All posts tagged: Beirut

Israel pounds Beirut and Gaza after rockets hit Israel’s north

Israel pounds Beirut and Gaza after rockets hit Israel’s north

Published by Sam

A view of damaged buildings following Israeli attacks on Laylaki and Haret Hireyk neighborhood of Dahieh region in Beirut, Lebanon on October 1, 2024.  Houssam Shbaro | Anadolu | Getty Images Israel struck what it said were Hezbollah arms facilities in southern Beirut on Saturday after the Lebanese armed group fired rockets into northern Israel and a spokesman said a drone was launched at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday home. Netanyahu was not there at the time, and it was not immediately clear if the building was hit. But he described it as an assassination attempt by “Iran’s proxy Hezbollah” and called it a “grave mistake”, as Israel prepares to retaliate for an Iranian missile barrage earlier this month. The strikes came as medics and Hamas media in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting to root out the Palestinian militant group for more than a year, said Israeli bombardments had killed more than 100 people across the coastal enclave and a siege around three hospitals had tightened. Promises by Israel and its enemies Hamas and …

Beirut is caught in the crossfire, its inhabitants split between apathy and solidarity with refugees

Beirut is caught in the crossfire, its inhabitants split between apathy and solidarity with refugees

Published by Sam

“They said they had targeted a Hezbollah leader. There were people from the south who had just arrived, but all we saw were civilians pulled from the rubble. It’s a massacre.” Mohamed Hachem, a shopkeeper, doesn’t hide his anger, tinged with despair. He was speaking from Basta, a mixed Sunni and Shiite working-class district of Beirut, on October 11, the day after an Israeli strike killed 22 people. Among them were 10 displaced Shiite people, who had come from the south of the country. A few steps away, on the ruins of two buildings flattened by the explosion, a group of young people planted a black banner, pledging their loyalty to the resistance. The expansion of Israeli bombardments, now aimed at Sunni, Christian and Druze-inhabited areas of the greater Beirut area, has sparked fears among their inhabitants of being targeted because of the presence of displaced Shiite people. In the space of a year, almost 1.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes. This has accelerated since the Israeli bombings intensified three weeks …

How Beirut Is Responding to Nasrallah’s Death

How Beirut Is Responding to Nasrallah’s Death

Published by José

As word spread on Saturday that Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah had been killed in his underground Beirut bunker by an Israeli airstrike, people began quietly reckoning with the possibility that Lebanon’s political architecture might be about to shift for the first time in more than three decades. And that, in turn, raised the prospect that locked doors might soon open across the Middle East. Those who have fought against Hezbollah—not just Israelis but also Lebanese from across the nation’s confessional divides, as well as Syrians and Yemenis—could see the tantalizing possibility that the Shiite movement’s dominance might be at an end. Many others worried that a sudden power vacuum might lead Lebanon back to the kind of civil war that tortured its people for 15 years before Hezbollah emerged in the early 1980s. Nasrallah was more than a political leader. After 32 years in power, he had become synonymous with Hezbollah, the most well-armed non-state actor in the world and the linchpin of Iran’s tentacular “axis of resistance” to Israel and the United States. You …

Israel strikes Beirut suburb, Nasrallah’s fate unclear after Friday’s massive attack

Israel strikes Beirut suburb, Nasrallah’s fate unclear after Friday’s massive attack

Published by Sam

Residents check the damaged in the aftermath of overnight Israeli bombardment in Beirut’s southern suburbs, on September 28, 2024. Anwar Amro | Afp | Getty Images Israel launched airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs and other areas of Lebanon on Saturday, a day after carrying out a massive attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters that appeared to be aimed at killing its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. The fate of Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed group for 32 years, remains unclear, with Hezbollah yet to issue any statement on his status. Reuters journalists heard more than 20 airstrikes in Beirut before dawn on Saturday and more after sunrise. Smoke could be seen rising over the city’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh. Thousands of people have fled the area since Friday’s attack, congregating in squares, parks and sidewalks in downtown Beirut and seaside areas. “They want to destroy Dahiyeh, they want to destroy all of us,” said Sari, a man in his 30s who gave only his first name, referring to the suburb he had fled after an …

Lebanon: Memories of War

Lebanon: Memories of War

Published by skeptic

It took a while for people to grasp what was happening as thousands of pagers beeped then detonated across Lebanon last week: in pockets, hands, and in front of faces; on streets, in cars, at homes; in grocery stores, schools, and offices. “I reported the news as it emerged but did not understand what I […] Source link

Lebanon Says Israeli Agents Likely Killed Hezbollah-Linked Currency Exchanger Near Beirut

Lebanon Says Israeli Agents Likely Killed Hezbollah-Linked Currency Exchanger Near Beirut

Published by skeptic

BEIT MERI, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon’s interior minister alleged Wednesday that the mysterious abduction and killing of a Hezbollah-linked Lebanese currency exchanger in a villa on the edge of a quiet mountain resort town earlier this month was likely the work of Israeli operatives. The killing of Mohammad Srour, 57, who was sanctioned by the U.S., was like something out of an international spy thriller. Pistols equipped with silencers and gloves were found in a bucket of water and chemicals at the scene, apparently intended to remove fingerprints and other evidence, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in an interview with The Associated Press. Thousand of dollars in cash were left scattered around Srour’s body, as if to dispel any speculation that robbery was the motive. “Lebanese security agencies have suspicion or accusations that Mossad was behind this operation,” Mawlawi said, referring to the Israeli spy agency. “The way the crime was carried out led to this suspicion.” He provided no specific evidence for his allegations. Mawlawi said the investigation is still ongoing and once it’s …

Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel over killing of Hamas leader in Beirut | Hezbollah

Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel over killing of Hamas leader in Beirut | Hezbollah

Published by skeptic

Hezbollah has fired multiple salvoes of rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel as a “preliminary response” to the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Beirut last week in an attack widely attributed to Israel. The escalation of violence on the disputed frontier between Lebanon and Israel came as Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, began a five-day tour of the region aimed at calming tensions that threaten to start a wider conflict across the Middle East. Most analysts believe an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel is still unlikely, with neither immediately prepared to risk the casualties, expense and destruction that such a clash would mean. In two speeches in the last week, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Islamist militant organisation, threatened retaliation for the killing of Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas, but did not commit to an escalation of attacks on Israel. Hamas and Hezbollah are allies, both close to Iran, and Arouri died in a neighbourhood that is a Hezbollah stronghold. Other Hamas leaders are based in …

Hezbollah Fires Rockets at Israel in Response to Assassination in Beirut

Hezbollah Fires Rockets at Israel in Response to Assassination in Beirut

Published by Sam

The Lebanese militia Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward a small military base in northern Israel on Saturday morning, in what the group said was an initial response to the assassination of a senior Hamas commander in Lebanon five days ago that has raised fears of a wider conflagration. Hezbollah said in a statement that the strikes had caused casualties, but there were no immediate Israeli reports of injuries and the assault was initially perceived by analysts as more of a symbolic response to the assassination than a significant escalation. The Israeli military said in a statement that roughly 40 rockets had been fired from Lebanon toward Mount Meron, an area housing a military radar station that is roughly five miles south of the Israel-Lebanon border. The military said that it had responded by striking a militant group in Lebanon that had been involved in the rocket fire. Hezbollah could still respond with a more forceful attack, while Hamas has not retaliated for the assassination of the senior commander, Saleh al-Arouri. Mr. al-Arouri was …

Response to killing of Hamas leader in Beirut ‘inevitable’, says Hezbollah chief Nasrallah

Response to killing of Hamas leader in Beirut ‘inevitable’, says Hezbollah chief Nasrallah

Published by Sam

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel on Friday that the group will “inevitably” respond to the assassination of Hamas’s deputy political leader in Beirut this week, saying it “cannot remain silent” to such an incursion on Lebanese territory.   Issued on: 05/01/2024 – 21:29 3 min “The response is inevitably coming. We cannot remain silent on a violation of this magnitude because it means the whole of Lebanon would be exposed,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.  Nasrallah appeared to be making the case for a response to the Lebanese public at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. But he gave no indication of how or when his group would act. There will be a “response and punishment”, he said in his second speech since the killing of Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday. “The decision is now in the hands of the battlefield,” he added. “Fighters from all areas of the border … will be the ones responding to the dangerous violation in the [southern] suburbs [of Beirut],” he said.  Arouri is the …