182 Dead, 727 Wounded In Israeli Strikes On Hezbollah: Netanyahu On ‘Security Balance’

AFP/APP

Beirut, Lebanon: Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon killed 182 people and wounded 727 others on Monday, in by far the deadliest cross-border escalation since war erupted in Gaza on October 7.

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, Israeli enemy strikes on southern towns and villages since this morning and children, women and health workers are among the casualties.

War began when Palestinian group Hamas carried out the worst-ever attack on Israel, with Hezbollah and other groups around the region drawn into the violence. On Monday, Israel said it had hit more than 300 Hezbollah sites with dozens of strikes, while Hezbollah said it had targeted three sites in northern Israel.

World powers have implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply in recent days from Israel’s southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon.

Israel changing ‘security balance’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel was not waiting threats to emerge but was pre-empting them and was acting to change the “security balance” in the north.

Hezbollah Deputy Chief Naim Qassem stated that the group was in a “new phase, namely an open reckoning” with Israel, and ready for “all military possibilities”.

They spoke after Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel caused damage in Haifa, a major city on Israel’s north coast.

Meanwhile, Israeli Military Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told people in Lebanon to avoid potential targets linked to Hezbollah as strikes would “go on for the near future”.

Hagari said Israel’s military would engage in (more) extensive and precise strikes against targets which had been embedded widely throughout Lebanon. He told civilians to immediately move out of harm’s way for their own safety.

The Israeli military also warned people living in the Bekaa valley, in eastern Lebanon, to flee their homes, as it announced it was “broadening” the scope of its strikes.

In divided Lebanon, large parts of the south and east of the country, as well as the southern suburbs of capital city Beirut, are seen as strongholds of Hezbollah, where the group has historically wielded influence.

The official National News Agency said Lebanese had received phone messages from Israel telling them to “quickly evacuate”.

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, says it is acting in its near-daily battle with Israeli troops along Lebanon’s border in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.          

Another Gaza?

“We sleep and wake up to bombardment… that’s what our life has become,” said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the southern Lebanese village of Zawtar.

On Sunday morning, hundreds of thousands of people in northern Israel fled to their bomb shelters as Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets across the border. The attack came after an Israeli air strike in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold on Friday killed its elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, along with other commanders and civilians.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nations and world powers to deter what he called Israel’s “plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns”.

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier, said his administration is “going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out”.

Ahead of the annual General Assembly in New York, UN Chief Antonio Guterres warned of Lebanon becoming “another Gaza” and said both sides are not interested in a ceasefire there.