Israelis strike Hezbollah target in south Beirut after call to Trump

Israel launched fresh strikes on south Beirut on Thursday, hours after Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump spoke about the ‘Iranian threat’.

Fire rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut's southern suburbs. Picture: AFP

Israel launched fresh strikes on south Beirut on Thursday, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US president-elect Donald Trump spoke about the “Iranian threat”.

The Israeli Prime Minister was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Mr Trump, calling his re-election “history’s greatest comeback”.

Over the phone on Wednesday, the pair “agreed to work together for Israel’s security” and “discussed the Iranian threat”, Mr Netanyahu’s office said.

Not long afterwards, the Israeli military launched its latest strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah’s main bastion of south Beirut. The Israeli army had issued evacuation orders ahead of the strikes, calling on people to leave four neighbourhoods, including one near the airport.

In Lebanon’s east, the country’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed 40 people, with rescuers combing the rubble for survivors.

“The series of Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek” killed “40 people and injured 53”, the ministry said in a statement.

Hezbollah had pledged the result of the US election would have no bearing on the war, which escalated in September as the Israeli military widened its focus from Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon.

In a televised speech recorded before Mr Trump’s victory but aired afterwards, new Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said: “We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight.

“What will stop this … war is the battlefield,” he said.

Qassem, who became Hezbollah secretary-general last week, warned that nowhere in Israel would be “off-limits”.

Hezbollah announced on Wednesday it had Iran-made Fatah 110 missiles, a weapon with a 300km range that military ­expert Riad Kahwaji described as the group’s “most accurate”.

The group claimed a slew of attacks on Israel on Wednesday, including two that targeted naval bases near the Israeli city of Haifa and two near commercial hub Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah began its low-intensity cross-border campaign last year in support of ally Hamas after the Palestinian militants’ October 7 attack on Israel.

Israel escalated its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley from September 23, sending in ground troops a week later.

Efforts to end the conflicts in Gaza and neighbouring Lebanon have repeatedly failed.

While US President Joe Biden’s administration has piled pressure on Mr Netanyahu to agree to a truce, Washington sustained its political and military backing of Israel. Many see Mr Trump’s White House return as a possible boon for Israel.

The UN said on Wednesday its polio vaccination campaign in Gaza had ended, with more than half a million children ­vaccinated despite the war.

AFP