Middle East crisis live: 50 children among 558 killed by airstrikes in Lebanon, officials say, as Israel vows to speed up operations
“Fresh wave of Israeli strikes pound Lebanon as residents take to the roads to flee south of country
50 children among 558 killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon - ministry
The death toll from the Israeli strikes on Lebanon since Monday reached 558, including 50 children and 94 women, with 1,835 wounded, health minister Firass Abiad said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
Israel’s air force continued to strike on Tuesday morning, with the IDF claiming it had hit 1,600 Hezbollah terror targets inside the country. Hezbollah, for its part, has continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, some of which have started fires. Overnight Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli military bases and an airfield.
The death toll in Lebanon comes on top of those killed and wounded in last week’s detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies, with an official from the World Health Organization saying that some hospitals were being overwhelmed with casualties.
The Hamas-led health ministry in the Gaza Strip has claimed 41,467 Palestinians have been killed since Israel started its military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with 95,921 people wounded. The Israeli campaign began after the surprise Hamas attack inside southern Israel on 7 October 2023 which killed nearly 1,200 people and during which more than 250 people were seized and abducted into Gaza, some of who are still being held hostage nearly a year later.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict, in which at least 116 journalists and media workers have been killed. Media access to Gaza has been limited by Israel, which has also banned Al Jazeera and raided and closed the new agency’s office in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Haaretz in Israel reports that a political source has told it that part of the aim of Israel’s airstrike assault on Lebanon was to act as a deterrent against Iran.
The source told the Israeli media outlet:
The operation in the north has two goals: ensuring the safe return of northern residents and signaling to the Iranian axis that Israel is unafraid to act decisively to prevent further escalation. Israel has additional potential targets in Lebanon and will not hesitate to strike if Hezbollah does not grasp the message.
Iran’s president, meanwhile, has told CNN in the US that Israel’s actions could cause an escalation. Masoud Pezeshkian told the news network:
The danger does exist that the fire of events that are taking place will expand to the entire region. We must not allow for Lebanon to become another Gaza at the hands of Israel. Hezbollah cannot do that alone. Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by western countries, European countries, and the United States of America. We must prevent the ongoing criminal acts being committed by Israel.
Pezeshkian told interviewer Fareed Zakaria that Israel is “armed to the teeth and has access to weapons systems that are far superior to anything else.”
In April this year, under Pezeshkian’s predecessor Ebrahim Raisi, Tehran launched more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel in its first ever direct attack on the state. Tehran said it was responding to a strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on 1 April that killed a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards and eight other officers. It blamed the strike on Israel.“
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