Many killed, 100 wounded as Israel airstrikes hit Beirut

BEIRUT/DUBAI/LONDON: A series of Israeli airstrikes rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday evening, erasing a residential block in the Haret Hreik neighborhood and reverberating across the Lebanese capital, rattling windows and sending a thick plume of dark smoke into the sky.

The Israeli army’s spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed the “precise strikes” hit the central headquarters of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, believed to be located beneath residential buildings, the AP news agency reported.

The blasts caused nationwide panic and plunged the surrounding area into chaos. Paramedics from Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Authority rushed to the scene alongside relatives of the buildings’ residents.

Others in the southern suburbs rushed into their cars and fled towards Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Health Minister Firas Abiad confirmed that “some of the targeted buildings were inhabited.”

At least two people have been killed, and hospitals in the area received more than 50 wounded from nearby buildings, including three in critical condition. Rescue teams urgently appealed for blood donations.

The Lebanese state-run National News Agency said six tall buildings in Haret Hreik have been reduced to rubble in the biggest blast to hit the capital in the past year.

Targeting Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, who was suspected to be in a bunker underneath the buildings, the Israeli military used F-35 aircraft and dropped 2,000 tons of explosives on the area, according to Israeli media.

Mohanad Hage Ali, the deputy director for research at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, told Arab News that “Israel has moved from the precision killings phase into dynamite or blast fishing; the end justifies the means.”

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“They can kill hundreds to reach a target,” he continued. “This is why it is more likely a high-value target was there (in the targeted block) – this is why they (the Israeli military) took the decision.”

Israeli broadcaster Kan 11 initially reported an on-screen headline saying Nasrallah was “harmed,” but quickly followed with Israeli assessments indicating he is dead.

However, the Iranian news agency Tasnim reported that a security source confirmed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and the group’s executive council head, Hashim Safi Al-Din, were unharmed.

Iran’s embassy in Beirut described the Israeli strike as a “serious escalation that changes the rules of the game,” threatening that there will be repercussions.

“The Israeli regime once again commits a bloody massacre, targeting heavily populated residential neighborhoods while spewing false justifications to try and cover up its brutal crimes,” the embassy wrote on the social platform X.

“There is no doubt that this reprehensible crime and reckless behavior represent a serious escalation that changes the rules of the game, and that its perpetrator will be punished appropriately.”

Analysts believe the strike on Haret Hreik reflects Israel’s dismissal of traditional wartime norms, marking the start of a new phase in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

“Such a strike signals a disregard for the limitations typically observed in warfare, including proportionality and ethical considerations as it is a civil populated area as Tel Aviv a city with military basis,” Rafe Jabari, a researcher on the political sociology of Arab states, told Arab News.

 “The scale of the destruction implies that the Israeli government is not constrained by these principles of International Law,” he added.

Jabari also believes “the strategy being employed suggests that Israel believes that war is the solution to end further conflict.”

He explained that “airstrikes are the strategic weapons used by Israel before the invasion of the Lebanese territories as happened in the Gaza Strip.

“The Israeli army is using destruction and terrors to eliminate any opposition to its occupation and colonization policy.”

“However, this approach is wrong,” Jabari continued. “Rather than achieving lasting peace, the continuation of such military actions is likely to provoke further instability and insecurity across the region.”

“Instead of bringing about an end to hostilities, this escalation will fuel the conditions for more wars and destruction in the future including this one.”

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Likewise, Beirut-based political analyst Nader Ezzedine said: “By targeting Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, regardless of the outcome, Israel has chosen to break all established conflict rules and red lines that had been observed in its previous wars with Hezbollah.”

He told Arab News that “whether the outcome of this strike results in Nasrallah’s death or his survival, it will have significant ramifications for the conflict.”

“Hezbollah initially tried to adhere to certain rules in the hopes that an agreement can be reached to end the war in Gaza and Lebanon,” he added. “However, after this strike, I no longer believe this war will have any rules or limits.”

However, Ezzeddine believes that while the strike may have dealt a significant blow to Hezbollah and undermined its fighters’ morale, “it will not end the war but will likely intensify the fighting even further.”

“This strike will not end the conflict if Israel aimed to do so by killing Nasrallah,” he said. “Instead, it will certainly cause a huge escalation.”

He also expects this strike to be followed by an Israeli ground invasion, while Hezbollah may escalate its attacks against Israel.

Middle East expert Jabari noted that “we are witnessing an open war worse than the one in 2006. The Israeli army and government are choosing weapons as a means of negotiation instead of political and diplomatic endeavors.”

On Wednesday, Sep. 25, Israel’s military chief Herzi Halevi told troops that its airstrikes in Lebanon aimed to destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure to pave the way for a possible ground incursion, CNN reported.

These comments came after the Israeli army intercepted a missile that Hezbollah said it had shot at the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

A day earlier, an Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Qubaisi, who reportedly led the group’s missile and rocket force.

Reports of Friday’s strikes came less than an hour after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address at the UN General Assembly, in which he vowed to continue his military operation in Lebanon despite a US ceasefire proposal demanding a 21-day pause in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel’s onslaught on Lebanon, which it says aims to eliminate Hezbollah, has killed within a few days 720 Lebanese people, many of them women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Since October 8, after Israel launched its onslaught on Palestine’s Gaza Strip, Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging cross-border fire. But in the last week, Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon, claiming the goal is to end Hezbollah’s 11 months of attacks on its territory.

Many killed, 100 wounded as Israel airstrikes hit Beirut

ARAB NEWS

Israel will continue attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Netanyahu tells UN

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged Israel will fight until “total victory” in its continuing war on Gaza and promised to continue attacks on the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, as hopes faded for a ceasefire that could head off an all-out regional war.

Several delegations walked out as Netanyahu approached the lectern to speak while supporters in the gallery cheered.

“I didn’t intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life,” Netanyahu said on Friday.

“But after I heard the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight.”

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others since October 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

More than half of those killed were women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of two.

Israel launched the assault on Gaza in response to a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which killed at least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official Israeli figures, with about 250 others seized as captives.

Israeli leader told the 193-member assembly that the Palestinian group Hamas, which governs Gaza, should have no role in the reconstruction of the territory.

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“If Hamas stays in power, it will regroup … and attack Israel again and again and again … So Hamas has got to go,” he told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.

The United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, has been trying unsuccessfully to reach a ceasefire that would end the war and secure the release of the captives.

“This war can come to an end now. All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages,” Netanyahu said.

“But if they don’t – if they don’t – we will fight until we achieve total victory. Total victory. There is no substitute for it. “

He said Israeli forces have destroyed “90 percent” of Hamas’s rockets and killed or captured half of its forces.

Hamas accused Netanyahu of telling “blatant lies” in his speech.

Netanyahu “continued his series of blatant lies and escalated his threats against the peoples of the region, while … expanding his circle of crimes to include our people in Lebanon”, a statement from the Palestinian group said.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said the US government gave Israel the greenlight to use self-defence as a rationale for its war on Gaza by drawing a parallel between Hamas’s October 7 attack and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It then went on to shield it, to arm it, to finance it and to defend it at the United Nations and that’s why we need to remember that Netanyahu has the arrogance to come to the UN and lecture the world, because the US supports him, a war criminal,” he said.

‘Enough is enough’

The prime minister also told world leaders that his nation will “continue degrading” the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah until it achieves its goals along the Israel-Lebanon border.

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Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire almost every day since October 8, when the Iran-aligned group fired rockets at Israel in what it says was an act of solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.

Most of those exchanges have been contained to the region around the Israel-Lebanon border. But Israel’s military dramatically escalated its attacks on Hezbollah in recent days, killing more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday in a wave of air raids, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

“Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And that’s exactly what we’re doing … we’ll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met,” Netanyahu said.

“Just imagine if terrorists turned El Paso and San Diego into ghost towns … How long would the American government tolerate that?” he said, shaking his fist in emphasis.

“Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, I’ve come here today to say: Enough is enough.”

Israel and the Lebanese group have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border.

Late Wednesday, the US, France and other allies jointly called for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations as fears grow that the violent escalation in recent days – following 11 months of cross-border exchange of fire – could escalate into an all-out war.

The United Nations has said that more than 90,000 people have been displaced since Monday in Lebanon.

The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of criticising Israel’s war on Gaza. “Mr Netanyahu, stop this war now,” Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also denounced the Israeli assault on Gaza. “This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine,” he said.

Israel will continue attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Netanyahu tells UN

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

43 killed as Hurricane Helene ruins southeast US

At least 43 people have died and millions left without power on Friday as Hurricane Helene roared through the south-eastern US.

Officials continued daring rescues with boats, helicopters and large vehicles to help those stranded in floodwaters – including about 50 workers and patients who crowded on the roof of a flooded Tennessee hospital.

It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Florida’s Big Bend and moved north into Georgia and the Carolinas after making landfall overnight on Thursday.

Insurers and financial institutions say damage caused by the storm could run into the billions of dollars.

Roads and houses were submerged on Friday, with one family describing to BBC News how they had to swim out of their home to safety. Although Helene has weakened significantly, forecasters warn that high winds, flooding and the threat of tornadoes could continue.

Helene, which had been a category four storm, came ashore on Thursday night and remained a hurricane for six hours after it made landfall, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said a storm surge – heightened water levels mostly caused by high winds blowing water towards shore – reached more than 15ft (4.5m) above ground level across parts of the Florida coast.

The NHC said the surge should subside before the weekend but the threat from high winds and flooding would persist, including possible landslides.

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Up to 20in (50cm) of rain is still possible in places.

The hurricane is the 14th most powerful to hit the US since records began. At approximately 420 miles (675 km) wide, it is behind only two other hurricanes – Ida in 2017 and Opal in 1996, both of which were 460 miles wide.

Because of its sheer size, the impact of strong winds and heavy rain have been widespread across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

At least eight people have died in Florida since Friday, including at least five people in the coastal Pinellas County, the county’s sheriff, Bob Gualtieri said.

The county includes the city of St Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said one person died after a road sign fell on their car and another when a tree fell on a home.

After hitting Florida, the storm continued on a deadly path north into Georgia – leaving at least 15 dead – including a first responder, Governor Brian Kemp said.

A suspected tornado that spurred in Wheeler County, in central Georgia, left two people dead when the twister picked up and overturned a mobile home, authorities said.

Kemp ordered 1,000 National Guard troops to help with rescue efforts across the state. The Georgia governor said Friday that more than 150 roads have been closed, 1,300 traffic signals are out across the state and people are still trapped in buildings.

In South Carolina, at least 17 people were killed, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Neighbouring North Carolina saw at least two fatalities in the storm, one due to a vehicle collision and another when a tree fell on a home in Charlotte, Governor Roy Cooper said.

The state also saw two confirmed tornadoes, which damaged 11 buildings and injured 15 people, the National Service said.

One person was also killed in Virginia, the state’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, said at a news conference on Friday.

Across the southeast, more than three million homes and businesses were without power late Friday, according to tracking site poweroutage.us.

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First responders have been tackling rescues, using helicopters, boats and large vehicles to help people stranded in flooded homes. In North Carolina alone, more than 100 rescues have taken place, Cooper said.

In Tennessee, 58 patients and staff were left stranded on the roof of a hospital in the city of Erwin on Friday. Swift-moving water from the Nolichucky River prevented boats from being able to conduct rescue operations, and high winds prevented helicopter rescue.

The group was later taken to safety after helicopters from the Tennessee National Guard and the Virginia State Police intervened.

In Pasco County, north of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf coast, 65 people were rescued. Guests at a Ramada Inn in Manatee County were also rescued as floodwaters rushed into the hotel.

And in Suwannee County to the north, authorities reported “extreme destruction”, with trees falling onto homes.

Along the Gulf Coast of Florida, Briana Gagnier told the BBC that she and her family saw water creeping into their home on Holmes Beach and started moving their belongings onto tables and beds before hearing a loud bang.

“My family and I all looked at one another,” she said. “Then water just started pouring in.”

Ms Gagnier said she grabbed her pets, her wallet and some portable chargers and swam out of their home with her family. The water was up to their shoulders.

“We also encourage all communities to please continue to listen to your local officials,” FEMA Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks said on Friday.

“Just because the storm has passed where you are doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re safe to leave your home.”

Officials also reminded residents the effects of the storm are “not over yet” and urged residents to remain vigilant.

Hurricanes need sea surface temperatures of more than 27C (80F) to fuel them.

With exceptionally warm waters of the Gulf at 30-32C, the sea surface is about two degrees Celsius above normal for the time of year.

Florida’s 220-mile Big Bend coast is where Hurricane Idalia made landfall in 2023. The area was also battered by Hurricane Debby last month.

There could be as many as 25 named storms in 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned earlier this year.

Between eight and 13 of those storms could develop into hurricanes and a handful already have including Helene.

More storms could be on the horizon as the official end of hurricane season will not arrive until 30 November, officials warned.

43 killed as Hurricane Helene ruins southeast US

BBC