The Israeli Air Force (IAF) announced on Thursday that one of its strikes targeted “targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Intelligence Headquarters in Beirut, including terror operatives belonging to the unit.”
A day after Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants engaged in ‘close-range’ clashes in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Thursday that they had killed 15 Hezbollah militants in a strike on a municipality building in the region. A separate Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut has killed nine people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Meanwhile, the IDF has issued a warning to residents of over 20 more towns in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately.
“Terror operatives belonging to the unit, intelligence-gathering means, command centers, and additional terrorist infrastructure” were hit, the Israeli military said in an October 3 post on the messaging platform Telegram. “The Intelligence Corps is Hezbollah’s primary intelligence body and is responsible for aggregating intelligence about the IDF and the State of Israel.”
The IDF’s claims have, as yet, not been independently verified, and Hezbollah has yet to comment.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said on Thursday it targeted Israel’s “Sakhnin base” for military industries in Haifa Bay with a salvo of rockets, news agency Reuters reported.
Hundreds Flee Lebanon for Turkey
Hundreds of people fleeing the violence in Lebanon arrived in southern Turkey on Thursday. More than 300 passengers who boarded a ship in Tripoli docked at a port in Mersin on the Turkish Mediterranean coast, according to news agency IHA. IHA said the Med Lines ship transporting foreign nationals was the third to arrive at the Mersin port in recent days.
28 health workers killed in Lebanon last 24 hours, WHO says
The World Health Organization (WHO) chief said on Thursday that 28 healthcare workers had been killed over the past 24 hours in Lebanon, where Israel has launched airstrikes and sent troops to fight Hezbollah in an escalating conflict.
“Many (other) health workers are not reporting to duty and fled the areas where they work due to bombardments,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press briefing. “This is severely limiting the provision of mass trauma management and continuity of health services,” he said, as quoted by Reuters.
The global health agency will not be able to deliver a large planned shipment of trauma and medical supplies to the country on Friday due to flight restrictions, he added
Gulf states, Iran discuss de-escalation in Israel-Iran conflict at Qatar meeting
Ministers from Gulf Arab states and Iran attending a meeting on Thursday of Asian nations hosted by Qatar have discussed de-escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran, news agency Reuters reported, quoting sources.
The Gulf Arab states sought to reassure Iran of their neutrality in the conflict on the back of concerns that a wider escalation in violence could threaten Gulf oil facilities.
More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said about 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Israeli attacks.
Team BharatShakti
