LEBANESE state-run media report “massive destruction” after overnight Israeli air strikes destroyed four residential buildings in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.
This is as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Lebanon that it could face destruction “like Gaza” as the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Tuesday that 36 people were killed and 150 injured across the country in the previous day.
Though the Lebanese armed group said on Telegram that its fighters launched artillery and rockets at invading Israeli troops in southwest Lebanon.
The attacks in the Labbouneh area forced the Israeli troops to retreat, the group said.
Earlier, Hezbollah said its fighters had clashed with Israeli troops in the Lebanese town of Blida. The group says Israel’s military – which has launched a fourth division of troops to south Lebanon – has not been able to advance since they launched the ground operation a week ago.
Israel’s military has meanwhile said three of its soldiers have been seriously wounded in fighting in southern Lebanon over the past two days.
Meanwhile Israeli forces have ordered the Kamal Adwan, Indonesian and al-Awda hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate patients and health personnel within 24 hours.
At least 25 Palestinians – including five children and two women – have been killed in Israeli air strikes on central Gaza as Israel’s military “systematically works to empty” the war-battered north of the territory where another mass displacement of civilians is under way.
In Gaza, at least 41,965 people have been killed and 97,590 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 2023. In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 people were taken captive.
Also, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, is calling on Israel’s military to halt its evacuation orders for northern Gaza, saying the move will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave.
The group noted that in this latest forced mass displacement, residents of Beit Hanoon, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya have been told to move south to the overcrowded, so-called humanitarian zone between Al-Mawasi and Deir el-Balah.
One million people are already living in “inhumane conditions” in the area, MSF said, adding that the zone remains unsafe for civilians and aid workers due to the continued Israeli attacks in the area.
“The latest move to forcefully and violently push thousands of people from northern Gaza to the south is turning the north into a lifeless desert while aggravating the situation in the south,” said Sarah Vuylsteke, MSF project coordinator in Gaza.
“Access to water, healthcare and safety is already almost non-existent, and the thought of more people fitting into this space is impossible to imagine,” she said. “People have been subjected to endless displacement and relentless bombing for the past 12 months. Enough is enough. This must stop now.”