Lebanese leaders rebuke Iran as Israel, Hezbollah trade attacks

“HOW LONG WILL THIS GO ON?”

Israel has staged its deepest incursion in two decades into Lebanon, and on Friday it warned residents of nine towns and villages to evacuate ahead of raids.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported mass displacement from some villages and subsequent strikes.

The Israeli military reported air raid sirens in the north triggered by “surface-to-air missile launches targeting Israeli Air Force aircraft”, but added that there was “no injuries or damage”.

An overnight Israeli strike near the Lebanese city of Tyre’s Jabal Amel hospital killed four people and damaged the facility, according to a civil defence source.

“I was in my mother’s hospital room when a powerful strike hit”, Marwan Ghorayeb told AFP.

“My house in my hometown was destroyed, and my house in Tyre was destroyed. How long will this go on?”

A strike on Thursday badly wounded a prominent environmental activist in her seventies, a medical source said. Mona Khalil had been holding out in her home in Mansouri near Tyre, near coastline that serves as a nesting site for endangered sea turtles.

Lebanon’s health ministry said a strike in Nabatieh district on Friday killed five people, including an emergency worker affiliated with Hezbollah ally the Amal movement. It condemned “the targeting of paramedics carrying out rescue operations”.

The ministry said Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,558 people since March 2.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of 11 countries — including Australia, Canada and France — and the EU expressed “profound concern over the continued escalation of hostilities”.

“The people of Lebanon have already endured immense hardship,” they added.