Israeli air strikes in Lebanon killed at least 11 people on Saturday (23) and injured dozens in the center of the capital Beirut, as diplomats struggled to broker a ceasefire.
Lebanese civil defense said the death toll was provisional as rescuers were still searching for survivors in the rubble. This was the fourth attack in the Lebanese capital in less than a week.
The attacks occurred during the early hours of the morning (local time) and destroyed an eight-story building, leaving a crater in the ground.
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A drone strike also killed one person and injured another in the southern port city of Tyre, according to the state-run national news agency.
The victims in Tire were fishermen. A journalist from Associated Presswho saw the attack from a nearby hotel overlooking the beach, said he had seen the fishermen set up their nets beforehand and that both appeared to be teenagers.
The Israeli military did not issue a warning to residents to leave their homes before the attacks in central Beirut and declined to comment on those attacks.
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The Israeli military, however, says it has conducted intelligence-based strikes against Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, a terror group stronghold south of Beirut, including several command centers and weapons storage facilities.
The escalation comes after US envoy Amos Hochstein traveled to the region this week in an attempt to broker a ceasefire agreement to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which has escalated in recent years. two months.
Israeli bombings have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, injured more than 15,000, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, and displaced around 1.2 million inhabitants, or a quarter of the country’s population.
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On the Israeli side, around 90 soldiers and almost 50 civilians were killed by rockets, drones and missiles in northern Israel and in fighting in Lebanon against the Shiite militia Hezbollah
The attacks came a day after heavy shelling in the southern suburbs of Beirut and as heavy ground fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants continues in southern Lebanon, with Israeli troops moving further away from the border.
Deaths also in Gaza
Attacks also continued in the Gaza Strip this Saturday. At least six people were killed, half of them children, and two women, in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to reporters from Associated Press and employees of the Nasser hospital.
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After the attack, reporters from AP They saw people mourning what appeared to be a man’s lifeless body, and bloodied children were seen helping each other pull away from the wreckage.
The death toll in fighting in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group surpassed 44,000 this week, according to local health authorities.
Gaza’s Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but said more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli army says it has killed more than 17,000 terrorists.
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The war began when Hamas-led militants invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapping another 250.
Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Most of the rest were released during a ceasefire last year.
The Israeli offensive on Gaza has caused widespread destruction across large swaths of the coastal territory, leading many to wonder when or how it will be rebuilt. About 90% of the population of 2.3 million people has been displaced and hundreds of thousands are living in squalid tent camps with little food, water or basic services.
(With Estadão Conteúdo and international agencies)
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