Hezbollah’s Priority Is Defeating Israel, Open to Efforts to Stop the Attacks, Group’s Official

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Hezbollah’s Priority Is Defeating Israel, Open to Efforts to Stop the Attacks, Group’s Official

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)

Hezbollah's priority right now is defeating Israel militarily, but it is open to any efforts to stop "the aggression", the head of Lebanese group's media office, Mohammad Afif, said on Friday.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified in recent weeks, with Israel bombing southern Lebanon, Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, killing many of Hezbollah's top leaders, and sending ground troops into areas of southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah for its part has fired rockets deeper into Israel.

"Tel Aviv is only the start, Israel has only seen so little," Afif said in a televised press conference in the southern suburbs of Beirut with the rubble of destroyed buildings behind him.

"Our absolute priority now is to defeat the enemy and force them to stop the aggression. However, any internal or external political effort to achieve a cessation of aggression is appreciated as long as it is consistent with our comprehensive vision of the battle, its circumstances and its results."

He denied there were weapons stored in Beirut's southern suburbs and said Israel used timed bombs to make it seem so, promising residents of the neighborhood and those displaced from southern Lebanon and Bekaa that they would return soon.



Thousands Said Trapped in Jabalia Camp as Israel Escalates Attacks in Northern Gaza

A boy watches a smoke plume rise while standing in the balcony of the Rafei school, being used as a displacement shelter, in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A boy watches a smoke plume rise while standing in the balcony of the Rafei school, being used as a displacement shelter, in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Thousands Said Trapped in Jabalia Camp as Israel Escalates Attacks in Northern Gaza

A boy watches a smoke plume rise while standing in the balcony of the Rafei school, being used as a displacement shelter, in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A boy watches a smoke plume rise while standing in the balcony of the Rafei school, being used as a displacement shelter, in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Thousands of people are trapped in Gaza's Jabalia camp as Israeli forces attack the area, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) said on Friday, a week after Israel began an offensive it says is aimed at stopping Hamas regrouping.

Israeli military strikes killed at least 34 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Friday, with nearly half of the fatalities occurring in Jabalia, the northern district which is the largest of Gaza's historic refugee camps.

"Nobody is allowed to get in or out; anyone who tries is getting shot," MSF project coordinator Sarah Vuylsteke said on X.

Five MSF staff were trapped in Jabalia, she said.

"I don't know what to do; at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave," she quoted Haydar, an MSF driver, as saying.

At least 15 of the fatalities in Jabalia since dawn were due to Israeli strikes targeting various areas, including a school sheltering displaced individuals, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said, citing medical sources.

Gaza's Civil Defense said dozens were wounded by Israeli quadcopter fire at the same school.

The Israeli military has sent troops into the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya as well as Jabalia. Hamas has said it will continue to defend itself against Israeli attacks, while Israel maintains that its operations are essential for national security and to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

Palestinian health officials have reported at least 130 deaths in the operation so far, while the military has told residents to evacuate areas where the UN estimates over 400,000 people are trapped.

United Nations officials expressed concern that the ongoing Israeli offensive and evacuation orders in northern Gaza could disrupt the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign set to begin next week.

Healthcare officials have reported that dozens of facilities in Gaza are under evacuation orders from the Israeli military, complicating humanitarian efforts amid the ongoing conflict.

Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.