Smoke rises from areas hit by Israeli airstrikes on September 29, 2024 in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon.
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Israel launched a major offensive in Lebanon on Sunday, pressuring Iran-backed Hezbollah with more attacks after it carried out a major offensive that killed the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said the air force “struck a number of Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon, including explosives targeting Israeli territory, weapons storage facilities and additional Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure”.
The navy intercepted a ship coming to Israel from the Red Sea and another eight projectiles from Lebanon landed in open areas, the statement said.
Nasrallah was killed in a heavy Israeli airstrike on Friday at the group’s headquarters in the south of Beirut. It was a major blow to Hezbollah and to Iran, removing an influential ally that helped build Hezbollah into Tehran’s contact point for allied groups in the Arab world.
Israel announced his killing on Saturday and Hezbollah confirmed his death.
In its announcement, Hezbollah said it would continue to fight Israel and continued to fire rockets at it, including a salvo on Sunday morning.
Nasrallah’s death capped a painful week for Hezbollah, which began with the bombing of thousands of communications devices used by its members.
Israel was widely believed to have carried out the act but has neither confirmed nor denied it.
Houses are heavily damaged in buildings that were attacked on September 27 by Israeli strikes that targeted and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the Haret Hreik neighborhood south of Beirut, September 29, 2024.
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The escalation has raised fears that the conflict could spiral out of control, possibly drawing in Iran and the United States, Israel’s closest ally.
Hezbollah and Israel have been fighting at the same time as Israel’s war in Gaza with Hamas since the Iranian-backed Palestinian group attacked Israel last October 7.
The Ministry of Health in Lebanon said 33 people were killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Saturday, bringing the death toll since the outbreak of war on October 8 last year to more than 1,670, including 104 children.
In Beirut, displaced families spent the night on the benches of Zaitunay Bay, a chain of restaurants and cafes on Beirut’s waterfront where private security often chases away any loiterers.
On Sunday morning, families who were carrying nothing but a sack of clothes rolled out mats to sleep on and poured tea for themselves.
“You cannot destroy us, no matter what you do, no matter how much you bomb, no matter how much you expel people – we will stay here. We will not leave. This is our country and we are staying,” said Francoise. Azori, a resident of Beirut running in the area.
The United Nations, the World Food Programme, in a statement on Sunday, has launched an emergency campaign to provide food for about 1 million people affected by the conflict in Lebanon.
‘Balance of power’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that the killing of Nasrallah was a necessary step in “changing power in the region for years to come”.
“Nasrallah was not a terrorist, he was a terrorist,” Netanyahu said in a statement, warning of challenging days ahead.
Israel said it had killed Hezbollah chief Ali Karaki and other commanders along with Nasrallah.
US President Joe Biden described Nasrallah’s death as a measure of justice for those who called him many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese, and said that America fully supports Israel’s right to self-defense.
But when asked if an Israeli attack on Lebanon was inevitable, Biden told reporters on Saturday: “It’s time for the war to end.”
A view of the rubble of the building, where Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah lost his life, after an Israeli airstrike, carried out by F-35 warplanes, in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon on September 29, 2024.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was moved to a safe haven in Iran after Nasrallah’s assassination, sources told Reuters. Khamenei said that Nasrallah’s death will be avenged and his way of fighting Israel will be followed by other soldiers.
Tehran requested a meeting of the UN Security Council regarding Israel’s actions in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region, warning of any attack on its communications centers and its representatives.
A senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in Friday’s attacks, Iranian media reported.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s war was not with the Lebanese people. He held talks late Saturday about expanding Israel’s offensive in the north, his office said.
Hezbollah has said it will stop firing only if Israel’s offensive in Gaza ends. Hamas and other Hezbollah allies issued statements mourning his death.
Christians of comfort
Lebanon’s top Christian cleric, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, said Nasrallah’s killing “opened a wound in the heart of the Lebanese people”.
Rai has previously voiced criticism of the Shi’ite Islamist Hezbollah, accusing it of dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts.
“We express our condolences to the family and community of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” he said while preaching.
Hezbollah weapons have long been a point of contention in Lebanon, a country with a history of civil strife. Critics of Hezbollah in Lebanon say the group has dragged the country into conflict and undermined the regime.