BEIRUT — The Israeli army carried out airstrikes in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip over the weekend and into Monday, leaving dozens of casualties.
The escalation comes as Western and regional powers push for de-escalation including at the extraordinary Arab-Islamic summit held in Riyadh on Monday.
The Israeli army has been relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, and at the same time has been engaged in violent cross-border attacks with Hezbollah in Lebanon that recently escalated. The military has also struck Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Yemen in response to their repeated attacks against Israel.
Over 43,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war started according to local authorities. Hamas militants killed nearly 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 onslaught in southern Israel, and took over 240 others hostage.
On Monday, the Israeli military said it intercepted a projectile fired from Yemen and four drones launched from Iraq. The Houthi group and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq each claimed responsibility for the separate attacks on Israel.
Lebanon
In Lebanon, at least 18 people were killed in a series of strikes in the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel governorate on Sunday night, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Earlier on Sunday, a violent Israeli airstrike hit a house in the town of Almat, in the Jbeil district, killing at least 23 people, including seven children, and wounding eight others.
فيديو لاثار الدمار اثر غارة استهدفت بلدة علمات – قضاء جبيل pic.twitter.com/8pCzshQb24
— LBCI Lebanon News (@LBCI_NEWS) November 10, 2024
The Lebanese Health Ministry reported the killing of 53 people in Israeli attacks in various areas across Lebanon on Saturday.
Hezbollah, for its part, claimed to have fired dozens of drones and rockets in separate attacks on Sunday at military sites in Haifa, Acre and the Golan Heights, as well as settlements in border towns.
At least 3,189 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the hostilities began, and more than 14,078 others injured. In Israel, the Hezbollah attacks resulted in the deaths of at least 41 civilians and 62 soldiers, according to Israeli authorities.
Meanwhile, Washington has been scrambling to de-escalate the situation in Lebanon. US special envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein, who has been leading the mediation between Israel and Lebanon in the past months, is reportedly returning to Beirut following an earlier trip last month.
The local LBCI channel cited informed sources as saying the US envoy will visit Lebanon between Wednesday and Friday to present his new proposal. The document reportedly calls for a 60-day truce during which discussions on enforcing UN Resolution 1701 and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south would take place.
The reports coincide with Israeli comments about “progress” on a cease-fire in Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters in Jerusalem on Monday there has been “certain progress” on a possible cease-fire, adding that Israel was “working with the Americans on the issue.”
Syria
The escalation in Lebanon comes as Israel steps up attacks in neighboring Syria. A suspected Israeli strike was reported on Monday in the southern countryside of Homs. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike hit a munitions warehouse belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah.
The attack comes one day after another suspected Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Sayeda Zainab neighborhood, south of the capital Damascus. Citing a military source, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) said the strike, fired from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killed seven civilians, including women and children, and left 20 others injured.
The SOHR said the strike targeted an apartment where Hezbollah members are believed to have been present. The UK-based war monitor, which has a vast network of sources on the ground, said nine people were killed, including four civilians, and an unnamed Hezbollah commander.
On Saturday, another suspected Israeli strike in the town of al-Qusayr near the border with Lebanon reportedly killed Salim Ayyash, a Hezbollah commander convicted for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya channel said, citing unnamed sources.
In December 2020, the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon at the Hague sentenced in absentia Ayyash to five life sentences on charges of terrorism and homicide, over his alleged role in the massive car explosion that killed Hariri in Beirut in February 2005.
Gaza
The ongoing Israeli bombing killed at least 51 people between Saturday and Sunday, the Gaza-based Health Ministry said, bringing the total death toll from the Israeli offensive since October 2023 to 43,603.
At least 11 people have been killed since Sunday night in Israeli attacks in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, while Israeli tanks entering the camp were firing at Palestinians, according to Reuters.
Elsewhere in the town of Jabaliya in the north, Israeli strikes left dozens of dead on Sunday, including 24 who were killed in a single attack that hit a residential building, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza.
مقطع فيديو يظهر استمرار قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي في نسف الأحياء السكنية في مخيم جباليا شمالي قطاع غزة pic.twitter.com/gfPLisM0zd
— Aljazeera.net • الجزيرة نت (@AJArabicnet) November 11, 2024
Hopes for a cease-fire have been dashed after Qatar said over the weekend it was suspending its role as mediator.
In a statement on Saturday, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Majed al-Ansari said his country has suspended its efforts to mediate between Hamas and Israel until they “show their willingness and seriousness” to end the war in Gaza.
Since the war began, Qatar, along with Egypt and the United States, have been leading indirect talks between Hamas and Israel on a deal that would see a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and the release of the remaining hostages held by the Palestinian group inside the enclave.
