Israeli airstrikes hit the historic eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek on Wednesday, killing at least 19 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Hours before it struck, Israel’s military issued evacuation orders for the entire city and parts of eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where Baalbek is located. Tens of thousands of Lebanese fled in a chaotic scene of panic, one Lebanese civil defense official said.
“The whole city is in a panic trying to figure out where to go; there’s a huge traffic jam,” Bilal Raad, regional head of the Lebanese civil defense, told Reuters.
Baalbek is the site of a Roman temple complex listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Israel’s warning said it was targeting Hezbollah. It has issued evacuation orders before military strikes in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. U.N. officials and humanitarian organizations have criticized the evacuation orders, saying civilians have little chance to prepare and often nowhere safe to go.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides met at the White House on Wednesday to discuss how to bring an end to the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza.
Cyprus, the European Union nation closest to Gaza, has played a key role in enabling the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza
After his meeting with Biden, Christodoulides said he was “quite optimistic” that a Lebanese cease-fire deal would be reached soon.
Senior White House officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein are scheduled to be in Israel on Thursday. There, they will discuss a wide range of issues, including cease-fire agreements in Gaza and Lebanon and the release of the hostages that Hamas still holds.
New Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said Wednesday that the militant group would continue fighting Israel in Lebanon and northern Israel until it is offered cease-fire terms it considers acceptable.
“If the Israelis decide to stop the aggression, we say that we accept, but according to the conditions that we see as suitable,” Kassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a recorded televised address.
“We will not beg for a cease-fire as we will continue (fighting) … no matter how long it takes,” he said. His remarks came a day after being named the militant group’s new leader, replacing longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in late September.
Kassem had served as Nasrallah’s deputy for more than three decades.
Kassem’s speech came as international mediators launched a new push for negotiated cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza, where Israeli forces have been fighting Hamas militants for more than a year.
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said the government’s security Cabinet is discussing the terms of a truce with Hezbollah in south Lebanon, where Israeli troops are conducting a ground offensive.
“There are discussions, I think it will still take time,” Cohen told Israeli public radio.
Israel’s Channel 12 television said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with top officials Tuesday evening on Israel’s demands in return for a 60-day truce with Hezbollah.
Israel is demanding a Hezbollah pullback to north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the Israeli frontier. In addition, Israel wants the Lebanese army to deploy along the border, an international intervention mechanism to enforce the truce, and that Israel will remain free to respond militarily in case of threats.
Cohen, a former intelligence minister, said, “Thanks to all the army’s operations these past months and particularly these past weeks … Israel can come in a position of strength after the entire Hezbollah leadership was eliminated and over 2,000 Hezbollah terrorist infrastructures were hit.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that Hezbollah’s “residual capabilities in terms of missiles and rockets” were estimated to be at 20% of what they had been. He said Hezbollah had been “pushed back from all villages” on the border with Israel.
Israeli media reported that U.S. President Joe Biden’s Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, and special envoy Amos Hochstein, are headed to the Mideast Wednesday to meet Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to discuss conditions for a cease-fire with Hezbollah.
The war in Lebanon began late last month, nearly a year after Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border fire into Israel in support of Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated terrorist organizations by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and others.
The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since Sept. 23, according to an Agence France-Presse tally of health ministry figures, although the actual number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.
Israel’s military says it has lost 37 soldiers in its Lebanon campaign since it launched ground operations on September 30.
Israel’s military issued new evacuation warnings Wednesday for people in parts of eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, warning of military actions against Hezbollah targets in the area.
An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said people in Baalbek, Ain Bourday and Douris should leave their homes.
Israeli forces have frequently followed such warnings with airstrikes as they carry out a campaign Israeli officials say is meant to push Hezbollah back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel has used the same methods in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, while U.N. officials and humanitarian organizations have criticized the evacuation orders saying civilians have little chance to prepare and often nowhere safe to go in the midst of the war.
UNRWA ban
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has written to Netanyahu expressing his concern over new Israeli legislation that would ban the main U.N. agency supporting Palestinian refugees.
“Obviously, if it is implemented, it is clear that it will have a devastating impact on the humanitarian situation of Palestinians in the occupied territory,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
He said Guterres has also written to the president of the U.N. General Assembly, which created UNRWA, the Palestinian relief agency, in December 1949.
Guterres called on Israel to uphold its obligations under international humanitarian law and said national legislation “cannot alter those obligations.”
Israel’s U.N. envoy, Danny Danon, said “UNRWA Gaza has become a front for Hamas” and accused Guterres of ignoring that “indisputable fact.”
The new Israeli legislation bans the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and forbids Israeli officials from having any contact with UNRWA representatives.
Norway’s prime minister said Tuesday his government will submit a resolution to the U.N. General Assembly for it to request a ruling from the International Court of Justice on whether Israel would be violating international law.
The latest conflict in the region began when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in their October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Israel says it believes Hamas is still holding 101 hostages, including 35 the military says are dead.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, with Israel saying the death toll includes thousands of militants. The Israeli campaign has devastated much of the Gaza Strip, while the fighting and Israeli evacuation orders have displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people.
VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
