US strikes bunkers of Houthi rebels; Mayor among the dead in Israeli strike on south Lebanon

Beirut: The mayor of a major town in south Lebanon was among 16 people killed when an Israeli airstrike destroyed its municipal headquarters in the biggest attack on a Lebanese state building since the Israeli air offensive began.

Lebanese officials denounced the incident, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel’s campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state.

Smoke rises from Israeli air strikes in the southern village of Haboush, Nabatieh district, in late September.Credit: AP

The Israelis “intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the city’s service and relief situation” to aid people displaced by the Israeli invasion, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said.

Israel launched its ground and air campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah after a year during which the Iran-backed militant group fired across the border in support of Palestinians under fire in Gaza.

The top UN humanitarian official accused Israel on Wednesday of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, and the US ambassador demanded that the Israeli government step up efforts to tackle the Palestinian territory’s “intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis”.

Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield pressed Israel at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the humanitarian emergency created by Israel’s bombardment of northern Gaza.

The council meeting , called by Algeria, the Arab representative on the council, followed a US warning to Israel to boost aid efforts dramatically or risk losing funding for weapons from its main supplier. The Biden administration gave Israel 30 days to take a number of actions, including sending 350 trucks with food and other aid into Gaza daily.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, insisted his country’s humanitarian efforts remained “as comprehensive as ever” and criticised the council for focusing on the situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians “are being targeted daily by those who seek our destruction”.

He said Israel had delivered more than a million tonnes of aid, including 700,000 tonnes of food, to Gaza since it launched its massive military offensive in response to Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Danon accused the international community of missing the real issue, which he said was Hamas’ hijacking of aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.

“This makes it incredibly difficult to ensure that the aid reaches its intended recipients,” he said. But Israel remains committed to working with its partners to deliver aid, “even under these dangerous and morally reprehensible conditions”.

An excavator is used to remove the rubble of buildings hit by Israeli strikes in Qana, southern Lebanon.Credit: AP

Msuya, the top UN aid official, painted a grim picture, telling the council that there is barely any food left in northern Gaza, where an Israeli offensive is under way. No food entered the north from October 2 to October 15, “when a trickle was allowed in”, she said, and “most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel”.

Fears of a wider regional conflict have grown after Israel promised to retaliate for an Iranian missile attack on October 1.

The US said on Wednesday it struck five underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the latest in more than a dozen US attacks on Houthi-linked targets this month.

Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen acting in solidarity with Palestinians have carried out nearly 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November.

Israel also launched strikes at Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday, Syrian state media reported.

Evacuation notice

Israel first issued an evacuation notice for Nabatieh, a city of tens of thousands of people, on October 3. At the time, the city’s mayor, Ahmed Kahil, told Reuters he would not leave.

Asked about the Israeli strike on Nabatieh, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to comment on the circumstances of specific attacks but said the US understands Hezbollah operates from places including civilian homes and supported limited strikes to target the group.

“Obviously, we’d not want to see entire villages destroyed. We don’t want to see civilian homes destroyed,” Miller said.

Israel said on Wednesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area and its navy also hit dozens of targets in southern Lebanon.

It said it had dismantled a tunnel network used by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in the heart of a town near the border with Israel, publishing a video showing explosions rocking a cluster of buildings. Lebanese officials said it was the small town of Mhaibib.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 2350 people over the last year, according to the health ministry, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced. The death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes hundreds of women and children.

Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in the same period, according to Israel.

Peacekeepers report more fire

The UN interim force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers observed an Israeli tank firing at their watchtower near southern Lebanon’s Kfar Kela on Wednesday. Two cameras were destroyed and the tower was damaged, UNIFIL said.

Israel’s military said the incident, the latest in a number of attacks that UNIFIL says have targeted its troops, was under investigation, adding that Hezbollah has been operating from “sites that have been built within and adjacent to UNIFIL posts for many years”.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations.

“We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza and I am saying it here,” he said, according to a statement from his office.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on Wednesday spoke to Gallant and “reinforced the importance of taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Armed Forces,” according to the US Department of Defence.

Reuters

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