Israel has intensified its air offensives on three fronts, launching dozens of new strikes in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria as negotiations for a ceasefire on its northern border reach a critical point.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said about 30 targets had been struck in the southern suburbs of Beirut in 48 hours and described continuing efforts to “dismantle and degrade” the military capabilities of the militant Islamist organisation.
Analysts said the wave of raids could also be aimed at increasing pressure on Hezbollah as indirect talks continued.
Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister, told Reuters an arrangement to end fighting with Hezbollah was drawing closer but insisted that Israel must retain freedom to act inside Lebanon should any deal be violated. “We will be less forgiving than in the past over attempts to create strongholds in territory near Israel. That’s how we will be, and so that is certainly how we will act,” he said.
A senior Lebanese official indicated on Wednesday that Hezbollah was ready to pull its forces away from the Lebanese-Israeli border in any ceasefire but rejected Israel’s demand to be allowed to intervene at will to enforce a deal.
Tens of thousands of Israelis with homes along the contested border are still displaced by the threat of Hezbollah attacks, and the costs of the war in Lebanon for Israel are mounting. Six Israeli soldiers were killed in combat with Hezbollah on Wednesday.
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,365 people and wounded 14,344 across Lebanon since 7 October last year. Hezbollah attacks have killed about 100 civilians and Israeli troops in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon over the past year, according to Israel.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has increased such raids since the October attack by Hamas that killed 1,200, mostly civilians, and triggered the Gaza war.
Thursday’s strike targeted two residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Thursday and killed more than a dozen people, the Syrian state news agency SANA said. One building was in the suburb of Mazzeh, and the other in Qudsaya, west of the capital.
Commanders in Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards based in Syria, have been known to live in Mazzeh, according to residents, and the authorities have used the area’s high-rise blocks in the past to house leaders of Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In Gaza, fighting has continued in Jabaliya, in the north, where Israeli forces are clashing with Hamas militants and four Israeli soldiers were killed earlier this week.
Israel says the siege it has imposed on Jabaliya allows for necessary operations against militants who have regrouped there, but many Palestinians fear the offensive is aimed at permanently displacing tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes.
“They have torched schools and other shelters where people took refuge before ordering families to head south toward Gaza City. What do you call that, if not ethnic cleansing?” asked Said Abdel-Hadi, a resident from Beit Lahiya, now displaced in Gaza City.
“Many families who at the beginning were against leaving were forced to do so after they ran out of water and food. Large areas have become empty, under the control of the occupation. Those areas have become off-limits.”
Dr Hossam Abu Safia, Kamal Adwan hospital director in Beit Lahiya, in the north of Gaza, said medical supplies were running out, there was not enough food for patients, and there were no working ambulances. “Every hour, we lose patients due to these severe conditions,” Abu Safia said.
Israeli airstrikes have intensified in recent days across the whole of Gaza, with more than 40 people killed on Monday alone.
The IDF denied an explosion in a cafe near Khan Younis on Monday evening was caused by an airstrike. Eleven people were reported to have died in the blast, including two children. The Tophub café opened two weeks ago in a makeshift shelter of corrugated iron. It was popular with students and football fans drawn by its internet connection, low prices, electricity and big screen.
“I heard a huge blast like a strong earthquake. I ran towards the cafe. I began shaking when I saw the casualties being brought out, and I went inside to find my friend soaked in his own blood and already lifeless. I carried his body to the ambulance. I lost my best companion,” said Jihad Badriya, 20.
The IDF said it was not aware of any Israeli attack on Monday at the location of the cafe.
Palestinian health ministry officials on Thursday said Israel’s latest strikes killed at least 15 people across Gaza, including four at Gaza City’s Salahudeen school, which shelters displaced families. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
More than 43,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli offensive there, with 2 million people displaced and much of the strip reduced to rubble.
Israeli military officials accuse Hamas of deliberately positioning military equipment, infrastructure and personnel among civilians. The militant Islamist organisation denies the charge.
