LAST UPDATE | 5 Oct
ISRAEL HAS EXPANDED its bombardment in Lebanon, hitting Beirut’s southern suburbs with 12 air strikes and striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in northern Lebanon for the first time.
Hezbollah meanwhile said its militants launched rockets today at Israel’s Ramat David air base near the northern city of Haifa, about 45 kilometres from the Lebanese border.
In a statement, the group also said its fighters hit an Israeli tank in south Lebanon, near the border, with a missile.
The strikes come after a hospital in southern Lebanon said it had been shelled by Israeli forces yesterday after being warned to evacuate.
The statement from Salah Ghandour Hospital in the town of Bint Jbeil said the shelling “resulted in nine members of the medical and nursing staff being injured, most of them seriously,” while most of the medical staff were evacuated.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization said 28 health workers in Lebanon had been killed in the past 24 hours.
Israeli bombardment has put at least four hospitals out of service in Lebanon, and on Friday, the first delivery of medical aid organised by the United Nations reached Beirut airport.
In a statement today, the Israeli military its forces struck Hezbollah fighters inside a south Lebanon mosque adjacent to the Salah Ghandour Hospital.
“Overnight, with the direction of IDF (army) intelligence, the IAF (air force) struck Hezbollah terrorists who were operating within a command centre that was located inside a mosque adjacent to the Salah Ghandour Hospital in southern Lebanon,” the military said in a statement.
However, the hospital’s director Mohammed Sleiman said it took a direct hit and was evacuated.
Earlier yesterday, the Israel military in a statement alleged that rescue vehicles were being used by Hezbollah to transport militants and weapons.
The hospital attack comes after an Israeli airstrike cut off a main highway linking Lebanon with Syria, leaving two huge craters on either side of the road.
The airstrike rendered the road unusable for cars, leaving people to go on foot to the Masnaa Border Crossing where tens of thousands of people fleeing war in Lebanon have crossed into Syria in the past two weeks.
Israel began a ground incursion into Lebanon on Tuesday against the Hezbollah militant group, while continuing strikes in Gaza.
The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.
Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response.
More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, most of them since 23 September, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon today said it would not leave positions in the country’s south despite what it said was an Israeli request to “relocate”.
Around 340 Irish troops are part of peacekeeping missions in Lebanon.
“On September 30, the IDF (Israeli military) notified UNIFIL of their intention to undertake limited ground incursions into Lebanon. They also requested we relocate from some of our positions,” the UN Interim Force in Lebanon said.
“Peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly.
“We are regularly adjusting our posture and activities, and we have contingency plans ready to activate if absolutely necessary,” it added.
“We continue to urge Lebanon and Israel to recommit to Security Council Resolution 1701 – in actions, not just word – as the only viable solution to bring back stability in the region,” UNIFIL said.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.
Elsewhere, Hamas said an Israeli strike today killed one of its commanders and his family in a refugee camp in north Lebanon, the first time the area had been hit in the current flare-up.
“Commander” Saeed Attallah Ali, his wife and two daughters were killed in a “bombardment of his house in the Beddawi camp” near the northern city of Tripoli, Hamas said in a statement.
Also on Saturday, Palestinian medical officials say Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza early today have killed at least nine people, including two children.
One strike hit a group of people in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least five people, including two children, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
Another strike hit a house in the northern part of the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four people, the Awda hospital said. The strike also left a number of people wounded, it said.
The Israeli army earlier warned residents to evacuate part of central Gaza, saying the military was preparing to use “great force” against Hamas fighters in the area.
The evacuation call is the first in weeks for Gaza as the Israeli military has largely shifted its focus to fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Hamas and the terrorist organisations continue their terrorist activities within your area and, as a result, the IDF will act with great force against these elements,” the evacuation order posted by the Israeli army said, with an attached map listing the blocks to be evacuated.
Palestinians living in areas near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza have been warned to evacuate under the latest order.
Israel has destroyed large swathes of Gaza since Hamas’s 7 October attack last year, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly pledging to secure total victory over the militants.
-With additional reporting from AFP and Press Association
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