ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

On Tuesday, a new strike hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, one of Hezbollah’s strongholds, destroying two floors of a building located in a densely populated area, according to an AFP photographer. Six people were killed, according to a provisional report from the Lebanese authorities.

The army announced that it had struck Beirut as well as “dozens of Hezbollah targets” in southern Lebanon, and targeted the Islamist movement’s infrastructure and weapons.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing Fadi 2 missiles at Israel and announced that it had targeted military sites near Haifa, the major northern port, including an “explosives factory” about 60 kilometers from the Lebanese border, as well as the town of Kiryat Shmona.

In Haifa, which was overflown by fighter jets, schools, universities and shops remained closed on Tuesday, according to an AFP journalist.

Monday’s bombardments, of an intensity unprecedented since the start of the exchange of fire on the Israeli-Lebanese border in October 2023, targeted around 1,600 Hezbollah targets, according to the army, in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in the east.

The strikes left 558 dead, including 50 children and 94 women, and 1,835 wounded, according to Lebanese authorities. The Israeli army spoke of a “large number” of Hezbollah members killed.

Tens of thousands of people, according to the UN, have fled the bombed areas, seeking refuge in Saida, the largest city in the south, or in Beirut. Others have taken the road to Syria.

On Tuesday, long lines of cars were blocked on the road leading to the capital. In Saida, people formed queues in front of gas stations and bakeries.

“Day of Terror”

“It was a day of terror,” Thuraya Harb, a 41-year-old Lebanese woman who took refuge near Beirut after an eight-hour journey from her southern village of Toul, told AFP.

“I didn’t want to leave, but the children were scared and we left, with nothing but the clothes we were wearing,” added the woman, dressed in a long black dress and her hair covered with a veil.

The head of a health center in Saksakiyeh, near Sidon, described scenes of horror.

There were “many dead: children, women, people whose limbs, noses or hands had been torn off, their heads broken”, others who were “disemboweled”, declared Doctor Moussa Youssef, stressing that “90% of the wounded” who arrived at the center “were children”.

Israel had announced in recent days that the centre of gravity of the war was moving to the north of the country in order to allow the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that Hezbollah was experiencing its “most difficult week since its creation” in 1982.

Hezbollah has vowed to continue attacking Israel “until the end of the aggression in Gaza,” where the war was triggered on October 7, 2023, by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israeli soil. Since then, exchanges of fire have not stopped along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

These shots have gained in intensity since the wave of deadly explosions of Hezbollah transmission devices, attributed to Israel, on September 17 and 18 in Lebanon, then an Israeli strike on September 20 on the southern suburbs of Beirut, which decapitated the movement’s elite unit.

“Working towards de-escalation”

While the UN has said it fears “an imminent catastrophe” in the region, US President Joe Biden, who will deliver his last speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, has reaffirmed that he is “working towards de-escalation”.

The United States opposes a ground invasion of Lebanon and will present “concrete ideas” to its partners at the United Nations this week to ease the conflict, a senior U.S. official said.

Iran’s new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, told CNN on Tuesday that Hezbollah could “not stand alone” against Israel and that the international community “must not allow Lebanon to become a new Gaza in the hands of Israel.”

France has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, while Iraq has requested an “urgent meeting” of Arab countries.

Despite the general concern, both sides understand the risks of a full-scale war, says Israeli political analyst Michael Horowitz.

“It is an extremely dangerous situation, but in my opinion there is still room for diplomacy to avoid the worst,” he explained to AFP.

The war in the Gaza Strip broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel that killed 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.

Of the 251 people abducted, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 declared dead by the army.

In retaliation, Israel has vowed to destroy the Palestinian Islamist movement, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organisation, as do the United States and the European Union.

His army launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed 41,467 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN. It has also caused a humanitarian disaster there.