\n<\/p>\n
Israeli forces have launched air strikes across Lebanon as Israel targets the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah during the Israeli-United States war on Iran.<\/p>\n
Two Israeli air attacks on Tuesday hit Lebanon\u2019s southern city of Tyre, known as Sour in Arabic. This came shortly after the Israeli army issued a statement threatening attacks on Tyre and Sidon, also known as Saida, urging residents to \u201cevacuate immediately and move at least 300 metres [about 1,000ft] away\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified since the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, the first day of the US-Israeli strikes. Since then, the opposing forces have clashed in eastern Lebanon while Israel has carried out attacks across Lebanon, including the capital, Beirut.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a battle for control over south Lebanon with the Israeli military increasing its presence along the border and within Lebanese territory,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s Zeina Khodr said, reporting from Zahrani, Lebanon.<\/p>\n Israeli media are reporting that \u201cIsrael wants to expand its presence in southern Lebanon, expand that buffer zone,\u201d she said, but \u201cHezbollah says it has so far repelled advances on a number of axes.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Israel also launched an air raid on the southern Lebanese town of Qabrikha while Israeli jets attacked the towns of Deir Siryan and Taybeh, Lebanon\u2019s National News Agency (NNA) reported.<\/p>\n The Israeli military said it had launched air attacks near Ansariyeh, claiming that the air strikes targeted a Hezbollah headquarters in an area where it said rockets had been launched towards Israel.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera journalists on the ground also reported an Israeli drone strike that targeted the southern Lebanese town of Barashit while the NAA reported strikes on the southern towns of Adchit and Breqaa and said four people were injured in the town of Harouf.<\/p>\n A strike also hit the southern suburbs of Beirut after the Israeli army repeated its forced evacuation threat for the entire area, known collectively as Dahiyeh and home to hundreds of thousands of people. It warned of imminent attacks on the neighbourhoods of Haret Hreik, Ghobeiry, Laylaki, Hadath, Burj al-Barajneh, Tahwitat al-Ghadir and Chiyah.<\/p>\n \u201cIsraeli warplanes launched a raid a short while ago on the southern suburbs, the first after the warning issued by the enemy,\u201d the NNA reported.<\/p>\n The Israeli military said it began \u201cstriking Hezbollah infrastructure\u201d in the area.<\/p>\n Earlier on Tuesday, the NNA reported that Israeli warplanes launched attacks overnight on the towns of Almajadel, Chaqra, Srifa and in the Bekaa Valley.<\/p>\n Attacks were also reported n the outskirts of Bint Jbeil and Ainatha. The NNA said four people were killed in the Bint Jbeil district.<\/p>\n The strikes came as Lebanese media reported that a Maronite Catholic priest, Pierre al-Rahi, was killed by Israeli tank fire in the village of Qlayaa in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n Lebanese newspaper L\u2019Orient-Le Jour reported that al-Rahi was killed when an Israeli tank fired on the home of a local couple a second time after several people had rushed there to try to help.<\/p>\n \u201cWe narrowly escaped a massacre because there were many of us there,\u201d said Hanna Daher, the head of Qlayaa\u2019s council, according to L\u2019Orient-Le Jour.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite this, several people were injured, including the priest, Pierre el-Rahi, who succumbed to his wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n A day before he was killed, al-Rahi had spoken to the France24 television channel from the steps of his church in Qlayaa, saying he would stay to defend the village peacefully.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are forced to stay despite the danger when we defend our land, and we do so peacefully,\u201d al-Rahi told France24.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of us carries weapons. All of us carry peace and goodness and love,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Separately, the Israeli army announced that in the past week, it had hit 30 sites belonging to the Al-Qard al-Hasan financial association in Lebanon, \u201cwhich is affiliated with Hezbollah\u201d.<\/p>\n The NNA reported that the nonprofit was also bombed by Israeli forces in October 2024. At the time, Amnesty International said the attacks should be investigated as a war crime as branches of financial institutions are civilian objects unless they are used for military purposes.<\/p>\n As Israeli attacks continued, Hezbollah has also increased its counterattacks.<\/p>\n At least 16 people were injured in a Hezbollah missile attack on central Israel, according to Magen David Adom, Israel\u2019s national emergency medical service.<\/p>\n Hezbollah also said it launched a missile attack on the Givaa drone control base, east of the Israeli city of Safad, and fired rockets at the Yiftah barracks near the Lebanese-Israeli border.<\/p>\n Hezbollah\u2019s fighters launched several attacks on Israeli forces in southern parts of Lebanon. It said its fighters ambushed Israeli soldiers on the outskirts of the city of Khiam and hit three Merkava tanks. The three vehicles were seen burning, it said.<\/p>\n On Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged both Hezbollah and Israel to stop their actions, calling for a return to the November 2024 ceasefire to stop the country \u201csliding into chaos\u201d.<\/p>\n In a statement after crisis talks with Middle Eastern leaders, including Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Kallas called on Hezbollah to \u201ccease all actions against Israel,\u201d asserting the country\u2019s \u201cright to self-defence\u201d.<\/p>\n She also called out Israel for \u201cheavy-handed\u201d retaliation that was \u201ccausing mass displacement\u201d and \u201cfurther destabilising a fragile situation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael should cease its operations in Lebanon,\u201d she said, warning that it \u201crisks drawing Lebanon and its people into a war that is not theirs with severe humanitarian consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n Aoun on Monday accused Hezbollah of working towards the \u201ccollapse\u201d of the state, expressing Beirut\u2019s readiness for \u201cdirect negotiations\u201d with Israel.<\/p>\n At least\u00a0486 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since Monday last week, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.<\/p>\n In addition, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have displaced 100,000 people in one day, bringing the total number of displaced above 667,000, United Nations official Karolina Lindholm Billing told reporters in Geneva from Beirut.<\/p>\n The representative in Lebanon for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees added that the figure represented \u201ca faster pace of displacement\u201d compared with 2024 during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Israeli forces have launched air strikes across Lebanon as Israel targets the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah during the Israeli-United States war on Iran. Two Israeli air attacks on Tuesday hit Lebanon\u2019s southern city of Tyre, known as Sour in Arabic. This came shortly after the Israeli army issued a statement threatening attacks on Tyre and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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