UN mission in Lebanon hit again by explosions

AP:

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said new explosions hit its headquarters Friday, injuring two peacekeepers, a day after Israeli forces targeted the same position and struck central Beirut.

Earlier Friday, cross-border fire from Lebanon killed a young man from Thailand who was working on a farm in the north of Israel.

At least 22 people were killed and 117 wounded in Israeli airstrikes that hit two areas in central Beirut on Thursday night, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The air raid was the deadliest attack on central Beirut in over a year of war, hitting two residential buildings in neighbourhoods that have swelled with displaced people fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in the country.

The strikes came as Israel escalates its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border, after a year of exchanges of fire between the two rivals.

Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, which began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, 2023.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

A year ago, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Lebanon’s crisis response unit announced Friday that 60 people were killed and 168 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,229 killed and 10,380 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The casualty toll was notably higher than previous days, with 22 people killed and 117 wounded in two Israeli strikes on two locations in central Beirut. The strike caused the collapse of two residential buildings housing families and displaced individuals.

The crisis response unit report also recorded 57 airstrikes and incidents of shelling in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

Some 1,032 centres – including educational complexes, vocational institutes, universities and other institutions – are sheltering 187,000 people, including 39,000 families, displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the report said. Among these shelters, 837 have now reached full capacity.