Residents and rescuers gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon on November 18, 2024.Hussein Malla/The Associated Press
An Israeli air strike late Monday slammed into a densely populated residential area in Lebanon’s capital close to the UN headquarters, parliament, the prime minister’s office and several embassies.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two missiles hit the area of Zoqaq al-Blat neighbourhood of Beirut. The strike comes following reports that the U.S. envoy has delayed his visit for ceasefire talks.
Ambulance sirens echoed through the area, but no official casualty figures have been released. A reporter with the Associated Press at the scene described significant casualties on the street.
The target of the air strike remains unclear, and the Israeli army did not issue a prior warning.
Many areas in central Beirut, including Zoqaq al-Blat, became a refuge for many displaced by the ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut. The strike also occurred near a Hussainiye, a Shia mosque.
It was the second consecutive day of Israeli strikes on central Beirut after more than a month-long pause. On Sunday, a strike in the area of Ras el-Nabaa killed Hezbollah media spokesperson Mohammed Afif, along with six other people, including a woman. Later that day, four people were killed in a separate strike in the commercial district of Mar Elias. It remains unclear what the target of that strike was.
The Israeli military did not have immediate comment.
Minutes after the strike, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a post on X, “All countries and decision-makers are required to end the bloody and destructive Israeli aggression on Lebanon and implement international resolutions, most notably Resolution 1701.”
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, was intended to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. However, the resolution’s full implementation has faced challenges from both sides.
The resolution is again on the table as part of an American proposal for a ceasefire deal, aiming to end 13 months of exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Israeli forces would fully withdraw while the Lebanese army and UNIFIL – Hezbollah excluded – would be the exclusive armed presence south of Lebanon’s Litani River.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said one woman was killed and 10 wounded in a Hezbollah rocket attack that hit northern Israel.
According to paramedics who arrived at the scene, one woman was killed instantly and 10 others were injured after a rocket struck a four-story building in the northern Israeli city of Shfaram.
The Israeli military said the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah had launched more than 100 projectiles toward Israel on Monday.
Meanwhile, Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed 20 Palestinians on Monday, including six people in attacks on tents housing displaced families, medics said.
Four people, two of them children, were killed in an Israeli air strike on a tent encampment in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, which is designated as a humanitarian zone, while two died in temporary shelters in the southern city of Rafah and another in drone fire, Gaza health officials said.
In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, medics said an Israeli missile struck a house, killing at least two people and wounding several others. On Sunday, medics and residents said dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli air strike on a multifloor residential building in the town.
Another air strike on a house in Gaza City killed seven people and wounded 10, medics said. Later on Monday, an Israeli air strike killed four people in the Nuseirat camp in the central area of the coastal enclave, they added.
The Israeli military, which has been fighting Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October, 2023, in a war that has left Gaza in ruins, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Monday’s incidents.
On Sunday, the military said it had conducted strikes on “terrorist targets” in Beit Lahiya. Israel accuses Hamas and allied militants of operating within residential areas including hospitals for cover. Hamas denies using the civilian population and facilities for military purposes.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli strikes had killed 76 Palestinians across the territory over the past 24 hours.
In Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, relatives of Palestinians killed in an air strike on tents housing displaced families sat beside bodies wrapped in blankets and white shrouds to pay farewell before walking them to graves.
“My brother wasn’t the only one; many others have been martyred in this brutal way – children torn to pieces, civilians shredded. They weren’t carrying weapons or even knew ‘the resistance,’ yet they were ripped apart into fragments,” said Mohammed Aboul Hassan, who lost his brother in the attack.
“We remain steadfast, patient and resilient, and by the will of God, we will never falter. We will stay steadfast and patient,” he told Reuters.
The Israeli army sent tanks and soldiers into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, early last month in what it said was a campaign to fight regrouping Hamas militants mounting guerrilla-style, hit-and-run attacks.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, said it was under siege by Israeli forces and the World Health Organization had been unable to deliver supplies of food, medicine and surgical equipment.
Cases of malnutrition among children are increasing, he said, and the hospital was operating at a minimal level.
“We receive daily distress calls, but we are unable to assist them due to the lack of ambulances, and the situation is catastrophic,” he said. “Yesterday, I received a distress call from women and children trapped under the rubble, and due to my inability to help them, they are now among the martyrs [dead].”
Later on Monday, COGAT, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, said it facilitated the delivery of 10,000 litres of fuel and 149 packages of medical equipment to hospitals in northern Gaza on Sunday.
It also said it permitted the transfer of 64 patients and their companions from Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda Hospitals to functioning hospitals elsewhere in the enclave.
Israel said it had killed hundreds of militants in the three northern areas, which residents said were cut off from Gaza City, making it difficult and dangerous for them to flee. The armed wings of Hamas and allied militant group Islamic Jihad said they had killed many Israeli soldiers in anti-tank rocket and mortar fire attacks during the same period.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says more than 43,800 people have been confirmed killed, and almost the entire 2.3 million population displaced, since the war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023.
That day, Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in cross-border attacks on communities in southern Israel, and continue to hold dozens of some 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Emergency teams work at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood in Beirut on Nov. 18.IBRAHIM AMRO/AFP/Getty Images
In other news, nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted on Nov. 16 after entering Gaza in one of the worst aid losses during 13 months of war in the enclave, where hunger is deepening, two UN agencies told Reuters on Monday.
The convoy transporting food provided by UN agencies UNRWA and the World Food Programme was instructed by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from Kerem Shalom border crossing, said Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer.
Ninety-eight of the 109 trucks in the convoy were raided and some of the transporters were injured during the incident, she said, without detailing who carried out the ambush.
“This … highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza,” she told Reuters.
“The urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated; without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen, further endangering the lives of over two million people who depend on humanitarian aid to survive.”
The Hamas TV channel Al-Aqsa quoted Hamas Interior Ministry sources in Gaza as saying that more than 20 gang members involved in looting aid trucks were killed during an operation carried out by Hamas security forces in co-ordination with tribal committees.
It said anyone caught aiding such looting would be treated with “an iron fist.”
A WFP spokesperson confirmed the looting and said that many routes in Gaza were currently impassable due to security issues.
An Israeli official said Israel had been working to address the humanitarian situation since the start of its war against Hamas, adding that the main problem with aid deliveries was UN distribution challenges.
A UN aid official said on Friday that access for aid to Gaza had reached a low point, with deliveries to parts of the Israeli-besieged north of the enclave all but impossible. Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza was triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.
With reports from the Associated Press
Widespread shortages and months of grinding war in Gaza have generated a trade in old clothing, much of it salvaged from under the rubble in the wrecked enclave, as Palestinians find ways to survive more than a year since Israel started its relentless bombardments.
Reuters