Israel, bombings in Beirut and a school in Gaza / Dozens of people are killed

2024-10-11 07:29:52, Kosova & Bota CNA

At least 18 people have been killed and 92 others injured as a result of Israeli bombings in Beirut, Lebanon's Ministry of Health announced Thursday night. Meanwhile, on the same day, the Israeli army killed 27 people during an attack on a school housing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Lebanon's state news agency, NNA, reported two airstrikes in the evening in central Beirut. The first targeted an eight-story building and the second a four-story building, which completely collapsed as a result of the attack, NNA said.

Reuters news agency reported with sources that at least one senior Hezbollah figure was targeted in the attacks. It is the third time the Israeli military has carried out strikes in Beirut since Israel launched a military campaign in southern Lebanon last month against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, raising fears of an all-out regional war.

Earlier on October 10, an Israeli attack on a school in the Gaza Strip killed at least 27 people, Palestinian health officials said, while another Israeli strike hit the headquarters of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, prompting Italy to rebuke the Israeli ambassador in Rome.

The Israeli military said it carried out a "precision strike on the terrorists", who had set up a command center at the school.

"This is another example of how the terrorist organization Hamas systematically abuses civilian infrastructure, in violation of international law," the Israeli military said.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has denied such accusations.

People sheltering in the school said the attack hit aid workers during a meeting and wounded 54 others.

Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza, even as it has widened the war by also fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, at a time of heightened tensions with Iran.

Hezbollah, which controls southern Lebanon, has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union has blacklisted its armed wing but not its political party.

In another incident on October 10, UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon said an Israeli tank opened fire on their headquarters in the town of Naqoura, hitting an observation tower and wounding two peacekeepers. The nationalities of the injured peacekeepers were not disclosed.

The UN peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL said in a statement that Israeli forces also fired at a nearby bunker where the peacekeepers were sheltering, damaging vehicles and a communications system.

Israel continued the attacks despite the United States, Israel's main ally, warning it not to carry out bombings in Lebanon similar to those that have completely destroyed Gaza. Israel launched the war in Gaza in retaliation against Hamas after the group's deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which left more than 1,100 people dead.

Israel's bombardment of central and northern Gaza in recent days has killed dozens of people and trapped thousands in their homes, according to Palestinian officials.

"There should not be any kind of military action in Lebanon that resembles that in Gaza and has consequences similar to those in Gaza," US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on October 9.

The warning came after US President Joe Biden stressed in a telephone conversation on October 9 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the need for a diplomatic agreement to return Lebanese and Israeli civilians to their homes on both sides of the border.

Biden also condemned Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel on Oct. 1, a White House statement said.

Biden "affirmed Israel's right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of rockets into Israel in the past year alone, while stressing the need to minimize harm to civilians, particularly in congested areas of Beirut." , it is stated in the statement./ REL