Joseph Aoun’s candidacy was backed by several political parties, as well as the US, France and Saudi Arabia.

A rival backed by the Hezbollah militia withdrew on Wednesday and endorsed the commander.

The presidency is a mainly ceremonial role which is reserved for a Christian under a sectarian power-sharing system.

The election took place six weeks after Lebanon’s government agreed a ceasefire to end a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah, which significantly weakened the Iran-backed Shia Muslim group.

The Lebanese army was not involved in the conflict and has a key role under the ceasefire deal, which requires it to deploy soldiers in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops withdraw and to ensure Hezbollah ends its armed presence there by 26 January.

Aoun, 60, is a career soldier who has been the army’s commander since 2017.

During that time, he has led the institution through deep crises which have affected Lebanon.

They include the 13-month Hezbollah-Israel conflict, a six-year-long economic depression that is one of the worst recorded in modern times, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion that killed more than 200 people.

Lebanon has not had a properly functioning government since the last parliamentary elections in May 2022.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati was unable to secure backing for a new cabinet before then-president Michel Aoun’s term ended that October, leaving his administration with reduced powers.

Lawmakers then failed to elect a new president on 12 occasions. The last time was in June 2023, when no candidate secured enough votes to win the first round before Hezbollah and its ally Amal prevented a second round by walking out.

A presidential candidate in Lebanon can usually be elected in the first round if they receive a two-thirds majority – or 86 votes – in the 128-seat parliament, or by a simple majority in a second round. However, Speaker Nabih Berri said Aoun needed a two-thirds majority in any round because he was a sitting army commander.

In Thursday morning’s first round, 71 lawmakers voted in favour of Aoun, 15 short of what he required. Another 37 lawmakers – many of them reportedly from Hezbollah and Amal – cast blank ballots, while 20 ballots were declared invalid.

Berri, who is the leader of Amal, then suspended the session until the afternoon, sparking anger among lawmakers who wanted the second round to take place immediately.

Eventually, Aoun was elected president after receiving 99 votes in the second round, easily achieving the required two-thirds majority. Nine lawmakers cast blank ballots, in addition to 18 invalid ballots.

As soon as the result was announced by the speaker, TV channels showed scenes of celebration around the country.

Aoun was later shown arriving at the parliament building in a suit and then inspecting guards before entering the chamber to be sworn in.

By BBC News

The post Army Chief Joseph Aoun Elected Lebanon’s President After Years of Deadlock appeared first on KahawaTungu.

The strike happened without warning at about 04:00 (02:00 GMT) on Saturday, and was an attempt to assassinate a senior Hezbollah official, Israeli media reported.

The attack was heard and felt across the city, and destroyed at least one eight-storey residential building in the densely populated Basta district.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said a so-called bunker buster bomb was used, a type of weapon previously used by Israel to kill senior Hezbollah figures, including former leader Hassan Nasrallah.

All day, emergency workers used heavy machinery to remove the rubble and retrieve bodies.

The Lebanese health ministry said more than 60 people had been wounded, and that the number of victims was expected to rise as DNA tests would be carried out on body parts that had been recovered.

“It was a very horrible explosion. All the windows and glasses were over me, my wife and my children. My home now is a battlefield,” said 55-year-old Ali Nassar, who lived in a nearby building.

“Even if one person is hiding here… Should you destroy buildings where people are sleeping inside? Is it necessary to kill all the people for one person? Or we’re not humans? That’s what I’m asking.”

According to the Israeli public broadcaster Kan, the attack was an attempt to kill Mohammed Haydar, a top Hezbollah official. Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri said none of the group’s leaders were in the building hit, and Haydar’s fate remained unclear.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented.

Also on Saturday, the IDF carried out further air strikes on the Dahieh, the area in southern Beirut where Hezbollah is based, saying they were buildings linked to the group.

Israeli attacks have also hit the south, where an Israeli ground invasion is advancing, and the east, where air strikes in the city of Baalbek killed at least 15 people, including four children, the Lebanese health ministry said.

In the past two weeks, Israel has intensified its campaign against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia and political movement, amid international efforts for a ceasefire, in what appears to be a strategy to pressure the group to accept a deal.

The escalation comes as renewed negotiations to end more than one year of conflict showed initial signs of progress. This week, Amos Hochstein, who has led the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts, held talks in Lebanon and Israel to try to advance a US drafted deal.

The escalation comes as renewed negotiations to end more than one year of conflict showed initial signs of progress. This week, Amos Hochstein, who has led the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts, held talks in Lebanon and Israel to try to advance a US drafted deal.

Since the conflict intensified in late September, Lebanese authorities have said any deal should be limited to the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The resolution includes the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s fighters and weapons in areas between the Blue Line – the unofficial frontier between Lebanon and Israel – and the Litani river, about 30km (20 miles) from the boundary with Israel.

Israel says that was never fully respected, while Lebanon says Israeli violations included military flights over Lebanese territory.

The proposal, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity, includes a 60-day ceasefire which would see the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the removal of Hezbollah’s presence from the area. The Lebanese military would then boost its presence there, with thousands of extra troops.

But disagreements over some elements remained, the diplomat added, including about the timeline for an Israeli pull-out and the formation of an international mechanism to monitor the agreement.

Both Hezbollah and Iran have indicated being interested in a deal, according to a senior Lebanese source. After the initial shock, the group has reorganised itself, and continues to carry out daily attacks on Israel, though not with the same intensity, and confront invading Israeli soldiers.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Naim Qassem said the group had received the US proposal, clarified its reservations, and that it was allowing the talks to go ahead to see if they produced any results. The conditions for a deal, he said, were a complete cessation of hostilities and the preservation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, warning that Hezbollah was ready for a long fight.

Israel’s stated goal in its war against Hezbollah is to allow the return of about 60,000 residents who have been displaced from communities in northern Israel because of the group’s attacks.

In Lebanon, the conflict has killed more than 3,500 people and forced more than one million from their homes, Lebanese authorities say.

By BBC News

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Speaking in front of curtains from an undisclosed location on Oct. 8, Qassem said the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel was a war about who cries first, and Hezbollah would not cry first. The group’s capabilities were intact despite “painful blows” from Israel.

But he added the group supported the efforts of parliament speaker Nabih Berri – a Hezbollah ally – to secure a ceasefire, for the first time omitting any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a pre-condition for halting the group’s fire on Israel.

His 30-minute televised address came just days after senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine was thought to have been the target of an Israeli strike and 11 days after the killing of Hezbollah’s secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Safieddine’s killing was confirmed by Hezbollah on Oct. 23.

Qassem was appointed deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group’s then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, and has long been one of Hezbollah’s leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media including as cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.

Qassem’s televised address on Oct. 8 was his second since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah intensified in September.

He was the first member of Hezbollah’s top leadership to make televised remarks after Nasrallah’s killing in an Israeli air attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sept. 27.

Speaking on Sept. 30, Qassem said Hezbollah would choose a successor to its slain secretary general “at the earliest opportunity” and would continue to fight Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.

“What we are doing is the bare minimum… We know that the battle may be long,” he said in a 19-minute speech.

Born in 1953 in Beirut to a family from Lebanon’s south, Qassem’s political activism began with the Lebanese Shi’ite Amal Movement.

He left the group in 1979 in the wake of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, which shaped the political thinking of many young Lebanese Shi’ite activists.

Qassem took part in meetings that led to the formation of Hezbollah, established with the backing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

He has been the general coordinator of Hezbollah’s parliamentary election campaigns since the group first contested them in 1992.

In 2005, he wrote a history of Hezbollah seen as a rare “insider’s look” into the organisation. Qassem wears a white turban unlike Nasrallah and Safieddine, whose black turbans denoted their status as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

By Agencies

The post Who Is Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s New Leader? appeared first on KahawaTungu.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant made the announcement about Hashem Safieddine as Israel began ground operations in southwest Lebanon, expanding its incursions to a new zone, and as Hezbollah left the door open to a negotiated ceasefire.

Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official, was widely expected to succeed Nasrallah. Safieddine has not been heard from publicly since an Israeli airstrike late last week.

“Hezbollah is an organization without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated,” Gallant told officers at the Israeli military’s northern command centre, in a brief video segment distributed by the military.

“There’s no one to make decisions, no one to act,” he said, without providing further details.

Like Nasrallah, Safieddine is a cleric who wears a black turban denoting descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. His physical resemblance to Nasrallah, who led the Lebanese Shi’ite group for more than three decades, has also marked him as a favourite for the succession.

Safieddine was not attending the meeting in Beirut’s southern suburbs on the evening of Sept. 27 that Israel attacked with an air strike, killing Nasrallah.

But he has been a prime target for Israel, nurtured as an influential leader and potential heir. As head of Hezbollah’s executive council, he has overseen the group’s political affairs, while also sitting on the Jihad Council, which manages its military operations.

In a televised speech shown before the release of the video with Gallant’s announcement, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said he supported attempts to secure a truce, and for the first time did not mention the end of war in Gaza as a pre-condition to halting combat on the Lebanon-Israel border.

Qassem said Hezbollah supported attempts by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, to secure a halt to fighting, which has escalated in recent weeks with the Israeli ground incursions and the killing of top Hezbollah leaders.

“We support the political activity being led by Berri under the title of a ceasefire,” Qassem said in his 30-minute televised address.

It was not clear whether this signalled any change in stance, after a year in which the group has said it is fighting in support of the Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and would not stop without a ceasefire there.

Speaking from an undisclosed location, Qassem said the conflict with Israel was a war about who cries first, and Hezbollah would not be the first to cry. The group’s capabilities were intact despite “painful blows” from Israel.

“Dozens of cities are within range of the resistance’s missiles. We assure you that our capabilities are fine,” said Qassem.

His televised address was shown 11 days after the killing of Nasrallah, the most devastating setback Israel has dealt its foe in decades. Qassem said the group would elect a new secretary general and announce it once it has been done.

Israel is yet to advance after ground clashes that broke out in south Lebanon a week ago, he said.

“In any case, after the issue of a ceasefire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be taken,” Qassem said. “If the enemy (Israel) continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.”

The regional tensions triggered a year ago by Palestinian armed group Hamas’ attack on southern Israel have spiralled in recent weeks into a series of Israeli operations by land and air against Lebanon. On Oct. 1, Iran, sponsor of both Hezbollah and Hamas, fired missiles at Israel.

Iran warned Israel on Tuesday against any retaliatory attacks. Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said any attack on Iran’s infrastructure will be met with retaliation.

Araqchi will visit Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East starting on Tuesday to discuss ways “to prevent the shameless crimes of the Zionist regime in Lebanon in continuation of the crimes in Gaza”.

Gulf Arab states have sought to reassure Tehran of their neutrality in the conflict.

The area of Israeli operations in Lebanon has been expanding. The Israeli military said it was conducting “limited, localised, targeted operations” in Lebanon’s southwest, having previously announced such operations in the southeast.

Israel’s military struck Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight again and said it had killed a figure responsible for Hezbollah’s budgeting and logistics, Suhail Hussein Husseini, the latest in a strong of assassinations of some of the group’s top officials.

By Agencies

The post Israel Says Senior Hezbollah Official Probably Dead appeared first on KahawaTungu.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said it had destroyed Israeli tanks during the fighting and insisted it had enough men and ammunition to push back the forces.

Earlier, the Israeli military announced that more infantry and armoured troops had joined the operation seeking to dismantle what it called “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanese border villages.

Meanwhile, at least five people died and eight were wounded in an Israeli military air strike in the Bachoura area in central Beirut, Lebanese officials said.

The multi-storey building targeted housed a Hezbollah-affiliated health centre and is just metres away from Lebanon’s parliament and United Nations Regional Headquarters.

This is the first Israeli strike so close to the centre of Beirut, with other attacks overnight hitting the southern suburb of Dahieh.

Earlier on Wednesday evening, Lebanon’s health ministry said 46 people had been killed and 85 wounded in Israeli strikes on the country in the last 24 hours, without differentiating between civilians and combatants.

Hezbollah has been weakened after two weeks of Israeli strikes and other attacks that have killed more than 1,200 people across Lebanon and displaced around 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israel has gone on the offensive after almost a year of cross-border hostilities sparked by the war in Gaza, saying it wants to ensure the safe return of residents of border areas displaced by Hezbollah attacks.

Hezbollah is a Shia Islamist political, military and social organisation that wields considerable power in Lebanon. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US, the UK and other countries.

On the second full day of their ground invasion into Lebanon, Israeli troops encountered Hezbollah fighters for the first time.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Wednesday that soldiers backed by aircraft had “eliminated terrorists and dismantled terrorist infrastructure through precision-guided munitions and close-range engagements” in several southern Lebanese areas.

Later, the IDF announced that eight troops had been killed in action. Most were commandos from the elite Egoz and Golani Reconnaissance units.

Six were reportedly ambushed by Hezbollah fighters and another two were killed by mortar fire.

Hezbollah said dozens of its fighters had fired ani-tank missiles at Israeli commandos, killing and wounding dozens of them, during clashes early on Wednesday in one border village.

It also claimed that other troops were targeted with explosives and gunfire on the outskirts of Kafr Kila, and that three Israeli Merkava tanks were destroyed by missiles near Maroun al-Ras.

Hezbollah has spent years building infrastructure in southern Lebanon that includes extensive underground tunnels. It also has thousands of fighters, who know the area well.

Paying tribute to the eight soldiers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they had fallen ”in the midst of a tough war against Iran’s axis of evil, which seeks to destroy us”.

“This will not happen, because we will stand together, and with God’s help, we will win together,” he added.

Israeli air defences were also in action again a day after they repelled the vast majority of the more than 180 ballistic missiles launched by Iran towards Israel on Tuesday night in retaliation for the Israeli air strike in Beirut last Friday that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and a top Iranian commander.

More than 240 rockets were fired from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel throughout Wednesday, according to the IDF.

Netanyahu insists that the ground offensive in Lebanon will degrade Hezbollah’s capability and push its fighters back, eventually allowing about 60,000 Israelis to return to their homes near the border.

Meanwhile US President Joe Biden said he did not support an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iranian nuclear sites. He added that the US “will be discussing with the Israelis what they’re gonna do” in response to the Iranian barrage

The overnight air strikes in Beirut follows heavy strikes in Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the previous night after the IDF issued several evacuation orders for areas around buildings it said were linked to the group.

On Wednesday morning, a BBC team was taken there on a media tour organised by Hezbollah to show the recent destruction.

Once a bustling district, Dahieh now looks like a ghost town. Shops have been closed, streets are deserted and most of its residents have left.

One of the sites on the tour was the headquarters of Sirat TV, which was hit on Monday. It was flattened, and nearby buildings were severely damaged, an indication of the power of the attack.

There was still smoke billowing from the rubble and a heavy smell in the air, while the sound of Israeli drones flying overhead could be heard.

There were several posters with the face of Hassan Nasrallah. One said: “None of our banners shall fall.”

Hezbollah says Israel has been hitting civilian buildings, not those used for military purposes. Israel accused the group of hiding weapons and ammunition in residential areas.

US and Israeli officials believe half of Hezbollah’s arsenal has been destroyed and its leadership has been dismantled.

But Mohammed Afif, a Hezbollah spokesman, remained defiant.

“I can say the resistance is swiftly recovering its strength,” he told the BBC. “The leadership of the resistance is well, its command-and-control structure is well, and its supply of rockets is well.”

“God willing, we will inflict defeat upon the Israeli enemy when they dare cross into Lebanon.”

As well as Dahieh, many people have fled two other regions where Hezbollah has a strong presence – the south and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Beirut’s Martyr’s Square has become a place where dozens of families have gathered, with nowhere to go.

Some tents have been set up near concrete walls, but many are sleeping on the steps of the nearby Mohammad al-Amin Mosque or on mattresses on the ground.

Mohammed, who is 55, arrived five days ago with his wife, his son and seven grandchildren. They were trying to move to a shelter, he said, but had not been able to find a place.

“We’ve got nowhere to go,” he said. Thanks to donations, they have been able to eat. But they are struggling without diapers, milk, and medicine.

Next to him, 26-year-old Mohammed had arrived with his three children.

He said he worked in Dahieh but that he lost his job because all its shops were closed. “There’s no work,” he said.

By BBC News

The post Eight Israeli Troops Killed in Fighting with Hezbollah Inside Lebanon appeared first on KahawaTungu.

Nasrallah – who was reportedly the target of Friday’s air strike on Beirut – has not been seen in public for years because of fears of being assassinated by Israel.

A shadowy figure with close personal links to Iran, he played a key role in turning Hezbollah into the political and military force it is today – and remains revered by the group’s supporters.

Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah has helped train fighters from the Palestinian armed group Hamas, as well as militias in Iraq and Yemen, and obtained missiles and rockets from Iran for use against Israel.

He steered Hezbollah’s evolution from a militia founded to fight Israeli troops occupying Lebanon into a military force stronger than the Lebanese army, a power broker in Lebanese politics, a major provider of health, education and social services, and a key part of its backer Iran’s drive for regional supremacy.

Born in 1960, Hassan Nasrallah grew up in Beirut’s eastern Bourj Hammoud neighbourhood, where his father Abdul Karim ran a small greengrocers. He was the eldest of nine children.

He joined the Amal movement, then a Shia militia, after Lebanon descended into civil war in 1975. After a short spell in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf to attend a Shia seminary he rejoined Amal in Lebanon before he and others split from the group in 1982, shortly after Israel invaded Lebanon in response to attacks by Palestinian militants.

The new group, Islamic Amal, received considerable military and organisational support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards based in the Bekaa Valley, and emerged as the most prominent and effective of the Shia militias that would later form Hezbollah.

In 1985, Hezbollah officially announced its establishment by publishing an “open letter” that identified the US and the Soviet Union as Islam’s principal enemies and called for the “obliteration” of Israel, which it said was occupying Muslim lands.

Nasrallah worked his way up through Hezbollah’s ranks as the organisation grew. He said that after serving as a fighter he became its director in Baalbek, then the whole Bekaa region, followed by Beirut.

He became leader of Hezbollah in 1992 at the age of 32, after his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was assassinated in an Israeli helicopter strike.

One of his first actions was to retaliate to the killing of Musawi. He ordered rocket attacks into northern Israel that killed a girl, an Israeli security officer at the Israeli embassy in Turkey was killed by a car bomb and a suicide bomber struck the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people.

Nasrallah also managed a low-intensity war with Israeli forces that ended with their withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, though he suffered a personal loss when his eldest son Hadi was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops.

Following the withdrawal Nasrallah proclaimed that Hezbollah had achieved the first Arab victory against Israel. He also vowed that Hezbollah would not disarm, saying that it considered that “all Lebanese territory must be restored”, including the Shebaa Farms area.

There was relative calm until 2006, when Hezbollah militants launched a cross-border attack in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two others kidnapped, triggering a massive Israeli response.

Israeli warplanes bombed Hezbollah strongholds in the South and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, while Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets at Israel. More than 1,125 Lebanese, most of them civilians, died during the 34-day conflict, as well as 119 Israeli soldiers and 45 civilians.

In 2009, Nasrallah issued a new political manifesto that sought to highlight Hezbollah’s “political vision”. It dropped the reference to an Islamic republic found in the 1985 document, but maintained a tough line against Israel and the US and reiterated that Hezbollah needed to keep its weapons despite a UN resolution banning them in southern Lebanon.

“People evolve. The whole world changed over the past 24 years. Lebanon changed. The world order changed,” Nasrallah said.

Four years later, Nasrallah declared that Hezbollah was entering “a completely new phase” of its existence by sending of fighters into Syria to help its Iran-backed ally, President Bashar al-Assad, put down a rebellion. “It is our battle, and we are up to it,” he said.

Lebanese Sunni leaders accused Hezbollah of dragging the country into Syria’s war and sectarian tensions worsened dramatically.

In 2019, a deep economic crisis in Lebanon triggered mass protests against a political elite long accused of corruption, waste, mismanagement and negligence. Nasrallah initially expressed sympathy with the calls for reforms, but his attitude changed as the protesters began demanding for a complete overhaul of the political system.

On 8 October 2023 – the day after the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen that triggered the war in Gaza – previously sporadic fighting between Hezbollah and Israel escalated.

Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions, in solidarity with the Palestinians.

In a speech in November, Nasrallah said the Hamas attack had been “100 percent Palestinian in terms of both decision and execution” but that the firing between his group and Israel was “very important and significant”.

The group launched more than 8,000 rockets at northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It also fired anti-tank missiles at armoured vehicles and attacked military targets with explosive drones.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaliated with air strikes and tank and artillery fire against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.

In his most recent speech, Nasrallah blamed Israel for detonating thousands of pagers and radio handsets used by Hezbollah members, which killed 39 people and wounded thousands more, and said it had “crossed all red lines”. He acknowledged the group had suffered an “unprecedented blow”.

Shortly afterwards Israel dramatically escalated attacks on Hezbollah, launching waves of bombing that killed nearly 800 people.

By BBC News

The post Who is Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah? appeared first on KahawaTungu.

In a statement shared on the IDF’s X account, it says: “Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world.”

The statement follows a series of overnight strikes in Beirut which Israel said were targeting Nasrallah

As a reminder, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s militant Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, is one of the best known and most influential figures in the Middle East.

Nasrallah has not been seen in public for years because of fears of being assassinated by Israel.

A shadowy figure with close personal links to Iran, he played a key role in turning Hezbollah into the political and military force it is today – and remains revered by the group’s supporters.

Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah has helped train fighters from the Palestinian armed group Hamas, as well as militias in Iraq and Yemen, and obtained missiles and rockets from Iran for use against Israel.

For several hours overnight, the Israeli military carried out a wave of air strikes on Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut.

After warning residents to evacuate, the army said it targeted locations including weapons production facilities and storage sites that, it said, were under civilian housing. Hezbollah, in a statement, rejected this.

Fleeing their homes carrying only bags and rucksacks, thousands of people have congregated in streets and squares in central Beirut.

These attacks followed the most powerful Israeli airstrikes on the city in this conflict, apparently targeting Hezbollah’s long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Lebanon’s health ministry has ordered hospitals in Beirut and its surrounding area to prepare to evacuate the suburb’s hospitals and receive their patients.

In a statement, released from ministry this morning, it says that the capital, Mount Lebanon and the areas “not affected by the Israeli aggression” should stop taking “non-emergency cold cases” until the end of next week.

It comes as Israeli continued to strike the region on Saturday morning.

The ministry are also calling on hospitals to prepare for patients who have been displaced during the night.

By BBC News

The post Israeli Military Says Hezbollah Leader Has Been Killed appeared first on KahawaTungu.

The 12-strong bloc proposed an immediate 21-day pause in fighting “to provide space for diplomacy towards the conclusion of a diplomatic settlement” and a ceasefire in Gaza.

In a joint statement, they said the hostilities were “intolerable” and presented an “unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation” that was neither in the interest of the people of Israel or Lebanon.

It comes after Israel’s military chief told troops that extensive air strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah could pave the way for them to “enter enemy territory”.

The remarks by Lt Gen Halevi are the plainest indication yet from a senior figure that a ground invasion into Lebanon may be imminent.

The joint statement was signed by the US, Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Qatar.

It followed a meeting of world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York.

A joint statement by US President Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time for a settlement “that ensures safety and security to enable civilians to return to their homes”.

The current hostilities threaten “a much broader conflict, and harm to civilians”, they said.

“We therefore have worked together in recent days on a joint call for a temporary ceasefire to give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations across the border.”

President Biden briefly spoke to reporters at the White House on Wednesday evening, saying there is “significant support from Europe as well as the Arab nations … it’s important the war does not widen”.

Earlier in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged an immediate ceasefire, and said “hell is breaking loose”.

Lebanese PM Najib Mikati said his country is “facing a blatant violation of our sovereignty and human rights through the brutal practices of the Israeli enemy”.

He added he hoped he could leave the UN session with a “serious solution” to “put pressure on Israel to achieve an immediate ceasefire on all fronts”. Asked by Reuters if a ceasefire can be reached soon, he responded: “Hopefully, yes.”

Also speaking earlier, Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, said it was grateful for diplomatic efforts to avoid escalation but would use “all use all means at our disposal, in accordance with international law, to achieve our aims”.

He said Israel “does not seek a full-scale war”, and has made its desire for peace “clear”.

Mr Danon added that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will arrive in New York on Thursday, have bilateral meetings later that day and speak at the General Assembly the following morning.

The post US and Allies Call for 21-day Ceasefire Across Lebanon-Israel Border appeared first on KahawaTungu.

Thousands of families have also fled their homes as the Israeli military said it hit 1,300 Hezbollah targets in an operation to destroy infrastructure that the armed group had built up since the 2006 war.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, launched more than 200 rockets into northern Israel, according to the military. Paramedics said two people were injured by shrapnel.

World powers have been urging restraint as both sides appear to be spiralling closer towards all-out war.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 35 children and 58 women were among the dead, while 1,645 others had been wounded.

It did not report how many of the casualties were civilians or combatants.

Health Minister Firass Abiad said thousands of families had also been displaced by the strikes.

UN Secretary General António Guterres expressed alarm at the escalating situation and said he did not want Lebanon to “become another Gaza”.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said the “escalation is extremely dangerous and worrying” ahead of a gathering of world leaders at the UN in New York, adding “we are almost in a full-fledged war”.

President Joe Biden said the US was “working to de-escalate in a way that allows people to return home safely”, while the Pentagon announced it was sending “a small number” of additional troops to the Middle East “out of an abundance of caution”.

Nearly a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah sparked by the war in Gaza has killed hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah fighters, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the frontier.

Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of Hamas and will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Both groups are backed by Iran and proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.

The Pentagon said it was sending “a small number” of additional US troops to the Middle East amid the growing crisis.

“In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” said Pentagon spokesman Maj Gen Pat Ryder in a briefing with reporters.

He would not answer any follow-up questions on the specifics.

Lebanese media said the first wave of Israeli air strikes began at around 06:30 local time (03:30 GMT) on Monday.

“It was horrifying, the missiles flew over our heads. We woke up to the sound of bombings, we didn’t expect this,” one woman said.

Dozens of towns, villages and open areas were targeted throughout the day in the districts of Sidon, Marjayoun, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil, Tyre, Jezzine and Zahrani in southern Lebanon, as well as the Zahle, Baalbek and Hermel districts in the eastern Bekaa Valley, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).

In the evening, it reported that a building in the Bir al-Abed area of the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut, was hit by several missiles.

Lebanese security sources said the strike targeted Hezbollah’s top commander in southern Lebanon, Ali Karaki, but that it was not clear whether he was killed. Hezbollah’s media office said Karaki was “fine” and had “moved to a safe place”.

From the south to Beirut, roads were congested as people desperately tried to leave amid the bombardment and after receiving audio and text messages from the Israeli military warning them to move away immediately from buildings where Hezbollah was storing weapons.

A family of four riding on a motorbike spoke to the BBC in Beirut during a brief stop on their way to the northern city of Tripoli. “What do you want us to say? We just had to flee,” the father said anxiously.

Information Minister Ziad Makary said his ministry had received an Israeli phone call urging it to evacuate its building in Beirut. However, he insisted that it would not comply with what he called “a psychological war”.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati, meanwhile, told a cabinet meeting: “The continued Israeli aggression on Lebanon is a war of extermination in every sense of the word.”

“We are working as a government to stop this new Israeli war and to avoid descending into the unknown,” he added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Monday evening that its aircraft had carried out strikes on approximately 1,300 Hezbollah “terror targets” in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley where it claimed that rockets, missiles, launchers, and drones were hidden.

“Essentially, we are targeting combat infrastructure that Hezbollah has been building for the past 20 years. This is very significant,” the IDF’s Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, told commanders in Tel Aviv.

“Ultimately, everything is focused on creating the conditions to return the residents of the north to their homes.”

IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said videos from southern Lebanon showed “significant secondary explosions caused by Hezbollah’s weapons that were being stored inside the buildings”.

“It is likely that some of the casualties are from these secondary explosions,” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the people of Lebanon to “get out of harm’s way now”.

“For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. It placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage,” he said. “To defend our people against Hezbollah strikes, we must take out these weapons.”

A senior Israeli military official insisted that the IDF was “currently focusing on Israel’s aerial campaign only” after being asked by reporters if a ground invasion of southern Lebanon was imminent to create a buffer zone.

The official said Israel had three aims – to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to fire rockets and missiles over the Lebanon-Israel border, to push its fighters back from the frontier, and to destroy the infrastructure built by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force which could be used to attack Israeli communities.

Hezbollah did not comment on the Israeli claims that it had hidden weapons in houses, and its media office had announced the death of only one fighter by Monday evening.

But in a sign that it is unlikely to back down, it said it had responded to the “Israeli enemy’s attacks” by firing barrages of rockets at several Israeli military bases in northern Israel, as well as a weapons manufacturing facility in the coastal Zvulun area, north of the city of Haifa.

The IDF said 210 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon by the evening, and that an unspecified number had landed in the Lower Galilee and Upper Galilee regions, in Haifa and the nearby areas of Carmel, HaAmakim and Hamifratz areas, and in the occupied Golan Heights.

One house was badly damaged by a rocket in Givat Avni, in the Lower Galilee.

Resident David Yitzhak told the BBC that he, his wife and six-year-old daughter were unharmed because they had managed to get behind the solid door of the house’s safe room seconds earlier, when a warning siren sounded.

“It’s a metre from life to death,” he said.

Israel’s ambulance service said it treated two people with shrapnel wounds in the Lower and Upper Galilee regions, and that another person was injured as they rushed to a shelter.

On Sunday, Hezbollah launched more than 150 rockets and drones across the border, while Israeli jets struck hundreds of targets across southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah remains a powerful force, despite being weakened by what Israel’s defence minister described as “the most difficult week” for the group since its establishment.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 39 people were killed and thousands were wounded after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded. And on Friday, Hezbollah said at least 16 members, including top commanders of its elite Radwan Force, were among 45 people killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Beirut.

Speaking at a funeral on Sunday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group would not be deterred.

“We have entered a new phase,” he said, “the title of which is the open-ended battle of reckoning.”

On the streets of Beirut, one young man told the BBC that he was “very scared of the war escalating” because it would “ cause a lot of disaster, it will stop students going to university”.

But another man was defiant, saying: “We’re not scared, we have to stand tall, we have to defend ourselves.”

By BBC News

The post Israeli Air Strikes Kill 492 People in Lebanon appeared first on KahawaTungu.

Hezbollah confirmed Ibrahim Aqil’s death after Israel said he was one of several senior Hezbollah figures killed in the strike.

Earlier, Lebanese officials said at least 14 people were killed and dozens injured in the strike that hit the densely populated Dahieh area, a stronghold of the Iran-backed group in the city’s southern suburbs.

A senior UN official has warned that the Middle East is at risk of a conflict that could “dwarf” the devastation witnessed in the region so far.

Political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo was speaking at a session of the Security Council following this week’s attacks which saw Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies explode, killing at least 37 people.

In Beirut, there were chaotic scenes as emergency teams rushed to the site of the attack, rescuing the wounded and searching for people believed to be trapped under the rubble. At least one residential building collapsed and others were heavily damaged.

Streets were closed by Hezbollah members, some looking incredulous as the attack represented another humiliating blow in a week which saw pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to the group explode.

Dozens were killed and thousands wounded in those attacks, widely believed to be orchestrated by Israel.

Friday’s strike was the first to hit Beirut since July, when Hezbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr was killed.

In a statement, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari said Aqil, a senior commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, was killed alongside senior operatives in the group’s operations staff and other Radwan commanders.

Hagari said they “were gathered underground under a residential building in the heart of the Dahiyah neighbourhood [in southern Beirut], hiding among Lebanese civilians, using them as human shields”.

The IDF spokesman added that the individuals killed were “planning Hezbollah’s ‘Conquer the Galilee’ attack plan, in which Hezbollah intended to infiltrate Israeli communities and murder innocent civilians”.

The plan was first reported by the Israeli military in 2018, when the IDF said it was blocking tunnels dug by Hezbollah to penetrate Israeli territory and kidnap and murder civilians.

In April, Washington said it was searching for Aqil, also known as Tahsin, and offered financial rewards to anyone with “information leading to his identification, location, arrest and/or conviction”.

He was wanted by the US due to his links and seniority within Hezbollah, a group that has been proscribed a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK, US and other countries.

In the 1980s, Aqil was a member of the group that orchestrated the bombings of the US embassy in Beirut and a marine barracks, killing hundreds of people.

Confirming Aqil’s death in a post on social media, Hezbollah described him as one of its “great jihadist leaders”.

The group was established in the early 1980s by the region’s most dominant Shia power, Iran, to oppose Israel. At the time, Israel’s forces had occupied southern Lebanon during the country’s civil war.

Earlier on Friday, Hezbollah said it had launched strikes on military sites in northern Israel. The IDF said 140 rockets were fired into the north of the country, while Israeli police issued warnings about damage to roads.

It came after Israel carried out extensive air strikes on southern Lebanon, saying its warplanes had hit more than 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers and other “terrorist sites” including a weapons storage facility.

The cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated on 8 October 2023 – the day after the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen from Gaza – when Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Since then hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah fighters, have been killed in the cross-border fighting, while tens of thousands have also been displaced on both sides of the border.

Israel recently added the return of people displaced from the north of the country to its list of war goals, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that his country is entering a “new phase of the war”, concentrating more of its efforts on the north.

After the pager and walkie-talkie explosions across Lebanon earlier this week, there has been a deepened sense of unease in the Middle Eastern country.

It was an unprecedented security breach that indicated how deeply Israel had managed to penetrate the group’s communication system.

Many of the explosions occurred simultaneously, with walkie-talkie explosions on Wednesday occurring in the vicinity of a large crowd that had gathered for the funerals of four victims of Tuesday’s pager blasts.

Hezbollah and Lebanese authorities have blamed Israel for the explosions.

Israeli officials have not commented on the allegations, but most analysts agree that it is behind the attack.

In a televised address on Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said: “The enemy crossed all rules, laws and red lines. It didn’t care about anything at all, not morally, not humanely, not legally.”

Nasrallah vowed a harsh punishment, but indicated his group was not interested in an escalation of its current conflict with Israel.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habbib told the UN Security Council on Friday that Israel had “deliberately undermined” diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza and “all attempts of the Lebanese government to de-escalate and exercise self-restraint”.

Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon said that while his country is not seeking a wider conflict, it “will not allow Hezbollah to continue its provocation”.

UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council: “We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far,”

“I also strongly urge member states with influence over the parties to leverage it now,” she added.

US and UK authorities have urged their citizens not to travel to Lebanon. The White House said it was involved in intense diplomacy to prevent escalation of the conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border.

By BBC News

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