Heavy strikes shake Beirut as Israel expands Lebanon campaign

[Pelican Press 0]

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Heavy strikes shake Beirut as ******* expands Lebanon campaign

By Maya Gebeily and Laila Bassam

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Massive consecutive strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs from late Saturday into Sunday, Reuters eyewitnesses said, sending booms across the city and sparking flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometers away.

The strikes came after days of ******** by ******* of Beirut suburbs considered strongholds for Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, ******** its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and possibly his potential successor.

A Lebanese security source said on Saturday that Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor, had been out of contact since Friday, after an ******** airstrike near the city’s international airport that was reported to have targeted him.

The ******** military said it eliminated Nasrallah in a strike on the group’s central command headquarters in Beirut on Sept. 27. Hezbollah confirmed he had been *******.

Lebanese security sources said ******** strikes since Friday on Dahiyeh, a residential area and Hezbollah stronghold south of central Beirut, have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of Thursday night’s *******.

Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine.

His loss would be another ***** to the group and its patron Iran. ******** strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.

******* has been expanding its actions in Lebanon. On Saturday, it made its first strike in the northern city of Tripoli, a Lebanese security official said, and ******** troops launched raids in the south.

At least eight strikes rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Saturday including close to the airport, according to Reuters witnesses, after the ******** military warned some residents to flee.

Before the recent upsurge, exchanges of ***** between ******* and Hezbollah had been mostly limited to the *******-Lebanon border area, in parallel to *******’s year-old war in Gaza against ************ group ******.

******** military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Saturday that ******* had ******* 440 Hezbollah fighters in its ground operations in southern Lebanon and destroyed 2,000 Hezbollah targets. Hezbollah has not released ****** tolls.

******* says it stepped up its ******** on Hezbollah to enable the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to homes in northern *******, bombarded by the group since last Oct. 8.

******** authorities said on Saturday that nine ******** soldiers had been ******* in southern Lebanon so far.

CIVILIAN DEATHS, DISPLACEMENT

The ******** ******** has also ******* hundreds of ordinary Lebanese, Lebanese officials say, and forced 1.2 million people – almost a quarter of the population – from their homes.

The Lebanese security official told Reuters that Saturday’s strike on a ************ ******** camp in Tripoli ******* a member of ******, his wife and two children. Media affiliated with the ************ group said the strike ******* a leader of its armed wing, naming him as Saeed Atallah.

The ******** said in a statement that it had ******* two ****** members operating in Lebanon, but did not say whether they had been in Tripoli, a Sunni *******-majority port city also targeted during a 2006 war with Hezbollah

There was no immediate comment from ******.

In northern *******, air raid sirens on Saturday sent people running for shelters amid rocket ***** from Lebanon.

Hezbollah said it had fired missiles at what it called “ATA company for military industries near Sakhnin base,” close to Haifa. It was not immediately clear what Hezbollah was referring to.

The ******** army said two projectiles had crossed from Lebanon, one of which was intercepted while the other landed but caused no damage.

ANNIVERSARY OF OCT. 7

The ********* came as the anniversary approached of ******’ Oct. 7 ******* on southern *******, in which 1,200 people were ******* and about 250 taken ********, according to ******** tallies.

*******’s subsequent ******** on Gaza has ******* nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million.

The impact on civilians has prompted widespread protests internationally. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in major cities around the world on Saturday as the anniversary approached.

Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and ******, and which has lost key commanders of its elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to ******** airstrikes this year, launched ballistic missiles at ******* on Tuesday. The strikes did little damage.

******* has been weighing options for its response.

Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an ******** ******* on Iranian oil facilities. U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday urged ******* to consider alternatives to striking Iranian oil infrastructure.

The top U.S. general for the region, Army General Michael “Eric” Kurilla, is traveling in the Middle East, a U.S. defense official said on Saturday, declining to specify which country or to confirm ******** media reports that he had arrived in ******* for consultations with ******** military officials.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Maya Gebeily, Timour Azhari and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Phil Stewart in Washington, Writing by John Davison and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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