Israel was accused of ‘dragging the entire region into chaos’ after it pounded Lebanon with air strikes on Monday, killing at least 356 people, including 24 children, according to the Lebanese government. Turkey joined Egypt in calling on Israel to halt its northern offensive as thousands of people were displaced from the suburbs in a desperate push to reach the capital – before Beirut too fell under heavy Israeli fire.
Harrowing video showed salvoes of IDF missiles hitting villages in the south, near the border with Israel in the deadliest cross-border exchange since the Gaza War erupted. But as residents fled north, traffic caught in gridlock near Sidon was hit by a ‘strike’ landing ‘about 200 metres’ from Sky News reporters. Hellish scenes prompted fury from regional powers, warning the escalation risked dragging the Middle East into a wider war. Egypt urged the United Nations to intervene – as the peace body’s chief said he was ‘gravely alarmed’ by the civilian casualties. Senior Hezbollah commander Ali Karaki was the target of strikes deeper into Lebanon on Monday, a senior security source told Reuters. Hezbollah said the commander was alive and had been moved to safety in a statement.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, told a televised news conference late on Monday that Israel was prepared for a full ground invasion of Lebanon if needed. He said Israel is ‘not looking for wars’ but would do ‘whatever is necessary’ to ensure its security after months of back-and-forth with Hezbollah, based out of southern Lebanon. Asked if this could spell a full-scale war with Lebanon, he said: ‘Is the army prepared? Yes. The army is in full readiness, and we will do whatever is necessary to bring back home all our citizens to the northern border safely.’
He added that the IDF makes ‘vast efforts not to hit civilians and make every effort to mitigate harm to civilians during operational activity’. ‘Regarding the high number of casualties, every one is a tragedy in Lebanon,’ he said. Health Minister Firass Abiad said ‘thousands of families’ had been displaced by the shelling so far. ‘We sleep and wake up to bombardment… that’s what our life has become,’ said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the southern village of Zawtar. World powers implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply from Israel’s southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a direct warning against escalating conflict that ‘Israel’s attacks on Lebanon mark a new phase in its efforts to drag the entire region into chaos’. An outspoken critic of Israel’s offensive in response to the attack by Hamas militants that sparked the war, Turkey urged the international community to intervene. ‘It is imperative that all institutions responsible for maintaining international peace and security, especially the United Nations Security Council, as well as the international community, take the necessary measures without delay,’ the foreign ministry said. ‘The countries that unconditionally support Israel are helping (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu shed blood for his political interests,’ it said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is due to address the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, is expected to focus on the Gaza war. Egypt, whose relationship with its northern neighbour has been further strained by the war in Gaza, called on the UN to intervene over the escalation. Cairo, having played a key role in mediating between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, said that further conflict ‘threatens to drag the region into a comprehensive regional war’. Iran echoed Israel’s neighbours, new president Masoud Pezeshkian telling reporters that Israel was seeking ‘all-out conflict’ in the region. ‘We know more than anyone else that if a larger war were to erupt in the Middle East, it will not benefit anyone throughout the world. It is Israel that seeks to create this all-out conflict,’ he said.
Tensions escalated dramatically after pagers and walkie-talkies ostensibly used by Hezbollah members exploded on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, causing thousands of injuries and numerous deaths. Hezbollah attributed blame to Israel and launched rockets south before Israel denied involvement. Experts believe Israel may have intercepted the devices and strapped them with explosives before they arrived in Lebanon to replace mobile phones deemed susceptible to Israeli hacking. The Iranian proxy group has continued to fire rockets into Israel in recent days, including long-range missiles for the first time in the escalating conflict, with the Israeli Prime Minister warning the group: ‘Whoever hurts us, we will hurt him more’.
In an indication that the region is sliding ever-closer to an all-out war, Benjamin Netanyahu added that his country faces ‘complicated days’ and called on Israelis to stay united as the campaign in Lebanon unfolded. ‘I promised that we would change the security balance, the balance of power in the north – that is exactly what we are doing,’ he said in a message issued following a situational assessment with top brass at the military headquarters in Tel Aviv. Israel is aiming to ‘broadly neutralise’ the threat posed by Lebanon’s long-range missiles, according to veteran analyst Ehud Ya’ari. He told the country’s Channel 12 that the militant group – proscribed as terrorists by the UK, US and others – has built up an arsenal of long-range missiles over the past 18 years, adding that the air force ‘won’t be able to destroy every missile.’
Terrified residents in Beirut and elsewhere received calls and texts warning them to move away from Hezbollah targets, with Lebanon’s information minister condemning the alerts as a tactic of ‘psychological war implemented by the enemy’. Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of waging ‘a war of extermination’ at a cabinet meeting this morning, and also urged the United Nations to intervene ‘to deter the (Israeli) aggression’, as the Middle East teeters on the edge of all-out conflict. ‘The continuing Israeli aggression on Lebanon is a war of extermination in every sense of the word and a destructive plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns,’ he said. He urged ‘the United Nations and the General Assembly and influential countries… to deter the (Israeli) aggression’.
Hezbollah, funded and equipped by Iran, is both a political party and militant group operating within Lebanon. The group has received wide condemnation from the people of Lebanon amid the country’s political and economic crisis. Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said meanwhile that its strikes had hit combat infrastructure Hezbollah had been building for two decades. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Monday ‘a significant peak’ in the operation. ‘This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment – the results speak for themselves,’ he said.
‘Entire units were taken out of battle as a result of the activities conducted at the beginning of the week in which numerous terrorists were injured.’ Huge plumes of smoke were seen at multiple sites deep into the country, with rockets fired at areas not previously hit by strikes and witnesses reporting intense bombing raids. The IDF issued a warning to residents of villages in southern Lebanon: ‘If you are in or near a building that Hezbollah uses to store weapons or weapons, you must evacuate this building and move away from it immediately. ‘Anyone who is near Hezbollah operatives or the organization’s weapons puts themselves in danger.’
Hagari told a media briefing Israel’s military ‘will engage in (more) extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon’. Asked by reporters about a possible Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon, Hagari said ‘we will do whatever is needed’ in order to return evacuated residents of northern Israel to their homes safely, a war priority for the Israeli government.
He said that Hezbollah over the years has stashed weapons, including cruise missiles, in houses and buildings throughout southern Lebanon, and called on residents to stay away from these sites. He presented in a media briefing an aerial video of what he described as Hezbollah operatives trying to launch cruise missiles from a civilian house in Lebanon, and the subsequent Israeli strike moments before it was launched. ‘Hezbollah is endangering you. Endangering you and your families.’
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