Traffic jams at Syria border as families flee Southern Lebanon, UN Security Council to hold emergency meet today
People fleeing Israeli bombings in Lebanon wait to cross the border with Syria through the Masnaa crossing in eastern Lebanon. AFP
Gulf Today Report
Families have fled southern Lebanon, flocking to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools turned into shelters, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the border with Syria.
Israel said late on Tuesday that fighter jets carried out "extensive strikes” on Hezbollah weapons and rocket launchers across southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa region to the north. The military has said it has no immediate plans for a ground invasion but has declined to give a timetable for the air campaign.
Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese group have steadily escalated over the last 11 months. Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and its ally Hamas, a fellow Iran-backed group.
Israel has responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders while threatening a wider operation.
Emergency meeting
The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting on Lebanon for Wednesday at the request of France.
Nearly a year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel had already displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before this week’s escalation. Israel has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will keep up its rocket attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, something which appears increasingly remote.
The rocket fire over the past week has disrupted life for over 1 million people across northern Israel, with schools closed and restrictions on public gatherings. Many restaurants and other businesses are shut in the coastal city of Haifa, and there are fewer people on the streets. Some who fled south from communities near the border are coming under rocket fire again.
Israel has moved thousands of troops who had been serving in Gaza to the northern border. It says
Cross-border weapons firing began ramping up on Sunday in the wake of the pager and walkie-talkie bombings, which killed 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility.
On Sunday, Hezbollah launched around 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel.
The next day, Israel said its warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, including weapons concealed in private homes. The strikes racked up the highest one-day death toll in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bruising monthlong war in 2006.
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday killed Ibrahim Kobeisi, whom Israel described as a top Hezbollah commander with the group’s rocket and missile unit. Military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for launches toward Israel and planned a 2000 attack in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed. Hezbollah later confirmed his death.
UN staffer, young son killed
It was the latest in a string of assassinations and other setbacks for Hezbollah, which is Lebanon's strongest political and military actor and is widely considered the top paramilitary force in the Arab world.
lebanon’s Health Ministry said six people were killed and 15 were wounded in the strike in a southern Beirut suburb, an area where Hezbollah has a strong presence. The country’s National News Agency said the attack destroyed three floors of a six-storey apartment building.
The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon said one of its staffers and her young son were among those killed on Monday in the Bekaa region, while a cleaner under contract was killed in a strike in the south.
Hezbollah fired 300 rockets on Tuesday, injuring six Israeli soldiers and civilians, most of them lightly, according to the Israeli military.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 564 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Monday, including 50 children and 94 women, and that more than 1,800 have been wounded, a staggering toll for a country still reeling from the deadly pager and walkie-talkie bombings last week.
