A new Israeli offensive hit the southern suburbs of Beirut this Friday (15), creating a huge cloud of smoke, amid the intensification of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
Details about the impact and victims have not yet been confirmed.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Lebanon said on Friday that there has been an alarming rise in the number of victims of Israeli airstrikes in the country’s densely populated areas.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel the day after the October 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that triggered the Gaza war.
Since then, constant exchanges of fire have occurred.
Although neither side allowed this to escalate into a full-scale war, the attacks led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the border area on both sides.
On Thursday (14), Israeli forces launched airstrikes in Hezbollah-controlled regions of Beirut for the third consecutive day, hitting targets in the southern suburbs of the capital.
On the same day operations also reached Bint Jbeil, in southern Lebanon, where airstrikes and artillery shelling overnight caused extensive damage to buildings and residential complexes, according to the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA).
Five people were killed in airstrikes in the towns of Bazourieh and Jumayjimah, NNA reported.
Understand conflicts in the Middle East
Israel launched a major air and ground offensive against the Hezbollah group in Lebanon in late September. Like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are radical groups financed by Iran, and therefore enemies of Israel.
Bombings in Lebanon have intensified in recent months, causing destruction and forcing more than a million people to leave their homes to escape the war. The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has already left dozens of people dead in Lebanese territory.
At the same time, the war continues in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military is fighting Hamas and searching for hostages who were kidnapped more than a year ago during the radical group’s attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. At the time, more than 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped.
Since then, more than 43,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the Israeli offensive, which also destroyed virtually every building in the Palestinian territory.
On a third front of conflict, Israel and Iran exchanged attacks, which despite raising tension, did not evolve into an all-out war.
In addition, the Israeli Army has been carrying out bombings on Iranian-allied militia targets in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
At the moment, truce negotiations are stalled in both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
This content was originally published in Israeli attack hits southern suburbs of Beirut on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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