On September 29, 2024, thick smoke billowed from the Israeli air strike site in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon.
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Israel struck multiple targets in Lebanon on Sunday, launching more attacks against Hezbollah after killing its Iranian-backed leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said its air force “struck dozens of Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon, including launchers aimed at Israeli territory, weapons storage buildings and other Hezbollah terror infrastructure”.
The statement said that the Israeli navy intercepted a shell approaching Israel from the Red Sea area, and eight other shells from Lebanon fell into open areas.
Nasrallah was killed in a massive Israeli airstrike on the group's headquarters in Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday. It's a major blow to both Hezbollah and Iran, eliminating an influential ally who helped make Hezbollah key to Tehran's network of allied organizations across the Arab world.
Israel announced on Saturday that he had been killed, and Hezbollah later confirmed his death.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it would continue to fight Israel and continued to fire rockets into Israel, including a salvo on Sunday morning.
Nasrallah's death capped a traumatic two weeks for Hezbollah, starting with the detonation of thousands of communications devices used by its members.
Israel is widely believed to have carried out the operation, but this has not been confirmed or denied.
On September 29, 2024, Israel launched an attack on Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the Haret Hreik community in the southern suburbs of Beirut and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah, attacked on 27 September and was razed to the ground and surrounding houses severely damaged.
– |AFP|Getty Images
The escalation has heightened concerns that the conflict could spiral out of control and could involve Iran and Israel's closest ally, the United States.
Hezbollah and Israel have been waging a parallel war with Israel against Hamas in Gaza since the Iranian-backed Palestinian group attacked Israel on October 7 last year.
Israel's attack on Lebanon on Saturday killed 33 people, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, bringing the total death toll since hostilities broke out on October 8 last year to more than 1,670, including 104 children.
In Beirut, displaced families spent the night on benches on Zaitunai Bay, a row of restaurants and cafes on Beirut's waterfront, where private security usually shoos away any wanderers.
On Sunday morning, families with only a bag of clothes spread out mats to sleep on and poured themselves tea.
“No matter what you do, no matter how much you bomb, no matter how you displace people, you cannot destroy us – we will stay here. We will not leave. This is our country and we will stay,” Françoise said. Come down.
The United Nations World Food Program said in a statement on Sunday that it had launched emergency operations to provide food to up to 1 million people affected by the conflict in Lebanon.
“balance of power”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Nasrallah's killing was a necessary step to “change the balance of power in the region in the coming years.”
“Nasrallah is not a terrorist, he is a terrorist,” Netanyahu said in a statement, warning of challenges in the coming days.
Israel says it killed senior Hezbollah official Ali Karaki and other commanders as well as Nasrallah.
U.S. President Joe Biden described Nasrallah's death as a measure of justice for what he said were many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese, and said the United States fully supported Israel's right to self-defense.
But when asked whether an Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon was inevitable, Biden told reporters on Saturday: “It's time for a ceasefire.”
On September 29, 2024, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the building after the Israeli army used F-35 fighter jets to conduct an air strike on Dahih in Beirut, Lebanon.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Sources told Reuters that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was moved to a safe location in Iran after Nasrallah was killed. Khamenei said Nasrallah's death would be avenged and other militants would follow his path in fighting Israel.
Tehran has called for a U.N. Security Council meeting over Israel's actions in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region and warned against any attacks on its diplomatic facilities and representatives.
According to Iranian media reports, a senior member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, deputy commander Abbas Nirforosan, was also killed in Friday's attack.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said that Israel's war is not against the Lebanese people. His office said he held talks late Saturday on a possible expansion of Israel's military offensive on the northern front.
Hezbollah says it will only cease fire once Israel's offensive in Gaza ends. Hamas and other allies of Hezbollah issued statements mourning his death.
Christian condolences
Lebanon's top Christian cleric, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, said Nasrallah's killing “opened a wound in the hearts of Lebanese people.”
Rai has previously criticized Shia Islamist Hezbollah, accusing it of dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts.
“We express our personal condolences to the family and community of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah,” he said in his homily.
Hezbollah's arsenal has long been a source of controversy in Lebanon, a country with a history of civil war. Critics of Lebanon's Hezbollah say the group unilaterally drags the country into conflict and undermines it.