OVER 50 PEOPLE have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon today in attacks where the Israeli military did not issue advanced evacuation notices.
Lebanon’s health department said 52 people were killed and 72 people were wounded today on strikes in Baalbek-Hermel region, north of Beirut.
Twelve of the victims were killed in the village of Amhaz, it said, while nine were killed in Yunin and eight in Bednayel. It comes as Israeli strikes have intensified all over Lebanon as it continues its offensive against militant group Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, the chief of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon Jean-Pierre Lacroix has said the force believes that there is a greater risk that its area of operations would become occupied if it were to move.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who today secured Government approval to implement a war time budget next year, indicating that fighting will continue for many months to come – has previously demanded that the UN peacekeepers to leave the area.
In the interest of troops’ safety and security, he said, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL) should move five kilometres north of the Blue Line – a demilitarized zone which is observed by peacekeeping forces.
Asked why Lacroix would the UN reject this demand, he said the force believes the area would be occupied by either the Israeli military or Hezbollah militants – severely disrupting the sanctity of the area for the civilian population.
He said the force – which a large number of Irish soldiers are deployed with – have continued to carry out its mandate to maintain peace in the Blue Line region and have been conducting its operations “whenever possible”.
Lacroix added that damage to infrastructure and increasingly intense fighting has severely disrupted its operations however. Peacekeeping forces are clearing roads and paths so that aid and other deliveries can be made to the civilian population, he said.
Since fighting in Lebanon escalated on 23 September, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has killed at least 1,829 people in Lebanon, according to health department figures.
Figures from the UN refugee agency and the Syrian Red Crescent estimate more than 460,000 people have fled Lebanon for neighbouring Syria, while 25,000 have gone on to Iraq.
The UN migration agency warned the number of people still within Lebanon but who are displaced from their homes stood at 842,648 on Wednesday.
Contains reporting from © AFP 2024
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say