Israel bombed Beirut after Biden declared a ceasefire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government carpet-bombed Beirut and its southern suburbs on Tuesday, minutes after US President Joe Biden announced a ceasefire between the Zionist regime in Lebanon and Hezbollah.

Smoke rises from Israeli air strikes on civilian buildings in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Sunday, November 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Just before Netanyahu’s security cabinet met on the deal, the Israeli military launched a relentless air offensive on Lebanon’s capital, including attacks on residential buildings housing displaced people.

One of the attacks completely destroyed a building in the Nuwairi district of central Beirut, less than an hour before attacks on the suburbs began. “A building near the Khatem al-Anbiyaa Mosque in the Al-Nuwairi district of Beirut was targeted in the severe air strike carried out by Israeli enemy warplanes on Tuesday,” the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) said.

An NNA reporter said the raid on Nuwairi targeted a four-storey building and left at least seven people dead and 37 injured, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. The death toll is expected to rise as the debris is removed and the search for survivors continues.

NNA said the apartment building hit was in the Hamra district of central Beirut. Hamra is the capital’s busiest commercial district and is home to two American universities and the offices of numerous international non-profit organizations. NNA also reported that “al-Qard al-Hasan was hit by a hostile drone in Zuqak al-Blat,” referring to a Hezbollah-linked financial institution.

A report prepared by New York Times in question:

The first Israeli airstrike to rock Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, struck without warning on Tuesday, destroying a four-storey building in the heart of the city. Then, in rapid succession, a barrage of air strikes hit the city’s southern suburbs: One strike, then two, then 20; all within a few minutes, and all of them spewing clouds of black smoke across the horizon.

The tense city soon fell into panic as the Israeli army warned of four more attacks on the capital. People hop in their cars or take to the streets on foot to get out of the city, leaving the roads crowded and clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Few people were sure where to go or how to avoid the neighborhoods highlighted in the warnings.

Other media reports stated that at least 25 people were killed in airstrikes across Lebanon. The health ministry said at least 10 people were killed in central Beirut, six in the southern town of Shaqra, two in the southern town of Tire, six in the Baalbek-Hermel region and one in Hadath in the Mount Lebanon region south of Beirut.

In Israel’s modus operandi, the Zionist army justified its attack on unarmed civilians and refugees with “intelligence” on nine terrorist targets, components of Hezbollah’s financial management and systems in Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, and the Syrian regions. Bekaa is a continuation of previous attacks.”

Around 4:00 pm US Eastern Time, media outlets began reporting that the Israeli security cabinet had approved the ceasefire. In the statement made by the Prime Ministry, it was stated that the cabinet approved this with the majority of 10 ministers against 1 minister. However, the statement stated that Israel “reserves the right to take action against any threat to its security.” So the US-backed ceasefire only applies to Hezbollah.

According to a statement made by a senior official from the Biden administration, Israel will not withdraw from Lebanon immediately when the ceasefire begins, but “a 60-day period will begin in which Lebanese military and security forces will begin to deploy towards the south.”

A CNN report said: “The Lebanese army will be ‘authorized and instructed’ by the Lebanese government to take up positions in the south and ensure that Hezbollah can both move north and eliminate all of its heavy weapons. The Lebanese army ‘will also patrol the area and ensure that if infrastructure or weapons remain, they are removed and such infrastructure is not rebuilt in the area,’ the official said.

According to the latest figures announced by the Lebanese Ministry of Health, at least 3,768 people, including 240 children, have died and at least 15,699 people have been injured since Israel’s simultaneous attack and genocide on the northern country. Operations in Gaza began on October 7, 2023.

While the Biden administration claims that the ceasefire in Lebanon will “create space” for an agreement with Hamas in Gaza, Israel’s genocide against Palestinians continues. Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed at least 14 Palestinians, bringing the total death toll since last year to 44,249, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Ministry stated that “Israeli forces killed 14 people and injured 108 people in 3 family massacres in the last 24 hours” and added: “Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads because rescue teams cannot reach them.” In the statement made by the ministry, it was also stated that at least 104,746 Gazans were injured during the ethnic cleansing in the last 13 months.

At least 13 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza on Tuesday. Dozens of people were injured when the Al Hurreya School in the Zeitoun neighborhood, one of the oldest suburbs of Gaza City, was hit, medics said.

Later Tuesday, seven people were killed and others injured in a second Israeli airstrike on a house, also in the suburb of Zeitoun; At least one person was also killed in the southern city of Rafah.

Meanwhile, Guard He reported that Israeli settlers were preparing to move to Gaza following the forced evacuation, starvation and mass murder of Palestinians from the area. Guard It reported that a group of far-right Israeli settlers from the Nachala organization held a conference in the closed military zone around the strip to discuss “moving to the Gaza Strip and buying land there and building their own houses.” Guard Jerusalem correspondent Bethan McKernan, who attended the event, said that Israeli Knesset members and cabinet ministers were present.

McKernan said that although plans to “resettle” Gaza were in their early stages, the politicians’ presence showed political support for the settler movement within the Israeli establishment. While McKernan claimed that Netanyahu does not support settlements in Gaza, “People in his own party, far-right elements of the government and coalition partners are talking as if this is going to happen.”

Related Posts