Only two sounds interrupt the silence in the deserted Burj Rahaal, in the Tyre area, where 90 of the 492 deaths of the previous day occurred: the sirens of the ambulances (carrying the wounded northwards) and the rhythmic fall of the bombs, in series of seven. This is the new wave of bombings, at midday on Tuesday, which has added dozens of fatalities to the massacre of the previous day and now totals at least 558, plus 1,835 wounded. “In the last hour, warplanes have bombed Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, including missile launchers, military buildings and installations where weapons were stored,” said an Israeli army spokesman. Among the dead are 94 women and 50 children, more than double the total (22) who had lost their lives in the previous 11 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Lebanese militia, for its part, fired more than 300 rockets at northern Israel on Tuesday, a record since the start of the conflict. The offensive set off sirens in Israeli cities such as Haifa, Safed, Nazareth and Yokne’am, as well as throughout the Galilee. Three drones also flew over southern Haifa. Authorities believe this is the furthest such incursion has ever gone into Israeli territory.
Some of these missiles have landed without being intercepted by Israeli air defenses in areas that had not been hit during the more than 11 months of conflict. Two officers were collecting the remains of a missile at midday on Tuesday that ended up causing no casualties in the back of a house in Tamra, an Arab town on the outskirts of Haifa, in the northwest of Israel and some thirty kilometers as the crow flies from Lebanese territory. While the officers loaded the mass of metal into a van, the sky was filled with white smoke and explosions from the defense system as new launches were intercepted. This is something that can easily be observed several times a day throughout the north of the country without, apparently, altering normality. Despite everything, the pressure of these last few days from Hezbollah has forced the suspension of school classes in a large part of northern Israel.
In Lebanon, the Shiite militia has lost several key figures in recent days, from massive hacking of its communications and the loss of its pagers and walkie-talkiesdetonated remotely, presumably by the Mossad. The latest, on Tuesday, was Ibrahim Qubaisi, head of the rocket and missile unit and one of the organization’s top military leaders, according to Israel. Hezbollah has not confirmed that he died in the attack, which left six dead in Dahiye, the party-militia stronghold south of Beirut.
“The situation is catastrophic,” with dozens of injured people still in critical condition, said Health Minister Firas Abiad in an interview with Lebanese television channel MTV. “We are facing an unprecedented challenge.”
On the coastal highway between Beirut and Tyre, mass movements of thousands of people continue, with huge traffic jams for those who either started their journey the day before or waited, mistakenly thinking that today would be easier. Soldiers can also be seen controlling the passage, ambulances trying to navigate through the traffic jams and dozens of cars abandoned on the roadsides. Some have run out of fuel, as there are only three types of petrol stations: the empty ones, those with a precarious sign attached to the pumps informing them that they have run out of reserves and those with queues to refuel that enter the right lane of the motorway.
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Mattresses tied to the hood, trucks with entire families or livestock (cows, sheep, etc.) and displaced people walking along the side of the road next to the cars have become the new normal on the road between the south and the capital, or on its detour towards the interior. 87 schools have been set up to receive the refugees, who are mostly turning to relatives and acquaintances, according to their testimonies. The Ministry of Education announced on Tuesday that there will be no classes in schools or universities at least this week.
Bombings can also be heard in Saida, 45 kilometres south of the capital. For the third time in the last four days, Israeli air force has attacked Dahiye, the Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut. After attempting to assassinate Ali Karaki on Monday, a senior commander whose militia claims to have survived and is safe, Israel launched another localised attack this afternoon against a Hezbollah leader in a five-storey building that has been burned to the ground.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a new message to the Lebanese population on Tuesday: “Our war is not against you. Our war is against Hezbollah. [Su líder, Hasan] “Nasrallah is taking them to the edge of the abyss. Yesterday I told them to evacuate the houses where there is a missile in the living room and a rocket in the garage. Whoever has a missile in the living room and a rocket in the garage will no longer have a home,” he said during a visit to a military intelligence base, where he was “impressed by the work that has been done and no less impressed by the work that is going to be done.”
In this regard, Israel does not rule out carrying out a ground invasion of Lebanon. In fact, there are “additional strikes already prepared” against Hezbollah, according to the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, precisely during a simulation of such an incursion for which tens of thousands of troops from various divisions have been prepared, some of them arriving from Gaza. The minister has appealed to the experience acquired in recent months by these men in the Palestinian Strip. “Any Hezbollah force that meets you will be destroyed, they are worried about the experience you have acquired in combat,” he encouraged them, reports. Times of Israel.
Just like the bombings, the cancellations of flights to and from Beirut and, to a lesser extent, Tel Aviv continue. Air France-KLM, Air Algerie, Air Arabia… Some, until the end of the month or until October; others, until further notice. The White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, has asked the Americans in Lebanon – whom he had already called on to leave the country immediately – to do so now while they can. “We want to make sure that there are still commercial flights for the Americans to leave, and they should do so now while those options are available,” he said in a television interview. Spain, with more than a thousand nationals, half of them soldiers of the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), is also preparing an evacuation of civilians, in case “circumstances require it,” according to the Foreign Ministry.
