Israeli airstrikes rip through Nabatieh city municipality, kill 8 | Israel resumes bombardment of Beirut

At least eight people, including the city’s mayor and members of the Nabatieh city municipality and the civil defense, were killed on Wednesday morning in a series of airstrikes which ripped through the city of the southern Lebanese governorate. 

Over 10 consecutive airstrikes hit the main municipal headquarters of the city of Nabatieh, the building of the union of Nabatieh municipalities and the city’s neighborhoods at around 10.30 am.

“We were overwhelmed with fear and terror when we first came to rescue those under the rubble of the Nabatieh municipality building,” head of the Nabatieh Civil Defense Rescue Department Ali Jaber told Mada Masr. 

Ali said that the rescue team was able to retrieve eight bodies so far, transferring three to the Nabatieh Governmental Hospital, and the rest to Ragheb Harb University Hospital in the village of Toul. 

Nabatieh mayor Ahmed Kahil, municipality officials Sadeq Ismail, Khedr Qadeh and Qassem Hijzai, media officer Mohamed Bitar, and staff member Mohamed Zahri were all killed in the strike. 

“A member of the Civil Defense was martyred in front of us in the airstrike on Nabatieh while he was doing his job,” Jaber said. The Civil Defense General Authority issued a statement mourning the death of the rescue worker and commended the sacrifices made by the rescue teams amid constant Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s south.

The teams are working at full capacity, Jaber said, due to the large amount of rubble, and estimate that at least three more people are still likely buried beneath the remains of the building.

The municipality team had been working over recent weeks to distribute bread and other emergency supplies among the residents remaining in the area amid repeated airstrikes on Nabatieh, delivering the supplies to residents’ houses to spare them from being exposed to Israeli fire. 

The central marketplace of Nabatieh was destroyed earlier this week in a series of strikes, which a municipality official described at the time as surpassing the damage inflicted on the same site in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006.

Israel has issued successive evacuation orders instructing residents of areas south of the Awali River, which includes Nabatieh city, to leave as they are in danger due to Israel’s planned bombardment of the region. 

Only about 500 people remain out of 100,000 residents of Nabatieh city, a Mada Masr correspondent in the city estimated, following the forced displacement of the majority of residents. 

The correspondent added that the residents who remained in the city and its outskirts received calls on Wednesday from persons who identified themselves as officers in the Israeli military and who warned the residents against walking around in the city as the airstrikes are set to continue.

Some families of resistance fighters in Nabatieh Governorate also reported receiving phone calls on Tuesday informing them that their sons had been killed, only for the families to confirm later that they are alive, according to the correspondent.

One father from Deir al-Zahrani, whose name is not recorded for safety considerations, told Mada Masr that he received a call on his home number telling him that his son had been killed on the battle front in the south. He contacted Hezbollah officials in Deir al-Zahrani and the surrounding area, only to find out that his son was still alive. 

Security sources in southern Lebanon told Mada Masr that the Israeli military is responsible for these calls, but they are fabricated news with the purpose of terrorizing the families of resistance fighters. 

Airstrikes continued to target other parts of southern Lebanon between Tuesday and Wednesday. Five people were killed on Tuesday night in an airstrike on Surubbin, which is also in Nabatieh Governorate, located south of the city of Nabatieh. On the same night, 10 people were killed and at least 15 were injured in a series of four Israeli airstrikes on Qana, in the South Governorate, to the west of Nabatieh. Another five people, including three children, were also killed in an airstrike on a neighborhood in the city of Riyaq, in Beqaa.

Wednesday also saw Israeli bombing also targeting the southern towns and villages of Ayta al-Shaab, Ramyah, Marjaayoun, Kfarkela, Khiam and Taybeh, near the border.

Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburb also resumed on Wednesday after a few days of calm, with the Israeli military issuing new evacuation orders to residents of areas surrounding alleged “facilities and offices affiliated with Hezbollah” in Haret Hreik. 

The strikes on Beirut came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday the military’s intention to continue striking the Lebanese capital, denying reports that Israel had committed to desist strikes on Beirut at the request of the United States. 

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati had said on Tuesday that Lebanon had received a “kind of guarantee” from US authorities that the escalation on the capital would be reduced.

The southern suburbs of Beirut were subject to almost nightly airstrikes, often for hours at a time, for much of late September and early October. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from the tightly packed residential area of the capital. Areas of central Beirut, including Boushariyeh and Basta have also been targeted by individual strikes. 

The Israeli military claimed its strike last night hit a strategic underground weapon storage belonging to Hezbollah in the southern suburb.

For its part, Hezbollah targeted on Wednesday morning the northern Israeli settlements of Yiftah and Dishon, where they targeted an Israeli artillery position, and Safed, which they targeted with missiles. 

Hezballoh accused Israel in a statement of using rockets loaded with internationally-prohibited cluster munitions to bomb areas of ⁠Wadi al-Khanazir, in Wadi al-Hujeir in southern Lebanon, Khalat Raj, between the villages of Alman and Deir Siriane in Nabatieh Governorate, and to the east of Alman towards the forests.

The supreme council for defense in Lebanon said that 2,350 people have been killed so far in Israel’s aggression on the country since October last year, while over 10,920 people have been injured. 

Of those, 41 people were killed in the last 24 hours, and 124 injured, the statement said.