The Israeli Air Force struck targets in Beirut for the first time in almost a week, while the US warned it could cut arms supplies if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not improve.
The Israel Defense Forces said it conducted the strike early yesterday on an underground weapons-storage site in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
The airstrike came just hours after Lebanon’s prime minister said the US had assured him that Israeli attacks on the capital would ease.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Beirut attack followed airstrikes in southern and eastern Lebanon that killed 14 people overnight, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Earlier, the Israeli military said it intercepted about 50 projectiles launched by Hezbollah.
The events underline the high tensions after days of heavy exchanges.
The UN’s refugee agency said that Israel has now told people in a quarter of Lebanon’s territory to move, with 1.2 million people displaced by the conflict.
Even more — about 1.9 million — have been displaced in Gaza by the war with Hamas, another Iran-backed militant group.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli ministers on Sunday to warn them that the US might have to limit flows of weapons to Israel if it does not allow more aid into the besieged Palestinian territory within 30 days.
Israel has stepped up attacks on Hamas in Gaza over the past few days, and 65 Palestinians were killed in 24 hours, health officials in the Hamas-run enclave said.
Hezbollah and Hamas, whose deadly raids into Israel last year triggered the war in Gaza, are considered terrorist organizations by the US.
At least 1,600 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel started its air campaign about a month ago, Lebanese health officials said.
Iran, the main backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, is on a diplomatic push to gather regional support as it braces for Israel’s response to its firing of 200 ballistic missiles at the country on Oct. 1.
Israel and the US have been conferring regularly on how to retaliate, a situation that has jangled nerves across the Middle East and in energy markets.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi “emphasized the need for collective action by the countries of the region” to stop Israel and prevent the expansion of the war in a meeting with his Jordanian counterpart in Amman yesterday, a ministry statement said.
He also plans to visit Egypt and Turkey.
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