Israel threatens to take Lebanese land because it ramps up Beirut bombing in escalating warfare
Israel has threatened to take Lebanese land as it ramped up airstrikes in the heart of Beirut, amid growing fears the Middle East conflict is spiralling out of control.
Later Israeli jets bombed the busy Bachoura neighbourhood multiple times on Thursday, claiming it was targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
The latest strikes came just hours after Israel launched its heaviest night of bombing on the capital since the conflict with Hezbollah began 10 days ago.
Aircraft roared above Beirut and fiery explosions lit up the sky overnight, with Israel saying it struck nearly a dozen locations in the southern suburbs in half an hour alone.
At least 12 people were killed and 28 wounded in a separate salvo along the capital’s iconic waterfront, where displaced families forced to flee their homes were sleeping rough.
It followed a hefty barrage of rockets from Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which said it launched dozens of rockets and drones on northern Israel as part of a “series of operations”.
Lebanese president Joseph Aoun had sought urgent talks with Israel to halt the strikes and the spiralling conflict.
More than 810,000 people in Lebanon have already been uprooted, a quarter of them children, and 630 have been killed.
But Israel defence minister, Israel Katz, announced on Thursday that after Hezbollah’s attacks, the army would expand its operations into Lebanon, threatening further escalation.
The military later doubled the zone Israel said residents should leave in the south of the country: forcing residents to move up to the Zahrani river.
It also ordered an evacuation of a central Beirut neighbourhood, before pounding it with air strikes.
“I warned the Lebanese president that if the Lebanese government does not know how to control the territory and prevent Hezbollah from threatening the northern settlements and firing at Israel, we will take the territory and do it ourselves,” Katz added.
Israel’s escalating assault on Lebanon came after Dr Hanan Balkhy, director of the UN health agency, warned of an “unprecedented, long lasting impact” on the region if the hostilities continue to grow.
“It can spin out of control and lead to even more damage through a chemical, nuclear or radiological war, which will have an unprecedented, long lasting impact on the environment and on people that will go beyond the countries involved,” Dr Balkhy told the Independent.
In Dahiyeh – in the south of Beirut – smoke and dust rose above piles of snarled rebar and concrete: all that was left of the building in the crowded neighbourhood, which is a sweeping Israeli evacuation orders.
Fatima, 48, a mother-of-six and Syrian refugee, was sleeping under tarpaulin just metres away from the strike on Beirut’s waterfront.
She told The Independent her family had been forced to camp on the streets for the last week, after fleeing Dahiyeh, as they had nowhere to go and no money.
“First, we heard the drones circling so low, it was deafening. And that is when they bombed twice in seconds,” she said, breaking into tears.
“There were bodies thrown in the air, we saw severed limbs. One man, a displaced Syrian who I know, was on the ground. Shrapnel had cut him up, there was so much blood.
“All the people were screaming and were terrified. There was so much blood and smoke and fire. It lit up the skies.”
At the waterfront, Mohamed, a Lebanese father living in his car after he was displaced from the border regions with Israel, said many feared there was no end in sight.
“The bombing was deafening,” he said of the latest attacks. “We have no idea when this is going to end.”
Lebanon was dragged into the regional conflict earlier this month when Hezbollah, Iran’s ally, fired at Israel after massive strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader.
The Israeli military said it fired 200 munitions from the air and sea during Wednesday night’s raid, targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, headquarters, as well as leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Lebanon’s unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Later in the day the military bombed two buildings in heart of Beirut that Israel said were Hezbollah infrastructure.
Since 2 March, Israel has killed 100 members of Hezbollah and its linked groups as well as 60 command and control centres, it said.
Hezbollah said earlier it fired a “salvo of rockets” at northern Israel and a squadron of drones, promising further strikes.
In a statement the groups said “the intense confrontation today opens a new path”.
They said it marked “the beginning of a countdown toward liberation from domination and the rise of a serious determination to shape our own destiny.”
The concern now is that even if US president Donald Trump winds down his operations in Iran, the war between Israel and Hezbollah has only begun.
Iran issued a new statement on Thursday claiming to be from the supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, threatening to launch new attacks on US bases in the region and “avenge the blood of of the martyrs”.
Trump responded to the latest threats by saying he would “stop an evil empire” and repeated his warning that Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
And elsewhere in the region the Gulf has become a growing hotspot for military strikes.
Two tankers in the Gulf were set ablaze by hits from suspected Iranian boats carrying explosives, while a container ship was struck by an unknown projectile near the UAE.
*Additional reporting by Rana Najjar
Source: independent.co.uk
