Israel Steps Up Air Strikes in Lebanon as War in North Escalates --[Reported by Umva mag]

(Bloomberg) — Israel stepped up air strikes on Lebanon and said a senior Hezbollah commander in the south of the country had been killed, the latest escalation of its conflict with the Iran-backed militant group.

The Israeli military reported the assassination of Hezbollah’s head of the Qana area on Wednesday. Earlier, Lebanese officials said Israeli strikes on the town of Nabatieh killed six people including the local mayor. 

Interior Minister Bassam Al Mawlawi said the assault hit a municipality building during a meeting to coordinate relief efforts for the area, adding that members of the civil defense organization were among the dead. The Israel Defense Forces said it hit dozens of targets in the area including military warehouses, which it said were located near civilian buildings.

Israeli jets also struck Beirut for the first time in almost a week, just hours after Lebanon’s prime minister said the US had assured him that Israeli attacks on the capital would ease. 

The mounting campaign comes after the US linked its military support to Israel to the provision of humanitarian aid in Gaza, warning Israeli ministers that a law may require limiting military support if they don’t allow more help to reach the besieged Palestinian territory within 30 days. Fifty trucks of aid were let into northern Gaza on Wednesday, the IDF said on X.

The World Food Programme says 96% of Gaza’s population faces acute levels of food insecurity after a year of war between Israel and Hamas, another Iran-backed group, which controls the enclave. 

Israel has stepped up attacks on Hamas in Gaza in recent days, and 65 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours, according to officials with the Hamas-run health ministry. 

The US wants a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Lebanon but has no “active call” for a cease-fire there, State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.

At least 1,600 people have been killed in the country since Israel started its air campaign against Hezbollah almost a month ago, according to health officials there. The death toll likely includes some Hezbollah fighters, as officials usually don’t differentiate between combatants and civilians.

The government announced its first confirmed cholera case since the Israeli invasion. Lebanon had reported 18 cases of the disease and two probable deaths in the north of the country in 2022, the first outbreak in nearly three decades, according to the World Health Organization.

According to the UN’s refugee agency, Israel has told people in a quarter of Lebanon’s territory to move, with 1.2 million people displaced by the conflict. Even more – around 1.9 million – have been displaced in Gaza by the war with Hamas, which like Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US.

Iran, the main backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah, is on a diplomatic push to gather regional support as it braces for Israel’s response to its firing of 200 ballistic missiles at the country on Oct. 1. 

Israel and the US have been conferring regularly on how to retaliate, a dilemma that’s jangled nerves across the Middle East and in energy markets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the country is free to act as it chooses in a counter-strike, while the US is urging it to avoid hitting nuclear and energy facilities.

The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “emphasized the need for collective action by the countries of the region” to stop Israel and prevent the expansion of the war according to a ministry statement on his meeting with his Jordanian counterpart in Amman on Wednesday. He also plans to visit Egypt and Turkey.

Jordan helped to thwart Iran’s last missile and drone barrage against Israel, shooting down several projectiles that flew over its territory in April.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization sees an attack on the country’s nuclear sites as “very unlikely,” spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told Nour News on Wednesday, saying that it was no longer possible for such strikes to set back its atomic program.

—With assistance from Sherif Tarek, Dana Khraiche and Omar Tamo.

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