Reuters
The Israeli military said the leader of Hezbollah’s rocket forces was killed in an attack in Beirut on Tuesday.
Lebanon’s health minister described what is happening in the country as a “carnage” as hospitals struggle to cope with the high number of casualties from two days of widespread Israeli air strikes targeting the militant group Hezbollah.
Dr Firas Abiad told the BBC it was “clear” that many of the 550 people killed in Monday’s attacks were civilians, including children and women.
Israel said it had attacked hundreds of Hezbollah positions, accusing the group of hiding weapons in residential areas.
The Israeli army said on Tuesday it had killed the commander of Hezbollah’s rocket forces in continuing attacks, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah was leading Lebanon into the “abyss”.
Hezbollah responded by firing more than 300 rockets into northern Israel, wounding six people, the military said.
Neither side appears willing to budge, but US President Joe Biden told the UN General Assembly that all-out conflict “is in no one’s interest” and that “a diplomatic solution is still possible.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the world cannot allow Lebanon to become another Gaza.”
Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, sparked by the war in Gaza, has lasted for almost a year, leaving hundreds of people on both sides of the border dead – most of them Hezbollah fighters – and forcing tens of thousands to flee.
Hezbollah has acted in support of Hamas and has said it will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Both groups are backed by Iran and are banned as terrorist organisations by Israel, Britain and other countries.
Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley on Monday marked the country’s deadliest single day at least since 2006, the last war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Among the 558 people killed were 50 children, 94 women and several medical workers, Abiad said at a press conference on Tuesday. Another 1,835 people who were injured were currently being treated in more than 50 hospitals, he added.
Speaking later to the BBC, the Health Secretary described what had happened as a “genocide”.
“When you look at the people being taken to the emergency room, it’s clear that they are civilians. They are not combatants as Israel claims,” he said.
“We know about the victims of the attack because our ambulances took them to the hospital,” he added. “They were civilians living normal lives.”
Abiad compared the current hostilities to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, saying it would “certainly be a much crueler war, especially in terms of the targeting of civilians.”
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also expressed concern at the number of deaths and injuries from Monday’s attack, which it said may violate international humanitarian law.
Asked by journalists about audio and text messages the Israeli military sent telling Lebanese people to evacuate areas near buildings where Hezbollah is storing weapons, spokeswoman Lavina Shamdasani said: “Telling civilians to flee does not justify attacking those areas with full knowledge that the consequences for civilians will be devastating.”
Roads in southern Lebanon were also clogged for a second day as thousands more people fled north to escape Israeli attacks, making journeys that normally take an hour take more than 12 hours.
Speaking from a shelter in Beirut, 65-year-old Mariam told the BBC she had been traveling all night in a small car with 12 other relatives.
“We got together and left. We didn’t want to leave because it’s hard,” she said. “We got here at 4 in the morning with our kids. We left for the kids.”
EPA
Hezbollah rockets cause damage and injuries in northern Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to the intelligence base that Israel would “continue its attacks on Hezbollah until it achieves its war objective: to return displaced people along our northern border to their homes.”
He also addressed the Lebanese people, insisting that “our fight is not against you” and warning that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was “leading you into the abyss.”
“I said yesterday that any house that has a missile in the living room and a rocket in the garage should be evacuated. Anyone with a missile in the living room and a rocket in the garage will no longer have a home,” he said.
Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said at an evening briefing that Hezbollah had turned southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley into a “war zone” and that aircraft were continuing to strike targets there throughout Tuesday.
He also released video footage that showed a secondary explosion during the attack on the house, suggesting that a truck loaded with missiles and rocket launchers was being stored inside.
Haghari also said that Hezbollah’s missile and rocket force commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi, was killed in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern outskirts on Tuesday afternoon, along with at least two other commanders who were with him at the time.
He added that Qubaisi was a “key figure in launching the missiles” and was “responsible for a series of attacks on Israeli territory.”
The Lebanese Health Ministry said the top two floors of an apartment building in Beirut’s Ghobeiri district were partially destroyed in an “attack by Israeli enemies,” leaving six people dead and 15 injured.
There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah, but a source close to the group confirmed to AFP that Qubaisi had been killed.
But Hezbollah says its fighters have fired barrages of rockets at more than a dozen Israeli towns, military bases and explosives factories, and it has also claimed new rockets were used in an attack on the IDF’s Samson Unit.
Sirens rang out throughout the day in northern Israel and interceptor rockets fired from Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system were seen soaring into the sky.
Haghari said some of the roughly 300 rockets fired landed in the area, wounding six civilians and soldiers, most of them with minor injuries.
