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Israel Conducts Air Raid on Baalbek, Hezbollah Responds

This picture taken near the town of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on March 21, 2024 shows smoke billowing in the northern Israeli border town of Metulla during bombardment amid ongoing cross-border tensions. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)
This picture taken near the town of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on March 21, 2024 shows smoke billowing in the northern Israeli border town of Metulla during bombardment amid ongoing cross-border tensions. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)
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Israel Conducts Air Raid on Baalbek, Hezbollah Responds

This picture taken near the town of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on March 21, 2024 shows smoke billowing in the northern Israeli border town of Metulla during bombardment amid ongoing cross-border tensions. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)
This picture taken near the town of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on March 21, 2024 shows smoke billowing in the northern Israeli border town of Metulla during bombardment amid ongoing cross-border tensions. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)

Israel conducted an airstrike on Baalbek, Hezbollah's stronghold in eastern Lebanon, early Sunday, wounding at least three people, a local official said.

The airstrike near the city of Baalbek was the latest to hit the area in recent weeks.
The strike occurred a few minutes after midnight and wounded three people according to Baalbek’s mayor, Bachir Khodr, who posted the news on X.

It was not immediately clear what was struck. The strike came hours after Hezbollah said it used two drones carrying explosives to attack an Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system in the northern Israeli town of Kfar Blum.

The Israeli military said warplanes attacked a workshop used by Hezbollah for military activities. It added that after the strike some 50 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel, saying some were shot down and others fell in open areas.

But Hezbollah said in statement that in response to the "bombing of a place in the city of Baalbek" it targeted an Israeli missile and artillery base in Yoav and the Kaila barracks with more than 60 Katyusha rockets.

A pair of Israeli airstrikes March 12 near Baalbek killed at least two people and wounded 20, marking a continuing escalation between Israel and Hezbollah over the war Israel is fighting with Hamas militants in Gaza.

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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File

The world's only research center on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan's two-year war, its director and another expert say.

Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.

It is often characterized by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands, AFP said.

"The center and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan," Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Centre (MRC), told AFP.

"We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years," said Fahal, whose center had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.

"It's difficult to bear."

Since April 15, 2023, Sudan's army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.

The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.

Sudan's health care system has been left at the "breaking point", according to the World Health Organization.

Among the conflict's casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.

A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.

AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC's current condition.

The center had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.

Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.

The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan's neighbors, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.

For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labor to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.

Drawing on the MRC's expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan's government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.

"Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards," said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi's head of mycetoma.