Israel maintains bombardment of Sur, kills 7 in family home | Airstrike kills 9 in Saida, where thousands of displaced shelter | Hochstein due in Tel Aviv as questions on ceasefire persist

On Monday, Israel continued raids focusing on Sur in Lebanon, the historic coastal city that became a new focal point for its daily airstrike campaigns last week.

Seven people were killed in a missile launched at dawn on a family home in the city center, while five were killed Sunday evening in a strike targeting an area near a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Sur’s Salha neighborhood.

Israel also issued evacuation orders on Monday, pushing more of the coastal city’s residents to flee further north, to Saida, which is considered the capital of south Lebanon and has absorbed tens of thousands of displaced people forced out of their homes by Israel’s military escalation on the country, which began over a month ago. Yet it, too, was subject to bombardment on Sunday afternoon, with an attack on Haret Saida killing nine.

Israeli bombing on Monday also killed seven, including three paramedics and a nurse, in Ain al-Baal in Sur and targeted the southern villages of Yamor al-Shaqif and Marjayoun.

Hezbollah launched rockets on Sunday evening toward the Misgav Am settlement in northern Israel, where Israeli military posts are located. On Monday morning, they followed with another rocket attack on the settlement of Ayelet Hashahar.

Israeli bombing on Lebanon over the past year has killed 2,672, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Sunday evening.

And with United States Special Envoy Amos Hochstein reportedly due to land in Tel Aviv this week for ceasefire talks, questions remain around the establishment of a viable framework for an agreement between Israel and Lebanon as Israel seeks adjustments and additions to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, according to sources informed of regional talks on the matter who spoke to Mada Masr.

Israel kills 7 in airstrike on home in Sur, issues more evacuation orders

Israel struck the Raml neighborhood in the center of Sur in a raid at dawn on Monday, killing seven people and injuring 17 others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

A relative of some of those killed in the raid told Mada Masr that the strike, which took place with no prior warning, targeted a building belonging to the Muslemani family.

They shared footage of the attack filmed by a friend, showing that all but the ground floor of a residential block had been leveled by the airstrike. Rubble and personal belongings were strewn across the area, and some of the nearby homes were damaged by the collapse of the targeted building.

Another airstrike on Sur on Sunday afternoon killed five people when it struck the Borj al-Shamali area. Ali Deeb, mayor of the nearby Burj al-Shamali camp, clarified to Lebanese media that the strike, which struck in the afternoon, targeted an area close to a school run by UNRWA in the Salha neighborhood of Sur.

Sur became a new focal point for Israeli airstrikes last week. The Israeli military spokesperson has since issued evacuation orders for a large portion of the buildings in the central part of the city, carrying out airstrikes shortly afterward.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued new orders on Monday morning for the evacuation of the residents of three central neighborhoods in Sur, including all the buildings between Doctor Ali al-Khalil Street, Hiram Street, Mohamed al-Zayat Street and Nabih Berri Street. Adraee claimed, as in every statement, that the area was a site of Hezbollah activities.

The Sur Municipality and the Islamic Mission Association affiliated with the Amal Movement called on residents to evacuate immediately via loudspeakers placed on cars that toured the designated neighborhoods, eyewitnesses told Mada Masr.

A resident of the area, Wasila Abu Dala, said that she left her home quickly with her four children in her car without collecting any of her personal belongings or the children's clothes.

The same thing happened with her sister Ola and her four children, who had to rent a car to leave the area, paying three million Lebanese pounds to transport her to the city of Saida. Ola explained to Mada Masr that the fare for one passenger on normal days is only around 500,000 Lebanese pounds.

Airstrike kills 9 in Saida, where thousands are sheltering

An Israeli airstrike on Haret Saida on Sunday afternoon killed nine people and injured over 30 more, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The attack was the first time that Israel has targeted the crowded city considered the capital of southern Lebanon, which has recently absorbed hundreds of thousands of those displaced by Israel’s daily campaigns of bombardment on villages across the Lebanese south.

Ahmed Eid, an activist in Haret Saida, told Mada Masr that the missile was launched by a drone, striking the fourth floor of a residential building where a displaced family from Maaroub, Sur were living.

“Israel is displacing southerners and calling on them not to return to their home,” said Eid, noting that the Israeli military is simultaneously “pursuing them with raids on their places of displacement.”

Hussein Maarouf Fneish was killed in the attack, said Eid, along with his wife and daughters, including an eight-month-old baby girl. Eid said that the bodies of three of those killed were found in pieces.

Eid said that ambulances arrived at the scene to transfer the dead and those injured to Hammoud Hospital in Saida.

Around 100 cars in the area were destroyed, according to eyewitnesses, who said that some were completely burned and others sustained damage to the car body and windows, which were shattered completely.

The attack on Haret Saida, a suburb in Saida’s east, has prompted concern among the city’s residents that Israel’s targeting of the area could become more frequent.

The latest figures from the government’s Disaster Risk Management Unit indicate that over 14,000 people are internally displaced in the South Governorate, of which Saida is the largest city.

Questions persist in hampering ceasefire progress after Beirut talks 

United States Special Envoy Amos Hochstein, who is holding indirect talks between Israel and Lebanon toward a ceasefire, left Beirut last week, with reports in the Israeli media stating he could be due to arrive in Israel within the coming days.

Hochstein was in Beirut last week to speak to Lebanese politicians, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is leading Lebanon’s negotiations. Complications to securing a viable agreement remain, with Israel seeking adjustments and additions to the existing framework for peace between the two countries laid out by the United Nations Security Council, two sources informed of talks at the regional level told Mada Masr.

An initial ceasefire proposal was first put forward in late September by the United States along with a coalition of Western countries, including France and Germany.

The proposal laid out a framework for a 21-day ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, who had been conducting a low-grade exchange of fire for over a year before Israel escalated airstrikes across Lebanon on September 23, killing more than 200 people and displacing hundreds in one day alone.

During the pause to fighting, the proposal suggested that negotiations would be held toward the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, a framework put in place at the time to conclude the 2006 war but never fully enforced. UNSCR 1701 stipulates Israel’s full withdrawal from Lebanonand Hezbollah’s withdrawal of its forces north of the Litani River.

The Western proposal fell flat in September, with Israel choosing instead to escalate its aggression on Lebanon by targeting homes and health facilities across the country, launching a ground invasion, conducting widespread demolitions in multiple villages in the border region and continuing its campaign of assassinations against leaders in Hezbollah, including Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Deputy Secretary General Hashem Safieddine.

Washington, meanwhile, saw Nasrallah’s assassination as an opportunity to push political reform in Lebanon via the election of a president, the Washington Post reported this week, citing a senior Biden administration official.

Amid the escalation, Israel sought additions to the initial proposal, Israeli officials told the media, saying that Tel Aviv was seeking to secure an agreement that would allow it to conduct active operations in south Lebanon.

Two sources who spoke to Mada Masr confirmed that Israel has been seeking to replace UNSC 1701 with a new arrangement in talks toward a resolution for Lebanon.

But the first source, an Egyptian official briefed on regional dynamics, said that France is not eager to discuss a reworking of the security council resolution as part of a deal for Lebanon. The same source and the second source, another Egyptian official, agreed that Russia and China, both permanent members of the security council, are not at all likely to admit changes to 1701.

The first source noted that the issue was part of discussions held in London last week between Arab foreign ministers, where one of the main remaining difficulties being Israel’s keenness to retain the right to intervene "preemptively" to attack any threat it perceived in Lebanon.

Whether Israel will compromise is unclear. Reports in recent days have shown that Israeli forces are facing difficulty navigating conditions in Lebanon’s south, with Hezbollah killing five reservists in south Lebanon, according to the Israeli media on Sunday. Israeli military sources told the press last week that Tel Aviv was close to completing its operations in Lebanon, claiming to have neared the achievement of its aims.

Ali Hamieh, the public works minister in the caretaker government and a political representative of Hezbollah, told the media on Sunday night that if Hochstein reaches out to Lebanese officials after his prospective Tel Aviv visit, then things could be headed in a positive direction.

CORRECTION: An initial version of this piece stated that Amos Hochstein was due to arrive in Tel Aviv on Monday. Hochstein was in Washington on Monday and his prospective visit to Israel is tentatively scheduled for later in the week, as per Israeli media reports from Tuesday, October 29.