An Israeli airstrike has destroyed an Ottoman-era building just a stone’s throw from the Unesco-listed temples of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, the closest Israel has come yet to striking one of Lebanon’s most treasured archaeological sites.
An Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese city of Sidon killed three Lebanese citizens and wounded three Lebanese soldiers and four Malaysian personnel from Unifil forces, said the Lebanese army on Thursday.
Hezbollah welcomed any effort to stop the war in Lebanon but did not pin hopes for a ceasefire on any particular US administration, said Hezbollah legislator Ibrahim al-Moussawi on Thursday when asked about Trump’s election victory.
Israeli strike destroys Ottoman-era building near Baalbek ruins
An Israeli airstrike has destroyed an Ottoman-era building just a stone’s throw from the Unesco-listed temples of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, the closest Israel has come yet to striking one of Lebanon’s most treasured archaeological sites.
Heaps of grey masonry and twisted metal lay on Thursday next to a burnt-out bus just a few dozen metres from the World Heritage Site, a day after the attack, which was part of a wave of strikes that killed 40 people in and around the city.
The Israeli military has told residents of the entire city to leave Baalbek, in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, which houses one of the biggest and best-preserved complexes of Greco-Roman and Phoenician temples in the Levant.
The surrounding city has come under repeated attack from Israel, which says leaders of the Iran-backed Shi’ite movement Hezbollah shelter there.
Governor Bachir Khodr told Reuters the destroyed Ottoman-era building in the historic Manshiyeh neighbourhood just outside the ancient temple site was valuable in itself.
“It’s a very artisanal neighbourhood, typically full of tourists. There was no one in that building,” he said.
No damage was immediately visible to the temple complex, but it was too early to be conclusive, he said.
“The castle guards visually confirmed there was no damage but we need experts — engineers and archaeologists — to come look. No one has been able to do so yet because of the strikes,” said Khodr.
Maya Halabi of the Baalbek International Festival said that a total of three Ottoman-era sites had now been damaged by Israeli strikes in recent weeks, including the Gouroud Barracks, the Palmyra Hotel and the house destroyed on Wednesday.
“The Acropolis — where the temples are — is just a few metres away. They haven’t been damaged yet and we hope that won’t happen,” Halabi told Reuters.
Israel launched a ground assault and massive air campaign against Hezbollah in late September after a year of exchanging fire across the border in parallel with the Gaza war.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon over the past year, the vast majority in the past six weeks.
More families stream out of north Gaza as tanks push deeper
Israeli forces stepped up bombardment across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and ordered more evacuations, creating a fresh wave of displacement from northern Gaza, to which Palestinians fear they will not be able to return.
Palestinian health officials said at least 10 people had been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school housing displaced families in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
As Israeli tanks advanced in Beit Lahiya, a month into a new push on northern Gaza, dozens of families streamed out, arriving at schools and other shelters in Gaza City with whatever belongings and food they could bring.
Drones hovered overhead broadcasting evacuation orders, which were also carried on social media outlets, audio and text messages sent to residents’ phones, said one displaced man.
“After they displaced most or all of the people in Jabalia, now they are bombing everywhere, killing people on the roads and inside their houses to force everyone out,” the man told Reuters via a chat app, giving only one name, Ahmed, for fear of repercussions.
Palestinian officials say Israel is carrying out a plan of “ethnic cleansing”. Residents say no aid has entered Jabalia, Beit Lahiya or Beit Hanoun since the operation began on 5 October.
The Israeli military says it was forced to clear Jabalia and start clearing nearby Beit Lahiya on Wednesday to take on Hamas militants who it says have regrouped there.
It denied press reports that people evacuated from northern Gaza would not be allowed to return and said it was continuing to allow aid into northern Gaza and the Jabalia area, where it said it was engaged in “intense combat”.
“The statement attributed to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] in the past 24 hours, claiming that residents of northern Gaza will not be allowed to return to their homes, is incorrect and does not reflect the IDF’s objectives and values,” it said.
It said 300 trucks of aid from the United Arab Emirates had arrived at the port of Ashdod and would be sent into Gaza via the Erez crossing in the north and Kerem Shalom in the south.
Later, the army posted new evacuation orders to residents in neighbourhoods near and inside Gaza City, citing rocket launches from there by Palestinian militants. The new orders covered the northern part of the Shati camp and three other neighbourhoods in Gaza City.
Palestinian medics said Israeli fire had killed six people in Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, as well as four people in Beit Lahiya and seven in Rafah, near the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.
The Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia had killed about 50 militants in the past 24 hours and had helped Palestinians to exit combat zones through organised routes.
Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, most of whose 2.3 million people have been forced to leave their homes.
Israel’s ground campaign to annihilate the Islamist movement, more than a year old, has turned much of the Gaza Strip into a wasteland suffering a humanitarian catastrophe.
Many Palestinians are watching nervously to see if Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election will strengthen US support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump portrays himself as a more reliable ally for Israel than incumbent president Joe Biden.
More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, health authorities in the enclave say.
The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Violence has also surged across the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.
In Tulkarm, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man during a raid, medics said, adding that an Israeli drone had wounded five other people, including a mother and her son, who had learning difficulties.
Hundreds of Palestinians — including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and civilian bystanders — have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.
The Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its casualty figures, put the number at 775, including 167 children.
Dozens of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian street attacks over the past year.
Israeli strike in Lebanon’s Sidon kills three citizens
An Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese city of Sidon killed three Lebanese citizens and wounded three Lebanese soldiers and four Malaysian personnel from Unifil forces, said the Lebanese army on Thursday.
The strike targeted a car while it was passing a checkpoint, which led to the killing of the three Lebanese who were inside it, the army said in a statement.
The wounded soldiers had been serving at the checkpoint, while the Unifil personnel hit were in a vehicle of the UN peacekeeping force that was passing through the checkpoint at the time, according to the army statement.
Hezbollah calls for US action, not words, after Trump victory
Hezbollah welcomed any effort to stop the war in Lebanon but did not pin hopes for a ceasefire on any particular US administration, said Hezbollah legislator Ibrahim al-Moussawi on Thursday when asked about Trump’s election victory.
“It might be a change in the party who is in power, but when it comes to Israel, they have more or less the same policy,” Moussawi told Reuters. “We want to see actions, we want to see decisions taken.”
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah have exchanged fire for more than a year, in parallel with the Gaza war, but fighting has escalated since late September, with Israeli troops intensifying bombing of Lebanon’s south and east and making ground incursions into border villages.
Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and military assets while avoiding civilians. Hezbollah and Lebanese officials point to the rising death toll, with more than 3,000 killed since October 2023, and widespread destruction in the country as evidence Israel’s fire is indiscriminate.
US diplomatic efforts to halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which included a 60-day ceasefire proposal, faltered last week ahead of the US election on Tuesday.
Moussawi acknowledged the heavy toll of Israeli attacks that have blown apart thousands of buildings, mostly in Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim-dominated south and east and the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut. But he said the group’s military capabilities remained strong.
“Our hearts are broken — we are losing very dear lives. This feeling that [Israel] cannot be punished or brought to international justice is a result of US support which renders them immune to accountability,” he said.
“America is a full partner in what’s happening because they can exercise influence to stop this destruction.”
Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American billionaire who is the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, said he would be Trump’s envoy in charge of negotiating with the Lebanese side to reach a deal to end the war, Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed quoted him as saying this week.
Boulos also said that Trump was aiming to end the war before he took office in January, reported Al Jadeed. Reuters could not immediately reach Boulos for comment.
The Israeli government celebrated Trump’s return to power, saying he was a leader who would support them “unconditionally”.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that five soldiers had been killed and 16 wounded in a combat incident in southern Lebanon. It did not say exactly when the incident occurred.
Overnight on Wednesday, Israel carried out a series of strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, including at least one just tens of metres from Beirut airport’s runways.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamiye said the airport was functioning normally on Thursday.
Israel signs $5.2bn deal to acquire 25 F-15 fighter jets
The Israeli defence ministry said on Thursday it had signed an agreement to acquire 25 next-generation F-15 fighter jets from Boeing.
It said the $5.2-billion agreement was part of a broader package of US aid approved by the US administration and Congress earlier this year and included an option for 25 additional aircraft.
Delivery of the new F-15IA aircraft will begin in 2031, with four to six aircraft to be supplied annually, it said.
The aircraft will be equipped with weapons systems integrated with existing Israeli weapons as well as having increased range and payloads.
“These advantages will enable the Israeli Air Force to maintain its strategic superiority in addressing current and future challenges in the Middle East,” said the ministry in a statement.
“This F-15 squadron, alongside the third F-35 squadron procured earlier this year, represents a historic enhancement of our air power and strategic reach — capabilities that proved crucial during the current war,” said the director-general of the defence ministry, Eyal Zamir, in the statement.
Zamir said that the government has secured procurement agreements worth nearly $40-billion since the onset of the war in Gaza.
“While focusing on immediate needs for advanced weaponry and ammunition at unprecedented levels, we’re simultaneously investing in long-term strategic capabilities," he said. DM
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