Fighter planes Israeli army last night have attacked the southern suburbs of Beirut. An eight-story residential building was hit, and the nearby hospital suffered minor damage.
Lebanon Israel PalestiniansPhoto: AP Photo/Hussein Malla
After the explosions, as the smoke rose above the city, there was great confusion. Lebanon's health ministry said "one civilian was killed and 68 wounded, five of whom are in critical condition."
Was the commander of the Shiite militia killed during the bombing? Hezbollah Fuad Shukr who was the target of the Israeli attack?
Citing intelligence sources, Israeli media say it is. "Fighters of the Israeli Air Force eliminated the military commander of the terrorist organization Hezbollah and the head of its strategic unit, Fuad Shukra, near Beirut," reports Deutsche Welle (DW) the words of the spokesman of the Israeli army.
Saudi Al Arabiya television also reported that Shukr was killed during the attack and that his body was taken to Beirut's Al Rasul Al Azam hospital, which was surrounded by Lebanese security forces. Footage shows one man lying on a bed in the emergency room. There was no confirmation whether it was Shukr, alive or dead.
However, immediately after the Israeli attack, the Lebanese media reported that one woman was killed and dozens were wounded. Hezbollah claims Shukr is alive. Previously, Reuters reported, citing security sources, that "Commander Shukr survived the Israeli attack."
Fuad Shukr is considered a close adviser to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and is one of the movement's top military commanders.
Lebanese television recorded people in the street shouting: "God bless Nasrallah" and "Netanyahu will pay for this."
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Israel holds Hezbollah responsible for an attack on a soccer field in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children between the ages of 10 and 16. The Jewish state cannot let such an attack go unpunished.
The Israeli army captured the Golan Heights, a rocky plateau in southwestern Syria, in the final phase of the 1967 Six-Day War. In 1973, Syrian troops tried to retake the area, but they failed. The "October War" or "Yomkupur War" of 1973 ended with a cease-fire agreement between Syria and Israel and the stationing of the UN Blue Helmets mission in the Golan. The Arab world considers this area to be under Israeli occupation.
Hezbollah: 100.000 fighters, 150.000 rockets
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said his government condemned Israel's shelling of Beirut, would file a complaint with the United Nations and hoped Hezbollah's response would not lead to escalation.
Lebanese authorities, however, have no control over Hezbollah, which, according to US intelligence sources, has about 100.000 well-trained, battle-hardened fighters.
In a report prepared for the US Congress, it is written that Hezbollah in Lebanon could dispose of about 150.000 rockets of different destructive power - from small, unguided, short-range missiles based on Russian, Chinese, and Iranian structures, to medium-range guided missiles with explosive charges. from half a ton. He mainly gets money and weapons from Iran, via Syria.
Lebanon Israel Palestinians"National Hero": Hassan Nasrallah / Photo: AP Photo/Hussein Malla
Hezbollah has made itself at home in Lebanon. It has its representatives both in the parliament and in the executive branch. Since 1992, the religious, political and military leader of this powerful organization has been Hassan Nasrallah (63), who in the last major conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in the Shiite world gained the status of a "national hero".
During that "second Lebanon war" war in the summer of 2006, Hezbollah, wrote the German "Spiegel", resisted the attacks of the Israeli army for 33 days and won a "stalemate". This Shiite guerilla then succeeded, which all Arab armies failed to do in half a century - to stop the Israelis.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galan wrote to Platform X: "Fouad Shukr has the blood of many Israelis on his hands." We showed that the value of our people has a price".
A new major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, whose command obeys the orders of the mullahs from Iran, is feared by both Europe and America because it would involve the entire Middle East in the vortex of war, and indirectly also Russia, which provides support to Iran and Syria. America's close military and political ties to Israel are well known.
Reactions from the world
Radical Islamist Hamas condemned the shelling of Beirut. The attack is a "dangerous escalation," the statement said. Yemen's Houthi rebels made similar comments, calling the Israeli rocket fire a "flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty."
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the airstrike on Beirut a "serious violation of international law."
The United States does not believe war between Hezbollah and Israel is imminent, White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. She said President Joe Biden "believes it can be avoided" and said the White House believes it is possible to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict, which would allow Lebanese and Israeli civilians to "return to their homes" and live in safety.
When asked why the Biden administration believes this is possible, Jean-Pierre said: "Because we have to be optimistic, I think it's important to have a diplomatic solution." We don't want to see an escalation, we don't want an all-out war."
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says he doesn't think a fight between Israel and Hezbollah is imminent, but he is concerned about the possibility of escalation. Voice of America.
The 2006 war
Lebanon, which was once called the "Switzerland of the Middle East", has been a training ground for the confrontation of regional powers since its foundation. About 1975 people died in the civil war from 1990 to 150.000.
It was the time of the birth of Hezbollah - an organization armed to the teeth that became a state within a state. It was founded in the mid-1980s by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard with a clear goal: to spread the ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini among the Shiites in southern Lebanon - and to fight against Israel, which "should be wiped off the face of the earth."
In 1982, the Israeli army marched into Lebanon as part of the "Peace for Galilee" operation, and intervened in the civil war in order to deal with all the enemy forces present there. She did not succeed in that plan, but even after the end of the civil war, she remained in the south of the country.
The plan was to secure a "safety zone". There were constant clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers. By 2000, when Israeli troops finally withdrew from Lebanon, about 1000 Israeli soldiers had lost their lives.
After the 2006 war, Hezbollah and Israel have again exchanged fire heavily since the Gaza war began, as Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in support of the Palestinians.
Hostilities were mostly limited to the area around the border. Israel therefore evacuated tens of thousands of people living in the border zone. Both sides have previously said they do not want a wider confrontation - although the conflict has raised fears of a major war.
For now, both sides seem intent on avoiding escalation. But mutual attacks intensified. According to its own statements, the Shia militia acts in solidarity with Hamas: it will stop its attacks only when there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Source: Deutsche Welle (DW), Voice of America
