Israel has increased the intensity of its assault of Lebanon, launching 12 airstrikes on the suburbs of Beirut’s south and initiating its first-ever strike on a Palestinian refugee camp located deep into northern Lebanon.
The Palesitnian militant group said in a statement that an officer with Hamas’s military wing, together with his wife and two small girls, were murdered in the attack on the Beddawi refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli. While most of Israel’s strikes have been focused on southern Lebanon and Beirut, Tripoli is located far further north.
Since the Israel-Hamas conflict started in October of last year, Israel has murdered a number of Hamas officials in Lebanon in addition to the majority of Hezbollah’s top leadership.
The official news agency of Lebanon, National News Agency, reports that over a dozen Israeli airstrikes occurred overnight and into Saturday, killing at least six persons.
According to the Israeli military, special troops were destroying missiles, launchpads, watchtowers, and weapons storage sites in southern Lebanon as part of targeted ground strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure. According to the military, soldiers also demolished tunnels that Hezbollah had been using to get close to the Israeli border.
Since Israel intensified its attacks in late September with the goal of dismantling Hezbollah and forcing it away from the nations’ shared border, around 1.2 million Lebanese, including both militants and civilians affiliated with the organization, have lost their lives and about 1,400 have been forced from their homes.
Israel began what it described as a limited ground incursion in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. According to the military, nine Israeli soldiers have died in close combat in the region in the last several days.
In less than two weeks, a commission of the Lebanese government has reported that about 375,000 individuals had crossed into Syria from Lebanon in an attempt to escape Israeli strikes. Journalists from the Associated Press witnessed thousands of people crossing the Masnaa Border Crossing on foot on Thursday, despite the fact that Israeli airstrikes had created massive holes in the road leading up to it.
Additionally on Saturday, at least nine individuals, including two children, have been killed by Israeli attacks that occurred early on Saturday in northern and central Gaza, according to Palestinian medical sources.
At least five persons, including two children, were killed in a single attack that struck a crowd in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
At least four individuals were killed in another strike that targeted a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp’s northern section, according to the Awda hospital. It further stated that several persons were injured in the strike.
The Israeli military has frequently accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas, but it did not immediately respond to the strikes.
The Israeli military issued an evacuation alert to Palestinians along the vital Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, which served as the focal point of the negotiations that preceded the earlier this summer ceasefire. A humanitarian zone has been established by the IDF along Gaza’s shoreline, and residents of some portions of the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps have been ordered to evacuate to Muwasi.
The number of Palestinians residing in the regions that were ordered to be evacuated—some of which had already been evacuated—is unknown.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and militant casualties, around 42,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the conflict that has lasted for almost a year.