Update(1500ET): Sky News and others are reporting that for the first time of the conflict, Hezbollah has launched a drone attack on a navy base which lies south of Haifa. The Atlit navy base which was targeted lies 80 kilometers from the Lebanese border. This is an attack significantly deep into Israel and reveals an extended range of Hezbollah missiles. Likely as things slide further, and with Israel keeping up its intense airstrikes on Lebanon, Hezbollah missiles will begin reaching further and further.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said late in the day Tuesday (local time) on X: “We will continue striking Hezbollah. Anyone who has a missile in their living room and a rocket in their garage will not have a home.”
Israel’s military has been repeatedly claiming that Hezbollah is storming missiles, drones, and ammunition inside people’s homes in the south of Lebanon. “Our war is not with you, our war is with Hezbollah,” he warned in the message emphasizing that Israel won’t stop its strikes.
Hezbollah announces targeting using a swarm of one-way drones the HQ of the Israeli Special Naval Task Unit Shayetet 13 at the Atlit base south of Haifa.
The drones – the farthest drone strike so far – accurately hit the positions of its officers and soldiers.
— Hussein (@EyesOnSouth1) September 24, 2024
“Nasrallah is leading you to the brink of the abyss,” Netanyahu added in the message directed at the Lebanese population. “Rid yourself from Nasrallah’s grip, for your own good.”
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-air defense system continues to be highly active over the north:
⚡️Safad now pic.twitter.com/4EFr9IVY1t
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) September 24, 2024
* * *
Update(1128ET): Once again President Biden has issued contradictory messaging on the current Middle East crisis. With Israel in its second day of greatly ramped-up airstrikes on Lebanon, amid a new declared offensive, Biden asserted what he framed as Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel will surely take this as effectively a greenlight from the US administration.
“Any country, any country, would have the right responsibility to ensure that such an attack could never happen again,” Biden said while referencing the Oct.7 attack. But then he quickly highlighted that in Gaza, “Innocent civilians” are also “going through hell.” He said the “Thousands and thousands killed, including aid workers. Too many families dislocated, crowded in a tent, facing a dire situation.” He added: “They didn’t ask for this war.”
And that’s when he said he is “determined to prevent a wider war that engulfs the entire region” – but that’s looking a little too late at this point, considering the fast-moving Lebanon events.
Israel’s military has meanwhile said that the Tuesday airstrike on a building in southern Beirut killed Hezbollah’s rocket and missile division Ibrahim Qubaisi. Lebanese officials have so far said that six were killed and 15 were wounded in the strike, among some 560 total killed in the last day-and-a-half. Hezbollah has yet to confirm Qubaisi’s death.
“Over the years and during the war, he was responsible for the launches at the Israeli home front. Qubaisi was a central source of of knowledge in the field of missiles, and was close to the senior military leadership of Hezbollah,” the IDF said of the allegedly deceased target.
There are meanwhile growing fears that if Iran enters the conflict directly in Lebanon, the United States could then jump in and it would be escalation chaos to regional conflagration:
Raymond Murphy, a professor at the University of Galway’s Irish Centre for Human Rights, says the situation in Lebanon is “extremely dangerous” and that Israel has attacked to not only defeat Hezbollah but provoke it to respond with increasing force.
“And as a consequence, possibly to bring Iran into the conflict, as well as the Houthis in Yemen, which would force the hand of the United States,” the former UN peacekeeper told Al Jazeera from Galway, Ireland.
“So if the situation escalates and Hezbollah falls for what is essentially a trap that’s being set by the Israelis and responds very forcefully… then the United States will also step in in defense of Israel,” Murphy continued. This after yesterday the Pentagon announced it has deployed more troops to the region, but without disclosing their precise mission or deployment base.
🚨🇱🇧ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES HIT HEZBOLLAH WITH UNPRECEDENTED FORCE
The Israeli Air Force has launched its most extensive airstrikes ever against Hezbollah, targeting over 1,600 sites in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley within a day.
The strikes focused on Hezbollah’s elite… pic.twitter.com/UitD2soDVp
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 24, 2024
Regional correspondents by late afternoon Tuesday (local time) say that Israeli strike on southern Beirut suburbs are becoming more frequent.
* * *
On Tuesday White House national security spokesman John Kirby urged that all Americans should leave Lebanon immediately while there are still flights. Two days of heavy Israeli airstrikes targeting especially Hezbollah strongholds of the south have killed at least 558 people and left 1,835 injured, according to the latest Lebanese Healthy Ministry figures. The situation is growing more urgent as the war comes to Beirut.
“We want to make sure that there are still commercial options available for Americans to leave, and they should be leaving now while those options are available,” Kirby told ABC News. The US Embassy in Beirut has since October a year ago issued several alerts and warnings telling Americans to leave the country.
The US has warships in the Mediterranean in the scenario that direct emergency evacuations of stranded US citizens are needed.
Lebanese government sources say that among the over 500 dead are 50 children. Official figures have not distinguished the rest of the fatalities between militants and civilians.
Also on Tuesday Israel launched a third airstrike on the Lebanese capital, again targeting a southern neighborhood in what’s possibly another attempt to take out Hezbollah commanders. Israel’s military says it has attacked over 1,300 Hezbollah targets over the prior 24 hours.
Since yesterday and throughout the night, tens of thousands of civilians have made their way on clogged freeways from the south to north. Many poured into Beirut while others went all the way north to Tripoli.
The below video shows a fresh strike on the Lebanese capital Tuesday:
غارة إسرائيلية على منطقة الغبيري في الضاحية الجنوبية لبيروت #lebanon24 pic.twitter.com/dkYJ9SXmZw
— Lebanon 24 (@Lebanon24) September 24, 2024
Historically Hezbollah has long presented itself as the protecting force to the residents of the south, so the fact that it is struggling to provide this now is widely seen as a significant negative blow to its reputation.
As Westerners and Lebanese alike look for a way out, options to get out of the country are fast dwindling. Already most major American and European carriers had halted service to Beirut, but regional carriers are joining them as Israel expands aerial operations to Beirut:
Gulf airlines, including Emirates and Qatar Airways, temporarily suspended flights to Beirut as tensions soared between Israel and Hezbollah.
“The safety of our crew and customers is of utmost importance and will not be compromised,” Emirates said in a statement, announcing the suspension of flights on Tuesday and Wednesday. Etihad Airways and flydubai also joined several international carriers in suspending Beirut services.
The latest airstrike on Beirut appears to have hit a single residential building, with Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reporting several casualties. Initial reports from the region say there are at least three fatalities.
It happened in the southern neighborhood of Ghobeiri, and emergency responders are seeking to access people reportedly trapped among three severely damaged or collapsed floors.
Israeli media is meanwhile reporting that “the target of the Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital of Beirut is the head of Hezbollah’s missile unit, defense sources tell Israeli media.” However at this early point his fate is unknown.
Hezbollah meanwhile has fired over 100 rockets on northern Israel in the past several hours, and aerial alarms have been frequently sounding in the port city of Haifa – as it’s come under attack in the past days.
An Israeli official has described the current IDF mission in Lebanon as seeking “to change the balance of power in the north by destroying thousands of rockets, by destroying [Hezbollah’s] capabilities, and through other means.” It began with “various explosions of beepers and other devices across Lebanon” (despite Israel now strangely officially denying it was behind the pager attacks).
⚡️From the strike on Beirut moments ago pic.twitter.com/esVPoAtCgQ
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) September 24, 2024
“It continued with the assassination of Ibrahim Aqil and the Radwan leadership,” the official described to Times of Israel. “And it has continued over the past two days with the expansion of massive fire with the aim of hitting Hezbollah hard.”
Fires in the aftermath of Hezbollah rockets raining down on northern Israeli towns and settlements:
⚡️Fire breaks out as missiles fall in northern occupied Palestine pic.twitter.com/3Uyo9d7Lg2
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) September 24, 2024
The United Nations is calling for urgent de-escalation, saying that diplomacy is still possible, but on the ground it’s looking like that ship has sailed.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/24/2024 – 15:00
