Israeli air defenses intercepted a missile fired from Lebanon as fighting intensified on Israel’s northern border on Wednesday. Reuters reported that Hezbollah said the rocket was aimed at the headquarters of the Israeli spy agency Mossad near Tel Aviv.
Thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon as Israel stepped up its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group, resulting in 558 deaths, Lebanon’s health minister said, CNN reported.
Amid two days of intense Israeli attacks, panicked civilians continued to flee southern Lebanon, crowding main roads and gas stations en route to the capital. The United Nations (UN) and Lebanese officials said on Tuesday that 27,000 displaced persons were being held in makeshift shelters, while many others were forced to sleep in cars, parks and on beaches.
Key points
1. An Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut on Tuesday, raising fears of an all-out war in the region as cross-border rocket attacks escalated between the two sides. Israel said Qubaisi led the group’s missile and rocket brigade.
2. Since Monday morning, 569 people, including 50 children, have been killed and 1,835 injured in Israeli airstrikes, Health Minister Firaz Abiad reported to Reuters news agency. The current death toll exceeds that of the 2020 Beirut port explosion that killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands and destroyed entire neighborhoods in the Lebanese capital.
3. Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib said that he was disappointed with US President Joe Biden’s last speech at the UN General Assembly. However, he insisted that “America is the only country that can really make a difference in the Middle East and in relation to Lebanon.”
Speaking at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New York City, he emphasized that America is “the key to our salvation.”
In his final speech as US president before the UN General Assembly, Joe Biden called for peace in the Middle East, adding that total war is in no one’s interest.
4. Hezbollah said on Tuesday it had carried out an attack on a naval base on Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast, housing a top Israeli naval commando unit.
The Shayetet 13 unit, which operates from the Atlit naval base, “conducts tactical sabotage operations against enemy lines, including damaging vital structures and enemy ports during wartime,” CNN reported, citing the Israeli military.
5. The British government has advised its citizens to leave Lebanon immediately, while moving around 700 troops to Cyprus to bolster its military presence in the Middle East. According to a statement from the UK government on Tuesday, the troops are expected to arrive “in the coming hours”, CNN reported.
