Israel steps up bombing of Lebanon as Hezbollah attacks Haifa | News

Israel has expanded its attacks into southern Lebanon, targeting the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, while the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah claimed a series of rocket attacks in northern Israel, including near the city of Haifa.

A Lebanese security source said an Israeli strike on Monday hit the al-Kokoudi area, a few kilometers from Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport and near Hezbollah’s stronghold in the suburb of Dahiyeh, which has been repeatedly attacked in recent weeks.

“Israel carried out an airstrike near the airport,” the official told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency had previously said Israel had launched an airstrike on the al-Kokoudi area.

The Israeli military said it carried out a “precise attack” on Beirut, without giving details.

The attack came after the southern suburbs were hit by more than 30 attacks overnight, the heaviest bombardment since September 23, the day Israel began a significant escalation of its assault on Lebanon, the NNA said.

The targets included a gas station on the main road leading to Beirut airport and a warehouse for medical supplies, the agency said.

The Israeli military said the air force carried out extensive bombing raids on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in the border area, bringing Israel’s military death toll in Lebanon to 11 so far.

The NNA reported a series of attacks on “more than 30 towns and villages in the Tire district” in the south of the country.

The Israeli army previously announced that it had sent another division to take part in operations in Lebanon.

Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli troops in two border villages in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese group said its fighters bombarded “a gathering of Israeli forces” in Maroun al-Ras with “a volley of rockets.”

The Lebanese group has reported several clashes in the Maroun al-Ras area in recent days since Israel said it began “targeted” ground attacks in the area.

Hezbollah later said its fighters “bombarded a concentration of enemy Israeli forces” in the nearby village of Blida “with a barrage of rockets and artillery shells.”

Attacks in Haifa

A series of rocket attacks were also reported in northern Israel, including near the port city of Haifa “with a large volley of rockets” and on Israeli military positions. The group later said it had attacked areas north of Haifa with another volley of rockets.

At least ten people were injured in the first attack on Haifa. It was the first time the port city was hit since Israel and Hezbollah began the firefight in October last year. Haifa is located on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, about 30 km (19 miles) from the border with Lebanon.

In a statement, the Israeli army said that as of 5:00 p.m. (1400 GMT), about 135 rockets fired by Hezbollah had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

She said she would continue to act against Hezbollah, adding that she had hit more than 120 Hezbollah targets “within an hour.”

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 2,083 people had been killed and 9,869 injured in a year of Israeli attacks on the country.

“Great displacement crisis”

According to local authorities, more than a million people have been displaced, mostly from towns and villages in southern Lebanon.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Lebanon was in a “major displacement crisis” as a result of Israel’s escalating airstrikes and that some of the attacks had violated international law.

Grandi made his comments during a visit to Beirut on Sunday.

The United Nations has asked for $425.7 million to respond to the humanitarian crisis. So far, around 40 percent has been financed.

Grandi also said there were “many cases of violations of international humanitarian law in the conduct of the airstrikes that destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure.”

Two employees of Grandi’s agency were also killed in the strikes.

Grandi said an attack that blocked access to a key border crossing between Lebanon and Syria last week also created a barrier for civilians trying to flee to safety. The escalating violence has pushed both Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugees in Lebanon to cross the border en masse.

Meanwhile, a U.N. official told the Associated Press that the Israeli military is setting up a forward operating base near a U.N. peacekeeping mission on the border in southern Lebanon.

The base poses a threat to peacekeepers there, said the official, who wished to remain anonymous.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said in a statement it was concerned about “recent activities” by the Israeli military southeast of the Lebanese border town of Maroun al-Ras.

No details were given about what Israel was doing, but it said it was close to Point 6-52, where Irish peacekeepers were stationed.

This came a few days after UNIFIL rejected the Israeli military’s request to vacate some of its positions before a ground attack.

UNIFIL was founded to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from southern Lebanon following the 1978 Israeli invasion. After the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, the United Nations expanded its mission and allowed the deployment of peacekeepers along the Israeli border.