A strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, October 19, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine / L'Orient Today)
Saturday was marked by about ten violent Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut and Choueifat.
In the late afternoon, the Israeli Air Force carried out a series of strikes mainly targeting the neighborhoods of Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh, as well as the town of Choueifat, south of the capital. The intensity of this bombardment had not been seen in nearly ten days in the southern suburbs.
These attacks were conducted while Hezbollah had launched dozens of rocket salvos on northern Israel since the morning, specifically targeting the cities of Haifa, Acre, and Safed, resulting in one death.
A drone was also launched at the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea, more than 70 km from the border, in an attack that has not yet been claimed.
An Israeli drone also killed two people in a targeted strike on a car in Sahel Alma, on the highway connecting Jounieh to Beirut. This is the first time an Israeli strike has targeted this region of Mount Lebanon, predominantly Christian, since the start of the war on Oct. 8, 2023.
One man killed in Acre
From the early hours of the morning, Hezbollah claimed around twenty attacks, some involving large rocket salvos, on northern Israel. In addition to a series of positions along the border, Hezbollah reported launching rockets on Safed and northern Haifa.
According to Haaretz, warning sirens sounded throughout the morning in northern Israel, and a man in his fifties was killed by a piece of rocket debris that had been intercepted in Acre. More than 200 rockets were reportedly fired from Lebanon, announced the Israeli army on Saturday evening.
While a video showing a drone, presumed to have come from Lebanon, passing in front of a helicopter in the sky over Haifa was trending on social media, Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea was targeted by a drone that also allegedly came from Lebanon. This device only caused material damage, as neither the Prime Minister nor his family were present at the time of the strike. The Israeli Prime Minister accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate him and threatened to make Iran and its allies pay a "high price" following the drone strike on his private residence on Saturday.
A little later, the Iranian mission to the UN stated in a brief press release that Hezbollah was behind the attack. “This action was carried out by Lebanese Hezbollah,” the statement cited by the official news agency Irna said. The Shiite party did not claim responsibility for the strike on Caesarea, a city it has never announced targeting in the past year.
When questioned about Netanyahu's accusations regarding Iran's responsibility for the drone attack, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman condemned the “lies.” “The dissemination of lies is the current and permanent practice of this regime [Israel] and its criminal leaders,” Esmaeil Baghaei was quoted as saying by the IRNA news agency.
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Drone strike near Jounieh
At the same time, and as a response to this escalation in northern Israel, the Israeli army launched a series of violent strikes on southern Lebanon and the Bekaa throughout the day. These attacks were deadly, particularly in Baaloul, in western Bekaa, where a bombardment killed five people according to our local correspondent, Sarah Abdallah, including the president of the municipality of Sohmor in the same region. Victims were also reported in Bzaliyeh, in the Bekaa as well, where a strike resulted in two deaths, as well as in Kharayeb in the south.
In Kesrouan, where until now only the village of Maaysra had been hit three times by bombardments, an Israeli drone targeted a car traveling from the north to Beirut near Sahel Alma, on the outskirts of Jounieh, at around 9 AM on Saturday. This is the first time this coastal area, predominantly Christian, has been struck since Oct. 8, 2023.
After an initial shot, the drone launched a missile at two people who had fled the vehicle, killing them. According to rescue services, they were a man and a woman. According to information circulating in the press, but which L'Orient-Le Jour has not been able to independently verify, the man is reportedly a Hezbollah intelligence officer and the woman, his wife, is of Iranian origin.
Strikes on the southern suburbs
It was also a Hezbollah intelligence headquarters that was reportedly targeted in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where over a dozen strikes destroyed buildings in the neighborhoods of Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh. A bombing also took place in Choueifat, south of the capital. The Israeli army claimed to have targeted “weapons caches” of Hezbollah there. However, several residential buildings were also hit.
Following these bombings, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated after a G7 ministerial meeting in Naples that Washington wants Israel to reduce the intensity of its strikes on Beirut and its surroundings.
Additionally, the Israeli army announced it would continue its ground offensive in southern Lebanon, where it claimed to have destroyed several tunnels. However, its soldiers encountered several operations from Hezbollah, which, according to the party, attacked Israeli soldiers who were in Lebanese territory, particularly at the Fatima Gate in Kfar Kila and on the outskirts of Aita al-shaab.
