Israeli strike hits north Lebanon for first time, cuts off key crossing into Syria

Beirut: An Israeli strike hit Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli for the first time early on Saturday, a Lebanese security source said, after more bombardment hit Beirut’s suburbs and Israeli troops sought to make new ground incursions into southern Lebanon.

The source told Reuters a Hamas official, his wife and two children were killed in the strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli. Hamas-affiliated media said the strike killed a leader of the group’s armed wing.

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut.Credit: AP

Also on Saturday, it was reported that the potential successor to slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday after an Israeli airstrike that is reported to have targeted him. Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Hashem Safieddine since the attack.

Israel continued a series of punishing airstrikes, one day after its airstrikes cut off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria for tens of thousands of people fleeing the Israeli bombardment of the Hezbollah militant group.

In another sign of the widening scope of conflict in the Middle East, the US military said it carried out 15 strikes on Friday against targets linked to Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen.

The overnight blasts in Beirut’s southern suburbs sent huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shook buildings kilometres away in the Lebanese capital. Additional strikes sent people running for cover in streets littered with rubble in the Dahiyeh neighbourhood, where at least one building was levelled and cars were burned out.

On Friday, Lebanon time, the Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah’s central intelligence headquarters. It did not say who it was aiming for or if any militants were killed in that strike, but it claimed to have killed 100 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 10 consecutive airstrikes in the area. Some 1400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border.

A girl carries her belongings crossing on foot into Syria through a crater caused by an Israeli airstrike to cut the road between the Lebanese and the Syrian checkpoints, at the Masnaa crossing, in the eastern Bekaa Valley.Credit: AP

And a hospital in southern Lebanon said it was shelled Friday evening after being warned to evacuate. The Salah Ghandour Hospital in the city of Bint Jbeil said in a statement that the shelling “resulted in nine members of the medical and nursing staff being injured, most of them seriously,” while most of the medical staff were evacuated.

A day earlier, the World Health Organisation said 28 health workers in Lebanon had been killed in the past 24 hours.

The Israeli military also said that a strike in Beirut the day before killed Mohammed Rashid Skafi, the head of Hezbollah’s communications division. The military said in a statement that Skafi was “a senior Hezbollah terrorist who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000” and was “closely affiliated” with high-up Hezbollah officials.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched about 100 rockets into Israel on Friday, the Israel military said.

Thursday’s strike along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 kilometres east of Beirut, led to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa Border Crossing – the first time it has been cut off since Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire almost a year ago.

Members of the Maronite Christian community pray after being told to remain in place by their priest following an Israeli Defence Force notice to evacuate the village in Klayaa, Lebanon.Credit: Getty Images

Israel said it targeted the crossing because it was being used by Hezbollah to transport military equipment across the border. It said fighter jets had struck a tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Iran and other proxies into Lebanon.

Hezbollah is believed to have received much of its weaponry through Syria from Iran, its main backer.

Associated Press video footage showed two huge craters on each side of the road. People got out of cars, unable to pass, carrying bags of their possessions as they crossed on foot. More than 250,000 Syrians and 82,000 Lebanese have fled across the border into Syria during the escalation of the past two weeks. There are a half-dozen crossings between the two countries, and most remain open.

The Albanese government has urged Australians in Lebanon not to delay in leaving the country, as Israel intensifies its airstrikes and ground assault.

President Joe Biden sought to encourage Israel to look at non-oil targets in Iran.Credit: Bloomberg

The US election

US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said it had carried out strikes tied to Houthi offensive military capabilities, but did not detail whether that included missile, drone or radar capabilities.

Israel launched its ground escalation in Lebanon on Tuesday, and its forces have been clashing with Hezbollah militants in a narrow strip along the border.

Israel has vowed to put an end to Hezbollah fire into northern Israel, after nearly a year of exchanges between the two sides that drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border.

In the US, President Joe Biden said he didn’t know whether Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu was holding up a Mideast peace deal in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that,” he said, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname. “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was in Beirut on Friday to meet Lebanese officials, warned that if Israel carries out an attack on Iran, Tehran would retaliate more powerfully than it did this week when it launched at least 180 missiles into Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.

“If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one,” Araghchi said after meeting Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri.

Iranian women praying under the leadership of Ali Khamenei at Tehran Mosque in Tehran.Credit: Getty Images

In the Iranian capital, Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led Friday prayers and delivered a speech in which he praised the country’s missile strikes on Israel and said Iran was prepared to conduct more strikes if needed.

“It will be done in the future again if it becomes necessary,” he said.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, Israel carried out its deadliest strike in the occupied West Bank since the Gaza war began, hitting a cafe in the Tulkarem refugee camp. At least 18 Palestinians were killed, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Separately Saeed Atallah, a leader of Hamas’ armed wing, al-Qassam brigades, was killed with three family members in an Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, Hamas-affiliated media reported on Saturday.

AP, Reuters

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.