Israel threatens Lebanese social support organization in Beirut, kills family, damages infrastructure

Israeli warplanes bombarded the Nabatieh Governorate in Lebanon’s south throughout Thursday night and into Friday afternoon, killing a family of nine people as well as damaging key roads and cutting off local residents’ access to services and support.

Airstrikes also continued to target the eastern governorates of Beqaa and Baalbek-Hermel, as well as the other governorates in the country’s south.

The raids showed no respite in Israel’s escalation of military operations in Lebanon, which has seen it escalate attacks targeting civilians as well as Hezbollah leaders and fighters over the past two weeks. International calls for a ceasefire that emerged Thursday have failed to interrupt the exchange of fire.

After a coalition of western countries and Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar issued a statement on Thursday evening calling for a temporary truce, Israeli officials said they still intend to pursue their military strategy. Lebanese House of Representatives Speaker and Amal Party head Nabih Berri told the Lebanese press that a 21-day ceasefire must be implemented, saying that Israel had undermined the international ceasefire initiative.

Hezbollah announced that it had launched several operations against Israel, targeting the Ilaniya, Kiryat Ata and Tabarya settlements on Friday. Israeli media reported that one man was injured in the rocket barrage on Tabarya.

On Friday afternoon in the southern suburbs of Beirut, members of the Hezbollah-affiliated Wa Taawano cooperative packed the contents of their office into black bags after they announced they received a call from the Israeli military instructing them to evacuate their premises in Dahiyeh. “We will announce our new location soon to provide services to the displaced,” the cooperative said in a statement.

Dahiyeh had been targeted the day before, on Thursday, with at least two airstrikes that the Israeli military said targeted Mohamed Hussein Suroor. Severe damage to the lower floors of the residential building targeted in Dahiyeh near an intersection in the Rawos neighborhood could be seen in images from the scene. Other casualties from the airstrike were not reported.

Hezbollah later confirmed that Suror had been killed, mourning the commander and crediting him with leading Hezbollah’s air force since October 8, when Hezbollah first launched military operations against Israel, stating it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The commander’s death continued a series of losses inflicted by Israel on the group’s ranks over recent weeks, including to senior commanders in the elite Radwan Forces, Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Mahmoud Wehbe, who were likewise killed in airstrikes on Dahiyeh.

On Friday, Israeli warplanes continued to conduct raids across the country. Villages in Nabatieh were badly hit, including Nabatieh al-Fawqa and Nabatieh al-Tahta, from which footage of a raid near the evangelical school showed severe damage to shops and restaurants, their facades blown out by the force of the explosion, which left rubble scattered across the square.

A few kilometers further east in the governorate, airstrikes had targeted the Kafr Shouba and Shabaa areas. Nine members of a single family were killed in overnight raids in Shabaa and Arqoub, according to the National News Agency.

Just outside Kafr Shouba, an airstrike on Thursday night left a large crater in the main road out of the village, leaving five families who wished to evacuate the area stranded, according to the mayor, Ezzat al-Qidri, who spoke to Mada Masr.

Ali Jaber, head of the local branch of the civil defense agency, told Mada Masr that the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL supported operations to repair the hole to reopen the road and allow the families to leave later on Friday. Khadija Abbas, a resident of Kafr Shouba, told Mada Masr that she left the area to seek shelter in Beirut, noting that the town had been almost unlivable for five days, with the supply of medications and formula for infants cut off and pharmacies closed since airstrikes intensified in the area on Monday.

A road was also damaged on Friday in an airstrike near the Safir High School in Qennarit, Ghaziyeh, in the Saida district of the South Governorate.

Ninety-two people were killed by Israel in Lebanon on Thursday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, bringing the total of those killed by Israeli raids on the country since October 8 to 1,540.