Israel strikes ‘dozens’ of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after killing Nasrallah

Israel said on Sunday it was carrying out new airstrikes against “dozens” of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after the killing of the Iran-backed group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah confirmed on Saturday that its leader Nasrallah was killed a day earlier in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a major blow to the group he had led for decades.

His killing represents a sharp escalation in the nearly year-long cross-border firefight between Hezbollah and Israel and risks plunging the entire region into a wider war.

Israel continued to attack Lebanon on Sunday. The military said it had “attacked dozens of terrorist targets on the territory of Lebanon in the last few hours.”

The attacks were directed against “buildings in which the organization’s weapons and military structures were stored.”

The military has struck hundreds of Hezbollah targets across Lebanon since Saturday, it said, aiming to cripple the group’s military operations and infrastructure.

A day after its Palestinian ally Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which triggered a war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border attacks on Israeli troops.

Israel has vowed to launch a ground operation against Hezbollah, sparking widespread concern around the world.

After Nasrallah’s death, Netanyahu said Israel had “settled the score” for killing Israelis and citizens of other countries, including Americans.

– ‘Unjustified Bloodshed’ –

Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and enjoyed cult status among his Shiite Muslim followers.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said: “His elimination will make the world safer.”

But Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref condemned the “unjustified bloodshed” and threatened that Nasrallah’s assassination would lead to the “destruction” of Israel.

Hamas condemned Nasrallah’s killing as a “cowardly act of terrorism.”

Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Syria all declared public mourning, while Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they fired a missile at Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport on Saturday in the hope of hitting him rather than Netanyahu returned from a trip to New York.

US President Joe Biden – whose government is Israel’s top arms supplier – said it was a “measure of justice”, while Kamala Harris, who is running to succeed him in the White House, called Nasrallah “a terrorist with American blood on his hands”. “.

Iran has called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to protest the killing of Nasrallah.

In the letter, Iran’s UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani called on the Security Council to “take immediate and decisive action to stop Israel’s continued aggression” and prevent it from “dragging the region into an all-out war.”

Analysts told AFP that Nasrallah’s death puts pressure on Hezbollah to deliver a response.

“Either we are seeing an unprecedented response from Hezbollah … or this is a complete defeat,” said Heiko Wimmen of the International Crisis Group think tank.

– mass displacement –

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 700 people since the bombing of Hezbollah strongholds began earlier this month, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry said 33 people were killed and 195 injured in Saturday’s attacks.

Most of Lebanon’s deaths occurred on Monday, the deadliest day of violence since the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.

U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi said “well over 200,000 people are displaced in Lebanon” and more than 50,000 have fled to neighboring Syria.

Hundreds of families spent the night into Saturday outside as airstrikes hit southern Beirut.

“I didn’t even pack clothes, I never thought we would be walking like that and suddenly find ourselves on the street,” 56-year-old Rihab Naseef from south Beirut told AFP.

Meanwhile, airstrikes of unknown origin in eastern Syria killed 12 pro-Iranian fighters and injured large numbers of people, a war monitor said on Sunday.

The attacks in and around the city of Deir Ezzor and near the border with Iraq were not immediately reported but targeted military positions, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

– Israel should “eliminate this threat” –

Netanyahu has promised to continue fighting until the border with Lebanon is secured.

“Israel has every right to eliminate this threat and return our citizens safely to their homes,” he said.

Diplomats said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to ending fighting in Lebanon and saving the region from the brink.

Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 killed 1,205 people, mostly civilians. This is according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures and including hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized from militants, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,586 people, most of them civilians, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled territory. The UN described the numbers as reliable.