The Israeli army launched a new air raid late Friday afternoon against Hezbollah buildings south of Beirut.
While in New York Benjamin Netanyahu had just declared before the UN that Israel would continue to strike Hezbollah in Lebanon and continue the war in Gaza against Hamas “until victory”, the Israeli army returned to the offensive shortly after.
At the end of the day, this Friday, very strong explosions rang out in the southern suburbs of Beirut followed by a huge explosion accompanied by a gigantic plume of smoke.
In the process, The IDF confirmed that it had carried out several strikes on Hezbollah’s “headquarters”. Six buildings were targeted according to sources close to the Islamist movement.
“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no other choice”had warned the Israeli Prime Minister a few hours earlier.
And to specify that these operations would continue “until all our objectives are achieved”.
Since Monday, the wave of airstrikes launched on Lebanon has already left more than 700 dead and dozens of injured, the majority of them civilians, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
It is the largest air operation launched by Israel and the deadliest in a generation, the UN said.
More than 1,500 people have been killed in Lebanon in almost a year, according to Beirut, more than the 1,200 deaths in 33 days of war between Israel and the Lebanese Islamist group in 2006.
For its part, theUnicef has expressed alarm at the “frightening rate” at which children are being killed, as well as damage to civil installations such as pumping stations, which deprive “30,000 people of access to drinking water” in the east and south of the country.
While waiting for ground intervention? The Israeli army is preparing for it. But this incursion will be “so short” as possible, an Israeli security official assured Friday, while the army chief of staff, General Herzi Halevi, had asked soldiers on Wednesday to prepare for a possible ground incursion.
Despite losses, Hezbollah promises to continue the fight
Although destabilized by the multiple assaults it suffered in two weeks (between the explosions of the pagers and the various air raids), the Lebanese pro-Iran movement, however, has vowed to continue its attacks on Israel“until the end of the aggression in Gaza” (almost every day rockets are fired against Israel, nearly 9,500 according to Tel Aviv).
On Friday, Hezbollah also claimed responsibility for new shots against the Jewish state on the Kyriat Ata sector, in Haifa Bay, which is home to many industries, particularly defense, and on the city of Tiberias, in about thirty kilometers south of the border.
Five Syrian soldiers were also killed in an Israeli strike near the border with Lebanon, according to the official Sana agency.