Heavy attacks

Israeli army bombs Hezbollah meeting

Another heavy attack on Beirut suburbs

(Bild: APA/AP)

The Lebanese capital Beirut was once again the target of massive bombardments by the Israeli military during the night. According to media reports, the attack targeted a meeting of high-ranking Hezbollah representatives - including the most promising candidate to succeed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was recently killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

This is said to be Hashim Safi al-Din, head of the Executive Council. It is still unclear whether he was actually in the bombed bunker in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital at the time.

Hashim Safi al-Din is said to have taken part in the meeting.

(Bild: AFP/Anwar Amro)

Video recordings showed detonations over the city, huge flames and clouds of smoke rising into the night sky. Israel's military had ordered the residents of certain buildings in the southern suburbs to evacuate in Arabic. 

Israel does not want a large-scale land war
The attacks occurred while Israel's troops and tanks were simultaneously fighting against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Israel's declared aim is to drive the pro-Iranian Shiite militia from the border so that around 60,000 evacuated Israelis can return to their homes. The aim of the ground offensive so far has been to destroy tunnels and weapons that Hezbollah had prepared near the border for a possible attack on Israel, the Wall Street Journal quoted several Israeli officials informed about the operation. According to them, the military had no intention of turning the invasion into a full-scale land war in Lebanon. According to the army, nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting so far.

A Palestinian flag in the rubble after an airstrike in Beirut

(Bild: APA/AFP/IBRAHIM AMRO)

At the same time, Israel was once again massively bombarded with rockets from Lebanon. Within one day, around 230 missiles and several drones were fired by the Shiite militia Hezbollah at northern Israel, the Israeli army announced in the evening. The previous day, 140 such attacks had been reported. In many towns in Israel, the air-raid sirens continued to wail. Some of the shells were intercepted, others fell over uninhabited areas, it was said. There was no information about possible casualties or major damage.

Ex-general: "Hezbollah hopes for guerrilla warfare"
Although Hezbollah has been weakened following the recent massive attacks by the Israeli army, it has retained its capabilities as a guerrilla fighting force in the south of the country, the Washington Post quoted a retired Lebanese army general as saying. "Hezbollah hopes that the Israelis will penetrate deeper into Lebanon," he said. "The air war the Israelis have waged has been very successful. If they stay on the ground, Hezbollah will get the war it wants," Hussein Ibish of the Arab Gulf States Institute, a think tank in Washington, told the Wall Street Journal.

Dead in air strike in the West Bank
In the fight against the radical Islamic Palestinian militia Hamas, the Israeli army reported the elimination of another leading member. Sahi Jasser Abd al-Rasek Oufi is said to have been killed in an airstrike in the West Bank. Oufi had been involved in numerous attacks in the West Bank and was planning another attack. "In addition to Oufi, several other important terrorists who were part of the terrorist network in Tulkarem were also eliminated," it said. According to Palestinian reports, at least 18 people died in the bombing of a refugee camp in Tulkarem.

One resident said that an Israeli fighter jet had "hit a café on the first floor of a three-storey building". Many people had been taken to hospital and the number of victims was likely to rise, he added. Children and young people were among the casualties.