Residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut in one of the streets of the Laylaki district, the day after new massive Israeli bombardments, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Since border clashes between Lebanon and Israel escalated into open warfare at the end of the summer, the human toll from the clashes between the two belligerents has been rising day by day.
There are no concrete signs of a ceasefire, despite announcements by the new U.S. President Donald Trump, elected on Tuesday, who made peace in Ukraine and the Middle East one of his campaign promises, or information attributed to the Israeli Channel 13 and taken up by Lebanese media on Saturday indicating that the Israeli army was about to declare the end of the ground operation in Lebanon.
In a new general assessment of the Israeli war against Lebanon, the Ministry of Health has counted since Saturday evening 3,136 killed and 13,979 wounded, including 19 killed and 91 wounded on Friday alone. It updated its assessment of the Israeli strikes that targeted the Bekaa and more specifically the regions of Baalbeck and Hermel, now reporting 20 dead and 14 wounded. The locality of Knaysseh has 11 killed out of this total, compared to five in Hadath Baalbeck and two in each of the localities of Jamalieh, Nabi Sheet and Majdaloun.
Strikes in Bekaa and South Lebanon
On the ground, Israel spared the southern suburbs of Beirut on Saturday, which were licking their wounds after another nightmarish night, but continued to carry out strikes in south Lebanon and the Bekaa.
In the south of the country, seven rescuers belonging to organizations linked to Hezbollah and the Amal Movement were killed in an Israeli strike on Deir Qanoun al-Nahr (Sour), which also took the life of a civilian, according to the Ministry of Health. It also reported that five people were killed in an Israeli strike against Hanaway (Sour) and three others in the town of Jbel al-Botm (Sour). The Bint Jbeil district was not spared, with strikes in Aitaroun, Kafra, Rshaf and Srebbine.
The city of Sour paid tribute to the five victims of the Dabouk family, killed during Friday's airstrike. This strike left four more dead. The Amal Movement announced the death of the son and brother of the regional leader of the formation in Jabal Amel, Hajj Ali Ismail, in an Israeli airstrike on Deir Qanoun al-Ain (Bint Jbeil). The Israeli army also bombed the village of Adloun (Saida) and Nabatieh in the middle of the evening, among others.
In a message on the X network, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, announced that the Israeli military had bombed "over the weekend, more than 100 targets" and eliminated "dozens" of fighters in various regions of Lebanon. In another message, he reported that a "mobile missile system loaded with 24 ready-to-fire rockets was found and destroyed in southern Lebanon."
On social media, a video showing two Israeli soldiers burning a Lebanese flag caused an uproar. On X, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli army tried to end the controversy by assuring that the soldiers had "violated" the instructions given to them and by repeating that the Israeli war only targeted Hezbollah. Finally, the Israeli army relaxed security instructions for residents of northern Israel.
Hezbollah published 23 statements at 9 p.m. for as many operations divided between defensive fire against movements of the Israeli army in south Lebanon (Maroun al-Ras) and in the north of Israel (Manara, Metulla and Ibad). The party said that it had targeted Friday "for the first time, the Israeli military factory of Malam (which is linked to air defense and missile systems)," located 132 kilometers south of the Lebanese-Israeli border. Hezbollah also fired missiles at the Haifa technical base (an Israeli Air Force base that includes "a training center for air force technicians." Around 30 party rockets were also fired at the Haifa suburbs and Acre during the latest barrage, the Israeli army acknowledged during the day, according to the Haaretz daily. Hezbollah also claimed to have shot down an Israeli Hermes 450 drone at 8 a.m. using a surface-to-air missile. The drone fell in the village of Deir Seriane (Marjayoun). Israeli warplanes subsequently destroyed it.
Finally, in a letter, Hezbollah fighters announced that they had renewed their oath of allegiance to the party's new secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, elected on Oct. 29 to succeed Hassan Nasrallah. The party's charismatic leader since the late 1990s, Nasrallah was killed on Sept. 27 by a massive Israeli army strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut.