This week has been the deadliest in Lebanon since the bruising month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. With tensions still escalating, the Israeli military said it would activate reserve troops.
President Joe Biden, interviewed on ABC TV in the US, said “all-out war” was possible following the escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, but that he hoped an “off-ramp” could be found.
He also reiterated his administration’s support for a two-state solution to the conflict in Gaza. Biden’s comments came as diplomatic sources told Reuters that the US was linking Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and the Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon as part of renewed efforts to end hostilities on both sides of the Israeli border.
Israel said on Wednesday its air force had struck some 280 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon by early afternoon, including launchers used to fire rockets on the northern Israeli cities of Safed and Nahariya.
Fleeing families flocked to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the border with Syria.
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The United Nations said more than 90,000 people had been displaced in the last five days of Israeli strikes on Lebanon. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said some 200,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel nearly a year ago, drawing Israeli retaliation.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and its ally Hamas, a fellow Iran-backed militant group.
Israel has responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders. Hostilities were further inflamed last week following an Israeli attack in which explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands more.
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday killed Ibrahim Qubaisi, who Israel described as a top Hezbollah rocket and missile unit commander.
It was the latest in a string of assassinations and other setbacks for Hezbollah, which is Lebanon’s strongest political and military actor and is widely considered the top paramilitary force in the Arab world.
AP, Reuters
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