US warns Israel not to repeat Gaza destruction in Lebanon

AFP , Thursday 10 Oct 2024

The United States urged its ally Israel to avoid a Gaza-like assault in Lebanon, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it could face "destruction" like the Palestinian territory.

US
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march on the first anniversary of Israel's war on Gaza, on October 7, 2024, in Denver, Colorado. AFP

 

Israel's military chief, Herzi Halevi, vowed to keep bombing Lebanon, a campaign that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23, many of them civilians.

The comments came after a phone call between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden, their first in seven weeks. The White House said Biden told Netanyahu to "minimise harm" to civilians in Lebanon, particularly in "densely populated areas of Beirut".

"There should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza," said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

Israeli retaliation
 

Biden and Netanyahu's call had been expected to focus on Israel's response to last week's missile barrage by Iran.

Iran fired about 200 missiles at Israel in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Israel claims most were intercepted.

Biden has cautioned Israel against attempting to target Iran's nuclear facilities, which would risk major retaliation, and opposes striking oil installations.

A Lebanese government source told AFP that Hezbollah had accepted a ceasefire with Israel on September 27, the day Israel killed Nasrallah.

But they said Israel's response had torpedoed the plan, backed by Washington and its allies, and the Lebanese government had "had no contact with Hezbollah" since his death.

Hezbollah rockets, Israeli strikes
 

Hezbollah said its fighters were locked in clashes with Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, using rocket-propelled weapons to repel attempts to breach the border.

Two people were killed by suspected Hezbollah rocket fire in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, while Israel intercepted two projectiles fired towards the coastal town of Caesarea, officials said.

Lebanon's health ministry said at least four people were killed in an Israeli strike on a village southeast of Beirut, an area so far largely spared from Israeli bombing.

Lebanon's state civil defence body said an Israeli strike killed five of its personnel in the southern village of Derdghaiya.

Israel has intensified air strikes on Lebanon since September 23, and its ground forces invaded Lebanon on September 30, uprooting more than a million people, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

The Israeli assault has expanded from border areas in the interior to the southern section of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast.

According to a toll from the Israeli army on Wednesday, 13 of its soldiers have died since Israel's ground assault inside Lebanon began.

Syrian state media reported an Israeli attack Thursday on the central provinces of Homs and Hama.

Off the coast of Yemen, a ship was struck and damaged by an "unknown projectile", a British maritime agency said, following months of attacks by Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Civilians trapped in north Gaza
 

Israel expanded its ongoing military assault around Jabalia in northern Gaza, where about 400,000 people are trapped, according to Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Lazzarini said on X there was "no end to hell" in the area and that "recent evacuation orders from the Israeli authorities are forcing people to flee again & again".

The army surrounded Jabalia and its refugee camp at the weekend and shelled it on Wednesday, preventing the delivery of aid, Gaza's civil defence agency said.

Washington said it was "incredibly concerned" about the humanitarian situation in north Gaza as Israel tightens its siege.

"We have been making clear to the government of Israel that they have an obligation under international humanitarian law to allow food and water and other needed humanitarian assistance to make it into all parts of Gaza," said the State Department's Miller.

Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 42,010 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office confirms most of the dead are women and children.

Meanwhile, Israeli police said six people were wounded Wednesday, some seriously, in a stabbing rampage in the central Israeli town of Hadera.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli border police killed at least four Palestinians in the northern city of Nablus, Palestinian health authorities and Israeli security forces said.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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