Israel Strikes on Lebanon Kill 38 People around Baalbek, Governor Says

People and rescuers try to put out a fire at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a densely populated neighborhood in Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbek on November 6, 2024. (AFP)
People and rescuers try to put out a fire at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a densely populated neighborhood in Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbek on November 6, 2024. (AFP)
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Israel Strikes on Lebanon Kill 38 People around Baalbek, Governor Says

People and rescuers try to put out a fire at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a densely populated neighborhood in Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbek on November 6, 2024. (AFP)
People and rescuers try to put out a fire at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a densely populated neighborhood in Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbek on November 6, 2024. (AFP)

Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed at least 38 people around the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley on Wednesday, according to the regional governor, and at dusk more strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs.

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have exchanged fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war but fighting has escalated since late September, with Israeli troops intensifying bombing on swathes of Lebanon's south and east and making ground incursions into border villages.

Around 40 Israeli strikes on the Baalbek-Hermel governorate killed 38 people and wounded 54, governor Bachir Khodr said on X. The Israeli military did not comment.

Israeli strikes have also battered Hezbollah strongholds in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut. At least four strikes targeted the area on Wednesday after the Israeli military ordered residents to evacuate from several locations.

There was no immediate report on casualties or details on what was hit. The attack happened shortly after Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem said he did not believe that "political action" would bring about an end to hostilities.

He said there could be a road to indirect negotiations if Israel stopped its attacks.

"When the enemy decides to stop the aggression, there is a path for negotiations that we have clearly defined - indirect negotiations through the Lebanese state and Speaker (of parliament Nabih) Berri," Qassem said.

US diplomatic efforts to halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which included a 60-day ceasefire proposal, faltered last week ahead of the US election on Tuesday in which former President Donald Trump recaptured the White House.

RESCUERS DIG FOR SURVIVORS

Israeli attacks in Lebanon killed at least 37 people and wounded 105 on Tuesday, bringing the total to 3,050 deaths and 13,658 injuries since October 2023, the Lebanese health ministry said on Wednesday.

Lebanese rescuers scoured a destroyed apartment building in the town of Barja south of Beirut for bodies or any survivors after an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening that killed 20 people there, Lebanon's health ministry said.

Moussa Zahran, who lived on one of the upper floors of the building, returned to sift through the ruins of his home. His burned feet were wrapped in gauze and his son and wife were in hospital after being wounded in the strike.

"These rocks that you see here weigh 100 kilos, they fell on a 13-kilo kid," he said, referring to his son and the apartment wall that had collapsed onto him during the strike.

It was not clear if the strike targeted a member of Hezbollah. There was no evacuation warning ahead of the air raid.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had fired missiles at an Israeli military base near Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli media reported a rocket had landed near the airport.

Later, the Israeli military said dozens of "projectiles" had crossed into Israel from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted.

Efforts to bring a diplomatic end to the conflict have stalled. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday appointed Israel Katz as his new defense minister, who vowed to defeat Hezbollah so that people displaced from northern Israel could return home.

Berri - a Hezbollah ally and diplomatic interlocutor - met the US and Saudi ambassadors to Lebanon on Wednesday to discuss political developments, his office said, without providing further details.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister meanwhile congratulated the "president elect" in the US, without naming Donald Trump.

Netanyahu hailed Trump's election, while senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump would be tested on his statements that he can stop the Gaza war in hours as president.



Lebanon Files UN Complaint against Israel over Pager Attacks

Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram - AFP
Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram - AFP
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Lebanon Files UN Complaint against Israel over Pager Attacks

Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram - AFP
Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram - AFP

Lebanon said Wednesday that it had filed a complaint with the United Nations' labor agency over deadly attacks on communication devices across the country in September, which it blames on Israel.

Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram called the attack an "egregious war against humanity, against technology, against work", saying his country had filed the complaint with the International Labor Organization in Geneva.

"It's a very dangerous precedent," he told journalists in the Swiss city at an event organized by the UN correspondents' association ACANU.

The move comes after Israel escalated its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley on September 23, after nearly a year of cross-border fire, and a week later sent ground troops into southern Lebanon, according to AFP.

The escalation kicked off with sabotage attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, which killed dozens of people and injured thousands more across Lebanon.

Israel has not officially taken responsibility for those attacks, but Bayram said it was "widely accepted internationally... that Israel was behind this heinous act".

"In a few minutes, more than 4,000 civilians fell, between martyrs and injured and maimed," he said, speaking through a translator.

Among the victims not killed, he said many people had "lost their fingers; some have totally lost their eyesight".

"We are in a situation where ordinary objects, objects you use in daily life, become dangerous and lethal," he said.

"If left unchecked, this crime could become normalized," he said, adding that filing the complaint was meant "to prevent such crimes from happening in the future".

"I consider it a moral obligation to my country and to the world."

 

- 'Myriad of complaints' -

 

Asked why Lebanon had chose to file the complaint with the ILO, Bayram pointed to all the workers who were on the job when pagers and walkie-talkies -- tools they used to do their work -- suddenly exploded.

"We deemed it necessary to point out that this runs contrary to work environment, security and safety, contrary to decent work principles... defended by the ILO," he said.

He added that Lebanese authorities could still file complaints over the pager attacks in other international forums, including the World Trade Organization.

"In more general terms, the Lebanese government wants to... present a myriad of complaints" against Israel over its operations in the country, he said, since "the amount of crimes is huge".

More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since clashes between Hezbollah and Israel began in October 2023, according to the health ministry, including at least 1,964 since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

The war has also pushed more than a million people to flee their homes.