Lebanon has been ravaged by war for over a year, but more intensely since September when Israel stepped up its violence [Getty/file photo]
Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell called for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war in Lebanon while on a visit to the country on Sunday.
A day after the health ministry said Israeli strikes on Beirut and across Lebanon killed 84 people, state media reported two strikes on Sunday on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Israel’s military claimed it had attacked “headquarters” of the Hezbollah “hidden within civilian structures” in south Beirut.
The Israeli military said Iran-backed Hezbollah fired around 160 projectiles into Israel during the day. Some of them were intercepted but others caused damage to houses in central Israel, according to AFP images.
Israel’s violence in Lebanon escalated in late September, nearly a year after Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging cross-border fire in parallel with the war in Gaza on October 7 last year, which has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians.Â
At least 3,754 people in Lebanon have been killed since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.
Earlier this week, US special envoy Amos Hochstein said in Lebanon that a truce deal was “within our grasp”, and then headed to Israel for talks with officials there.
In the Lebanese capital, Borrell held talks with parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of ally Hezbollah.
“We see only one possible way ahead: an immediate ceasefire and the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701,” Borrell said.
“Lebanon is on the brink of collapse”, he warned.
Under Resolution 1701, which ended the last Hezbollah-Israel war of 2006, Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only armed forces present in the southern border area.
The resolution also called for Israel to withdraw troops from Lebanon, and reiterated earlier calls for “disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon.”
The Lebanese army maintains a presence across the country’s territory, but it is Hezbollah – one of the world’s best-armed non-state forces – that holds sway in key areas along the border with Israel.
While the Lebanese army is not engaged in the Israel’s war on the country, it has suffered multiple fatalities, the latest coming on Sunday.
The army said an Israeli strike on a military post killed one soldier and wounded 18 others.
Also on Sunday, Hezbollah said it launched attacks using missiles and drones directed at a naval base in southern Israel and military sites in the central Tel Aviv area.
It said it had “launched, for the first time, an aerial attack using a swarm of strike drones on the Ashdod naval base”, one its deepest targets so far.
Hezbollah also said its fighters had launched a volley of missiles at the Glilot military intelligence base on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, a facility it has announced previous attacks against.
The Israeli military did not comment on the specific claims, but it said earlier that air raid sirens had sounded in several areas, including in the Tel Aviv suburbs.
The wave of projectiles follows at least four deadly Israeli strikes in central Beirut in the past week, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
Israeli strikes have also targeted the city’s southern suburbs on a near-daily basis for the past two weeks, but were briefly halted during US envoy Hochstein’s visit.
On Sunday, the official National News Agency said “Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs”, after the Israeli military posted warnings online.
AFPTV footage showed grey smoke billowing over the area, with the news agency reporting “massive destruction”.
On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said a drone strike had seriously wounded a hospital chief in an attack on the health care facility, while Israeli raids killed 11 people across the territory.
Hossam Abu Safiya heads the Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating facilities in northern Gaza, where the UN has decried “catastrophic” humanitarian conditions.
Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 44,211 people, in actions described as war crimes and genocide.
Criticism of Israel has mounted over its conduct of the war.
On a visit to Damascus on Sunday, UN special envoy Geir Pedersen said it was “extremely critical” to achieve regional de-escalation and ensure that “Syria is not further dragged into this”.
Israel has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria during its war with Hezbollah. A war monitor said an air raid this week on the city of Palmyra killed 105 people, the vast majority of them pro-Iran fighters.
