Israel launches heavy strikes against Beirut's suburbs

More than a year of clashes that recently escalated into war have cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.

Since September 23, Israel has launched furious airstrikes against in Lebanon, later starting a ground invasion following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah which followed the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Lebanon's health ministry on Thursday said more than 40 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the south and east, including on a civil defence centre in the Baalbek area.

Intensified Israeli strikes also hit in and around Damascus, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported 20 people killed.

In its Lebanon report, the World Bank provided estimates for damage between October 8, 2023 and October 27, 2024, saying "the conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses", with damage to physical structures amounting to "at least $3.4 billion" on top of that.

The losses are "largely concentrated in the commerce and tourism and hospitality sectors... as well as in the agriculture sector", the report said.

The conflict has also "damaged an estimated 99,209 housing units" - mainly in Lebanon's south, which Israel has bombed relentlessly - totalling $2.8 billion in damages, it said.

Eighty-one percent of damaged and destroyed houses are located in the Tyre, Nabatiyeh, Saida, Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun districts.

"The final cost of damage and losses for Lebanon associated with the conflict is expected to significantly exceed" the combined $8.5 billion estimated in the report, the bank said.

The World Bank estimates that the conflict cut Lebanon's real GDP growth for 2024 by at least 6.6 percent.

Lebanon had already been reeling since 2019 from an intense economic crisis that pushed most of the population into poverty.

 Four men were arrested Thursday during a pro-Palestinian protest outside a speech being given by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Queen’s University in Belfast.

Clinton, who holds the largely ceremonial role of chancellor at the school in the capital of Northern Ireland, was speaking on the final day of the Global Innovation Summit 2024.

The gathering included political, business and academic leaders discussing economic inclusion and global sustainability, the university said.

Protesters with Palestine flags carried a cut-out of Clinton depicted with blood on her hands and chanted “shame.” Video footage showed protesters engage in angry exchanges and scuffles with police outside the hall where Clinton was speaking.

Police said four men were arrested for public order offences.

Queen’s University said in a statement that it respected peaceful protest but condemned the behaviour of a "small number of demonstrators".

“Queen’s University has led the way in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East through calling for a ceasefire, providing scholarships for Palestinian students and divestment policies and has responded positively to the concerns of our university population where appropriate,” the university said in a statement.

An Israeli strike killed 12 people after it hit a civil defence centre in Lebanon's city of Baalbek on Thursday, the regional governor told Reuters adding that rescue operations were ongoing.

Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack on the Lebanese city, health ministry reported on Thursday. 

The UN peacekeeping chief whose force monitors Lebanon's south said redeploying Lebanese troops there is crucial for any solution to more than a year of Hezbollah-Israel clashes which Israel escalated into a full-scale war in September.

"The redeployment of the Lebanese armed forces is an absolutely central element to any durable settlement," Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix told reporters during a briefing in the Beirut area, at the end of a three-day visit.

In an interview last month, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told AFP his country was ready to bolster the army's presence in the south from about 4,500 to at least 11,500 troops following a ceasefire.

Lacroix said the UN appreciates the Lebanese authorities' "commitment to proceed with more recruitment and more training and elevated the level of preparedness of the Lebanese armed forces."

Tasked since 1978 with monitoring the "Blue Line" separating Lebanon from Israel, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has more than 9,300 troops who have come under attack during the Israel-Hezbollah war.

UNIFIL is proceeding "under the assumption that the post-cessation of hostilities and hopefully a return to the negotiating table... will be based on the implementation of Resolution 1701," Lacroix said.

Adopted in 2006, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 led to a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war that year and said the Lebanese army and peacekeepers should be the only armed forces deployed in the country's south.

"Any meaningful role for UNIFIL in terms of supporting the implementation by the parties would have to have, as a prerequisite, a full compliance from all to fully implement Resolution 1701," Lacroix added.

Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special UN committee said Thursday, as a Human Rights Watch report said Israel's displacement of Gazans amounts to a "crime against humanity".

The UN Special Committee pointed to "mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians", covering the period from the October 7 2023 surprise Hamas attack on Israel to July. 

The committee said Israel's siege, blocking of aid, and targeted attacks and killing of civilians, despite UN and International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders, was "intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury".

Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", the committee said in the first use of the word by the UN in the context of the current war in Gaza.

Israel, it said, was "using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population".

The US ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon's speaker of parliament Nabih Berri on Thursday to halt fighting between armed group Hezbollah and Israel, two political sources told Reuters, without revealing details.

The US has made attempts to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israel dramatically escalated its strikes on Lebanon in late September, turning a low-level conflict into a full-scale war. 

The US also voiced "concern" Thursday after Israel struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, saying it opposed attacks in densely populated parts of Lebanon.

"Certainly we would have concerns," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said when asked about the Israeli strikes.

"You've heard us say time and time again that we do not want to see these kinds of (military) operations in Beirut, especially as it relates to densely populated areas."

Israel has demolished buildings in an area of annexed east Jerusalem located near some of the city's most important holy sites, prompting anger from Palestinian residents, activists and foreign governments.

"They are trying to break us," said Fakhri Abu Diab, a resident of Silwan neighbourhood where Israeli police forces on Wednesday demolished a cultural centre and a protest encampment, citing unauthorised construction.

They were located in Silwan's Al-Bustan area, near Jerusalem's Old City that is home to multiple religious sites, and where Israeli settler activity has intensified in recent years.

"It is from here that messages to our community and to the world emanated," said Abu Diab, whose home, along with several others, was destroyed in another demolition last week.

He said the Israelis "wanted to cut off the head" of the anti-settlement movement in east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognised by the United Nations.

Anti-settlement group Ir Amim said that "this area has for years been under concerted state and settler pressure due to the historical assets within its bounds and its proximity to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount and the Old City", in reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most holy site in Islam.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Thursday that two or three unknown people fired approximately 30 shots in direction of peacekeepers, who fired back and moved to safety.

No one was hurt and an investigation was launched, UNIFIL added in a statement

(Reuters)

Doctors without Borders (MSF) has said that Israel blocked the medical evacuation of eight children from Gaza on Sunday.

MSF country director in Jordan, Moeen Mahmood, said that "It's utterly shocking and outrageous that children who need essential treatment are being blocked by Israel from leaving Gaza. Israel's denial of urgent medical evacuations defies reason and humanity."

Out of 32 applications made by MSF for medical evacuations for children, only six were granted, the MSF said.

On 10 November, Israeli authorities blocked, without explanation, the medical evacuation of eight children and their caretakers from Gaza who are in need of medical care, including a two-year-old with leg amputations, to the MSF hospital in Jordan. We strongly denounce this… pic.twitter.com/x8LBQ4khBE

— MSF International (@MSF) November 14, 2024

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Thursday on companies, individuals and vessels associated with a Syrian conglomerate that Washington said was funding Iran's Quds Force and Yemen's Houthis.

The Syrian conglomerate, the Al-Qatirji Company, is responsible for generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Quds Force and the Houthis through the sale of Iranian oil to Syria and China, the department said in a statement.

"Iran is increasingly relying on key business partners like the Al-Qatirji Company to fund its destabilizing activities and web of terrorist proxies across the region," said department official Bradley Smith said.

The Al-Qatirji Company had already been under sanctions for its role in facilitating the sale of fuel between the Syrian regime and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the department said. Some 26 companies, individuals and vessels associated with the company were targeted in Thursday's action, it added.

(Reuters)

The UN peacekeeping chief whose force monitors Lebanon's south said redeploying Lebanese troops there is crucial for any solution to more than a year of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah that escalated into war in September.

"The redeployment of the Lebanese armed forces is an absolutely central element to any durable settlement," Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix told reporters during a briefing in the Beirut area.

Lebanese state news agency NNA reported that a "violent air strike" had hit the Ghobeiry area, near Rawdat al-Shahideen cemetery, a prominent burial site for Hezbollah fighters and supporters, including many who died in conflicts with Israel. 

Video circulated online showing the damage to the site as a result of the raid.

مشاهد من تدمير روضة الشهيدين بعد استهداف الاحتلال لمنطقة #الغبيري#القاهرة_الإخبارية pic.twitter.com/gOu18UbmDl

— القاهرة الإخبارية - AlQahera News (@Alqaheranewstv) November 13, 2024

Israeli airstrikes have been hitting Beirut's southern suburbs against after heavy morning airstrikes. According to Lebanon's National News Agency, the strikes targeted Chiyah neighbourhood. 

Lebanon's health ministry said at least three people were killed in an Israeli strike Thursday on the main eastern city of Baalbek.

"The Israeli enemy strike... in Baalbek killed three people, in an initial toll," a ministry statement said, adding that "body parts were recovered from the site and their identities are being verified".

More than a year of clashes that escalated into war in September have cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses and damaged nearly 100,000 housing units, the World Bank said Thursday.

The World Bank report provided estimates for damage between 8 October, 2023, and 27 October, 2024, saying "the conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses" and that it "damaged an estimated 99,209 housing units" - mainly in Lebanon's war-torn south.

Fifteen people were killed and 16 injured in Israeli strikes on multiple residential buildings in the suburbs of Damascus on Thursday, according to Syria’s state news agency SANA, which cited a Syrian military source.

The strikes targeted buildings in the suburbs of Mazzeh and Qudsaya, located west of the capital.

Israel's Army Radio reported that the attack in Damascus was aimed at a headquarters of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad and other unspecified assets.

The high-rise buildings in Mazzeh have historically housed leaders of Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, according to local reports.

Several people were killed and others injured in Israeli attacks that targeted two residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

One building was located in Damascus suburb of Mazzeh and the other in Qudsaya, west of the capital.

Israeli army radio said the targets of the attack in Damascus were assets and the headquarters of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the outbreak of Israel's war on Gaza on October 7 of last year.

Iran will deliver a message to three European powers through visiting UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi about Tehran's seriousness to resolve its nuclear standoff with the West, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday.

The official said the message will stress that any pressure on Tehran will have the opposite effect.

The Israeli military on Thursday said it struck around 30 targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut over the past 48 hours.

"Over the past two days, approximately 30 terror targets were struck in the Dahiyeh area in Beirut. These strikes were a part of the IDF's ongoing efforts to dismantle and degrade Hezbollah's military capabilities," the military said in a statement, weeks after it began on September 23 escalating air raids against the group.

A war monitor said an Israeli strike on an apartment killed four people in the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus Thursday, also reporting a similar attack on the capital's outskirts.

"Four people were killed in the Israeli strike on on apartment in Mazzeh, Damascus, with another Israeli strike hitting Qudsaya," Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights, told AFP. Syrian state media said an unspecified number of victims were killed in the strikes on the apartments.

Syrian state news agency SANA said initial reports indicated that an Israeli strike on Thursday had targeted the Damascus suburb of Mazzeh.

Another Israeli strike hit a residential building in Qudsaya, west of Damascus, Syrian state media said.

The health ministry in Gaza said Thursday that at least 43,736 people have been killed in more than 13 months of Israel's war on the enclave.

The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said a total of 103,370 people have also been wounded in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier on Thursday, Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 10 people were killed in "several air strikes" by the Israeli army on the Palestinian territory.

The agency's spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that "around 30 people, all civilians" were wounded in the strikes in Gaza City, the northern town of Jabalia and the southern city of Rafah.

A new strike targeted the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut mid-day Thursday, leaving grey smoke over the area, AFTV images showed, after an air raid earlier in the day and following Israeli displacement orders.

Israel's air force "carried out a heavy strike on the southern suburbs targeting the Haret Hreik-Rueis" area, the official National News Agency reported, following a series of at least seven Israeli strikes since Tuesday.

Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special UN committee said Thursday, accusing the country of "using starvation as a method of war".

Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices said, pointing to the "mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there".

Iraq has agreed to extend a deal to supply Lebanon with fuel oil until the end of January, two oil officials told Reuters on Thursday.

The contract between the two countries was supposed to expire at the end of October.

The Arabic language spokesperson for the Israeli military, Avichay Adraee, has issued a second round of displacement orders for Beirut's southern suburbs following a round of Israeli airstrikes in the area this morning.

Air strikes hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Thursday after Israeli displacement orders, AFPTV images showed.

A plume of grey smoke rose over the area after the latest strike since Israel sharply intensified its campaign against the Iran-backed militant group in September.

Shortly before the strike, Israel had issued a displacement order to residents to evacuate their homes.

"You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests against which the (Israeli military) will operate in the near future," army spokesman Avichay Adraee said.

His post on X included a map identifying buildings in the Shouaifat al-Omrousiya and Ghobeiry areas.

Israel carried out two strikes on Ghobeiry and a large one on Shouaifat al-Omrousiya, which lies on the southern outskirts of Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.

NNA also reported heavy Israeli bombardment of the southern town of Bint Jbeil on Thursday.

Several blocks of flats in the town barely three kilometres (two miles) from the Israeli border were destroyed by air strikes or shelling, it said.

Visiting United Nations nuclear chief Rafael Grossi said in Tehran Thursday that achieving "results" in talks with Iran is vital to avoid a war.

"It is indispensable to get, at this point in time, to some concrete, tangible, visible results that will indicate that this joint work is improving the situation... and in a general sense is moving us away from conflict and ultimately war," Grossi told a joint news conference with Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami.

US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump discussed working together to push for a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip to secure the release of Israeli hostages who remain there, the Israeli Walla news site reported this morning. 

Walla quoted National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as saying after Biden and Trump's meeting in the White House that Biden was ready to work with the president-elect "on a bipartisan basis to do everything we can to secure the release of American hostages, both alive and dead".

According to Walla, Biden is seeking to use his last two months in office to "break the deep deadlock" in talks to reach a Gaza deal.

Trump "will be happy to reach 20 January with one less crisis to deal with", Walla reported.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati yesterday to discuss efforts to reach an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, as well as in the Gaza Strip.

Abdelatty also reviewed Egypt's contacts with the concerned regional and international parties to stop "Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty", an Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement said, adding that he had reiterated Cairo's support for the institutions of the Lebanese state.

The statement said Egypt was following with concern the "worsening internal displacement crisis in Lebanon and its repercussions", noting Cairo's efforts to intensify humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

Earlier in the day, Abdelatty held separate meetings in Beirut with Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, army chief Joseph Aoun and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Joumblatt.

Lebanon has not had a president since October 2022.

Six soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed in a village in southern Lebanon, according to Yedioth Ahronoth new site which revealed details about their killing after the Israeli army's disclosed their identities yesterday.

The Israeli army said that six soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed on Wednesday morning in a clash with Hezbollah fighters in a village in southern Lebanon, and that another soldier sustained moderate injuries in the same clash.

The Israeli army indicated that the soldiers killed belonged to the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade and were killed in an ambush "during operational activity".

Hezbollah claims to have killed over 100 Israeli soldiers since 1 October.

Israeli forces said at least 50 soldiers had been killed in cross-border clashes and ground operations in southern Lebanon.

The al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), has released a video of an Israeli hostage in which he directs a message to the Israeli government.

In the video, titled "message 01", the hostage identified himself as Alexander Troufanov and said he had been held by the PIJ - the second largest faction in Gaza - for a year. Some media reports have referred to him as Sasha Troufanov.

There was no indication of when was the video filmed. Troufanov appeared in two videos in May, in which he stressed that the only way to get the Israeli hostages released was through reaching a prisoner-hostage swap deal and implementing a ceasefire in Gaza.

He said the past year had been marked by "food, drinks and electricity shortages" and noted that hostages were now facing shampoo and soap shortages, which has caused him "skin problems" that he had not suffered from in the past.

Troufanov called on Israelis to "remember the hostages" as they enjoy eating and drinking. He also called on the Israeli government to "remember the hostages" as it "closes the [Rafah] border crossing to make the lives of Gazans harder".

He said that his life had been "in danger" over the past year due to the Israeli military operations "which are supposedly carried out to save us [ the hostages]", saying PIJ fighters had saved his life several times and some were killed and injured during the process.

Troufanov called on Israelis to "escalate" their ongoing protests urging the government agree to a deal to bring the hostages home. He urged protesters to go on strikes and close roads as the government has been "ignoring them" over the past year. He explained that the only way for the hostages to return to their homes and families was through "exercising pressure on the [Israeli] government".

The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement Sheikh Naim Qassem has written a motivational letter to the group's fighters, as clashes continue in the south between fighters and Israeli forces

The handwritten letter, published on pro-Hezbollah media yesterday along with a video, praises the fighters' "faith in liberating Jerusalem and our occupied lands", and their confrontations with Israeli forces which will "achieve our victory".

"You are the power in the face of arrogance and tyranny... you are shaking the pillars of Zionism," Qassem told the group's members.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar reported that the group had struck the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv overnight with ballistic missiles and drones, "for the first time" since the start of the conflict.