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New Israeli airstrike hits south Beirut after military evacuation order
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has reported a “heavy strike” carried out with two missiles fired by an “enemy aircraft” in the neighbourhood of Bourj al-Barajneh in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The Israeli military says it has identified several buildings in the suburbs of Ghobeiry (see opening summary for more details) and Bourj al-Barajneh that the military plans to target as it claims Hezbollah targets are there.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately and stay away from them for a distance of no less than 500 meters,” Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X.
#عاجل إلى جميع السكان المتواجدين في منطقة الضاحية الجنوبية وتحديدًا في المباني المحددة في الخرائط المرفقة والمباني المجاورة لها في المناطق التالية:
🔸برج البراجنة
🔸الغبيري⭕️أنتم تتواجدون بالقرب من منشآت ومصالح تابعة لحزب الله حيث سيعمل ضدها جيش الدفاع على المدى الزمني القريب… pic.twitter.com/5MqqIm5CCc
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) November 15, 2024
Key events
As we have been reporting, a series of Israeli airstrikes have struck Beirut today. Reuters is now reporting that one of them flattened a building near one of the Lebanese capital’s busiest traffic junctions. The attack reportedly struck near the Tayouneh junction in an area where the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs meet other parts of the city. It is a more central location than most Israel has hit in its deadly bombing campaign over recent weeks.
In a post on X, Ali Larijani, a special envoy for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says he is travelling from the Syrian capital Damascus to the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
Yesterday, an Israeli missile reportedly hit a building in Damascus close to where Larijani, a former speaker of Parliament, was meeting with the director of Syria’s national security committee. Larijani was not injured, according to reports, which we have not yet independently verified. Local Iranian media reported that Larijani had been on a “special mission” to Syria on behalf of Khamenei, the ultimate authority in Iran as supreme leader.
Julian Borger
Julian Borger is the Guardian’s senior international correspondent
A UN special committee has said that Israeli policies and practices in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.
The committee, set up in 1968 to monitor the Israeli occupation, also said in its annual report that there were serious concerns that Israel was “using starvation as a weapon of war” in the 13-month-old conflict, and was running an “apartheid system” in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The international court of justice (ICJ) is investigating a claim put forward by South Africa that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is genocidal, and has ordered Israel to take interim measures to prevent genocide taking place.
The new report is by the special committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories. The committee, set up in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, is made up of representatives from three member states: Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Senegal.
You can read the full story here:
New Israeli airstrike hits south Beirut after military evacuation order
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has reported a “heavy strike” carried out with two missiles fired by an “enemy aircraft” in the neighbourhood of Bourj al-Barajneh in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The Israeli military says it has identified several buildings in the suburbs of Ghobeiry (see opening summary for more details) and Bourj al-Barajneh that the military plans to target as it claims Hezbollah targets are there.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately and stay away from them for a distance of no less than 500 meters,” Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X.
#عاجل إلى جميع السكان المتواجدين في منطقة الضاحية الجنوبية وتحديدًا في المباني المحددة في الخرائط المرفقة والمباني المجاورة لها في المناطق التالية:
🔸برج البراجنة
🔸الغبيري⭕️أنتم تتواجدون بالقرب من منشآت ومصالح تابعة لحزب الله حيث سيعمل ضدها جيش الدفاع على المدى الزمني القريب… pic.twitter.com/5MqqIm5CCc
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) November 15, 2024
The World Bank has estimated that Lebanon, already reeling from a severe economic crisis that has gripped the country since 2019, has been hit by $8.5bn (£6.7bn) in physical damages and economic losses from 13 months of Israel’s war.
Damages to physical infrastructure alone were valued at $3.4bn (£2.7bn), while economic losses totaled $5.1bn (£4bn). Housing has borne the brunt of the destruction with nearly 100,000 units damaged, totaling $3.2bn (£2.5bn) in destruction and losses.
The UN security council’s 10 elected members – Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland, Algeria, Guyana, South Korea, Sierra Leone and Slovenia – have circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza.
The draft resolution, which was sent to the council’s five permanent members yesterday, reiterates the council’s demand “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” seized during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. Israel says about 100 hostages are still being held, though not all are believed to be alive.
The US, Israel’s closest ally and biggest weapons supplier, holds the key to whether the security council adopts the resolution. The four other permanent members – Russia, China, Britain and France – are expected to support it or abstain.
The draft, obtained by The Associated Press, also demands immediate access for Gaza’s civilian population to humanitarian aid and essential services (the UN relief and works agency, Unrwa, said earlier this week that “aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months”).
The draft “underscores” that Unrwa “remains the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza”.
Last month, the Knesset – the Israeli parlimanet – banned Unrwa from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel, including the areas of annexed East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. A second vote declared Unrwa a terror group, effectively banning any direct interaction between the agency and the Israeli state. Unrwa provides education, health care and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region. The head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the Knesset vote was “intolerable” and would have “devastating consequences”.
Five paramedics reportedly killed in Israeli attack in southern Lebanon as residents ordered to leave Beirut suburb
We are restarting our live coverage of Israel’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza.
The Israeli military has ordered residents to immediately evacuate the Beirut southern suburb of Ghobeiry, where it says Hezbollah fighters are located.
“You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the IDF will act forcefully in the near future,” Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X.
Al Jazeera reports this morning that several attacks on the area have taken place, with footage on social media showing large explosions and smoke bellowing out of buildings.
Lebanon’s state-run national news agency (NNA) said the Ghobeiry area “witnessed heavy gunfire” from Israeli forces. The number of people killed or injured is not clear yet.
Citing Lebanon’s health ministry, the NNA also earlier reported that six people had been killed in a “horrific massacre” carried out by Israeli soldiers on a civil defence centre in the town of Arabsalim in southern Lebanon. Six people were reported to have been killed in the attack, including five paramedics.
Here are some of the other latest developments:
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In Gaza, at least two people were killed and several others injured after an overnight Israeli airstrike hit a residential apartment in the centre of Deir al-Balah, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. In a separate attack, the outlet reports that two members of the same family – a father and son – were killed in an Israeli missile strike that targeted a home in the village of al-Nasr, northeast of the southern city of Rafah.
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The Israel Defense Forces said two rockets launched from Lebanon at the Haifa Bay area of Israel were successfully intercepted by air defenses. There were no immediate reports of any injuries.
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Canada’s foreign minister has expressed deep concern about “catastrophic” humanitarian conditions across Gaza and warned about “the life-threatening levels of acute malnutrition.” The country’s foreign affairs minister, Melanie Joly, cited a 8 November report by the Famine Review Committee that found a strong likelihood that famine is occurring or imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip. She said Israel must abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law and provide a significant and sustained increase to humanitarian assistance for Palestinians.
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Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity. The US-based group added it had collected evidence that suggested “the war crime of forcible transfer [of the civilian population]”, describing it as “a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court” (you can read more about the report’s findings here).