Hezbollah fighters and supporters attend the funeral of slain Hezbollah military commander Wissam Tawil, also known as Jawad, in his hometown of Khirbet Selm, south of Beirut on Jan. 9, 2024. (Credit: Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP)
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Catch up on yesterday’s LIVE coverage of Day 95 of the Israel-Hamas war here.
Israeli strikes killed one person near the funeral for slain Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil, who was hit by Israel in a drone strike on his car Monday, while the party announced the deaths of four more of its members. Hundreds of people gathered in Khirbet Silm in southern Lebanon for Tawil’s funeral during which Hezbollah Central Council member Nabil Kaouk grieved the commander as a central figure in the party’s 2006 war with Israel and the liberation of Israeli-occupied southern Lebanese areas in 2000. Yesterday’s strikes raised the number of party members killed since Oct. 8 to 158, by our count. Hezbollah continued announcing cross-border attacks, including strikes aimed at military targets chosen in response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas deputy political chief Saleh al-Arouri in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs. Israeli shelling continued to be reported across southern Lebanon. The Health Ministry’s latest figures, released yesterday, record 135 deaths and 477 injuries since Oct. 7.
Property owners protested in favor of increasing frozen commercial rents as provided in a law passed by Parliament last month while tenants held an opposing protest calling for less drastic adjustments. Property owners’ representative Andira Zuhairi called on the cabinet to “immediately” approve and render effective a law adjusting frozen rents which would replace prices from 1963 with eight percent of the property’s current valuation over the next two years. Numerically, a tenant paying around $50 per year for a property valued at $100,000 could be asked to pay up to $2,000 the first year, $4,000 the next and $8,000 from then on. Tenants protested the increase calling instead for “a solution that would work for [them] and the owner.”
At least 23,210 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, the enclave’s health ministry announced. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli airstrikes continued to fall across Gaza, inflicting dozens of deaths to the north of the enclave — where Israel previously claimed to have achieved its main military goals and would adopt more targeted strikes. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that its ability to assist in Gaza is “diminishing.” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken described South Africa’s accusation before the International Court of Justice against Israel of committing genocide in Gaza as “meritless.” Blinken said that after his visit to Tel Aviv a plan was approved for the UN to assess the situation in northern Gaza to mediate the return of internally displaced Palestinians.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from yesterday: “After Lebanon’s ephemeral holiday fling, a January hangover”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz