Middle East

Around 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were maimed by the exploding pagers and walkie talkies on September 17 and September 18.

Lebanese health authorities confirmed six dead and 91 wounded in the initial attack on Friday – the fourth on Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs in a week and the heaviest since a 2006 war.

The strikes hit Beirut shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue Israel’s attacks on Iranian-backed fighters in Lebanon in a closely watched United Nations speech, as hopes faded for a ceasefire that could head off an all-out regional war.

On Monday, Israel struck 1,600 targets across Lebanon, killing 492 people and wounding 1,645, and causing a massive wave of displacement as thousands fled from south Lebanon north. It was a staggering one-day toll that shocked a nation used to war. It was by far the deadliest barrage since the monthlong 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, when an estimated 1,000 people in Lebanon were killed.

The bulk of the new aid, $5.5 billion, is to be allocated before Monday’s end of the US fiscal year when the funding authority is set to expire. Another $2.4 billion is under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the administration to buy weapons for Ukraine from companies rather than pull them from US stocks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, heading to New York to address the United Nations, said he had not yet given his response to the truce proposal but had instructed the army to fight on. Hardliners in his government said Israel should reject any truce and keep hitting Hezbollah. Israeli airstrikes overnight hit around 75 Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and ready-to-fire launchers, the Israeli military said on Thursday.

Israel’s military chief said a ground assault was possible, raising fears the conflict could spark a wider Middle East war. Over the last several months, Washington has been engaging with officials in Israel and Lebanon to reduce hostilities, the senior White House official said.

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon as cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces escalate. This is at Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, on September 24, 2024. Credit: Reuters

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the earlier strikes hit hospitals, medical centers and ambulances. The government ordered schools and universities to close across most of the country and began preparing shelters for the displaced.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, also in New York, described the situation as nearly a full-fledged war. He urged world leaders to do all they could to stop it, adding: “Here in New York is the moment to do that.”