CAIRO: On Thursday, at least 28 people, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in central Gaza that was providing shelter to displaced people. Meanwhile, in central Beirut, a top Hezbollah member was the target of an attack that claimed 22 lives.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has been hitting Beirut’s southern suburbs, which are the stronghold of the country’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. However, this Thursday’s raid marked only the third time the city center was attacked.
Putting patients’ lives in danger, three hospitals in the north were ordered to evacuate, according to Gaza’s medical community. The attack, which left numerous others injured, happened in the city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people sought safety after escaping fighting in other locations following almost a year of conflict.
The fighters were supposed to have had a command and control center embedded in a school, and the Israeli military claimed to have carried out a “precise strike” on them.
Hamas, a Palestinian organization, refutes these claims. There were 54 more injuries at the school, according to medics.
According to health officials, the Israeli military on Wednesday told medical staff and patients 24 hours to evacuate the Indonesian hospitals at Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan, or else they risk being stormed, similar to what happened at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City earlier in the conflict.
A strike in Beirut
The Lebanese health ministry reported that at least 22 people had died in Israeli strikes on a heavily populated area of central Beirut on Thursday. According to a security source, the target of the strikes was a Hezbollah official.
In a revised toll release, the ministry stated, “The Israeli enemy’s attacks on the capital Beirut this evening resulted in a new toll of 22 people killed and 117 injured.”
A Lebanese security source told AFP that Israel had tried to murder a Hezbollah figure who frequently visited the areas targeted. The source asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss sensitive things.
Attacks by peacekeepers
As Israel advised Lebanese residents not to return to their homes in the south and continued its expanding offensive against Hezbollah, Israeli soldiers opened fire on locations used by UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the UN force.
In one of the incidences, an Israeli tank shot at a watchtower at the force’s main headquarters in Ras al-Naqoura, striking the tower and sending two of the peacekeepers falling, according to the UNIFIL force. According to a UN source, no one was hurt in the other two cases.
According to a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, Israel is being pressed for information regarding the occurrences, and the US is extremely worried about claims that Israeli forces opened fire on UN peacekeepers’ positions in southern Lebanon on Thursday.
