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Israel pounds Lebanon after killing Hezbollah chief

Israel pounds Lebanon after killing Hezbollah chief

Agence France-Presse,

Aya Iskandarani with Jay Deshmukh in Jerusalem

 | 

Updated Sep 29, 2024 05:52 PM PHT

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Smoke rises following an Israeli strike on a target between the villages of Ghandourieh and Froun in southern Lebanon late on September 6, 2024, amid the ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. Ammar Ammar, AFP/FileSmoke rises following an Israeli strike on a target between the villages of Ghandourieh and Froun in southern Lebanon late on September 6, 2024, amid the ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. Ammar Ammar, AFP/FileBEIRUT, Lebanon (UPDATED) -- Israel said it struck "dozens" more Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Sunday, after dealing the Iran-backed group a seismic blow by killing its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah's killing and the past week's waves of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon have plunged the tiny Mediterranean country and the wider region into fear of even more violence to come.

Hezbollah launched low-intensity cross-border strikes on Israeli troops after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, sparking the war in the Gaza Strip.

Nearly a year later, Israel announced a shift in its focus to battling Hezbollah on its northern front with Lebanon.

Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah's killing on Friday in a massive strike on the group's main bastion in the south Lebanon's capital, Beirut.

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The Lebanese health ministry said the strikes on the densely populated area also left 55 people dead, while thousands of others have fled their homes in the neighborhood.

"I can't describe my shock at this announcement... we all started crying," Maha Karit told AFP in Beirut after Nasrallah's death.

With Lebanon already deep in political and economic crisis, the escalation has pushed it to the brink, with the bombardment killing more than 700 people in a week, according to health ministry figures.

The Israeli military said on Sunday its air force had struck "dozens of Hezbollah terror targets" after carrying out "hundreds" of strikes on Friday and Saturday.

Lebanon's National News Agency reported a string of raids in and around the city of Baalbek in the east, with "factories, warehouses" and residential areas among the targets.

At least six people were killed in a strike on a house in the northeastern Hermel region, the agency reported, while an emergency response group affiliated with Hezbollah ally Amal movement said five of its rescuers were killed in the south.

Hezbollah said its fighters launched "a volley of Fadi-1" rockets at an Israeli base in the Golan Heights early Sunday.

The Israeli military reported "approximately eight" launches from Lebanon that fell in unpopulated areas near the Israeli-annexed territory.

- Cult status -


Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah, enjoying cult status among his supporters.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had "settled the score" with Nasrallah's killing, while Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the world was "a safer place" without him.

US President Joe Biden -- whose government is Israel's top arms supplier -- said it was a "measure of justice for his many victims".

Analysts told AFP that Nasrallah's death leaves bruised Hezbollah under pressure to respond.

"Either we see an unprecedented reaction by Hezbollah... or this is total defeat," said Heiko Wimmen of the International Crisis Group think tank.

The assassination also showcased Israel's military and intelligence prowess in its battle against its foes.

"It demonstrates not only significant technological capacity but just how deeply Israel has penetrated Hezbollah," said James Dorsey of Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Hezbollah backer Iran has condemned Nasrallah's assassination, with First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref threatening it would bring about Israel's "destruction".

Iran's UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani urged diplomacy to prevent Israel "from dragging the region into full-scale war".

Hamas, which has fought Israeli forces in Gaza since the October 7 attack, condemned Nasrallah's killing as a "cowardly terrorist act".

Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Syria all declared public mourning.

Allied armed groups across the region like Yemen's Huthi rebels, already drawn into the Gaza war, have vowed action against Israel.

An "unmanned aerial target" approaching Israel over the Red Sea -- where the Iran-backed Huthis have launched attacks before -- was intercepted on Sunday, the Israeli military said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

- 'Breaking point' -

Most of the deaths in Lebanon came on Monday, the deadliest day of violence since the country's 1975-1990 civil war.
Most of the deaths in Lebanon came on Monday, the deadliest day of violence since the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said "well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon" and more than 50,000 have fled to neighboring Syria.

The World Food Programme said it had launched an emergency operation to provide meals and support for "up to one million people" affected by the escalation.

"Lebanon is at a breaking point and cannot endure another war," said WFP regional director Corinne Fleischer.

Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink.

In Gaza, AFP correspondents reported several air strikes during the night and shelling from a navy boat.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said an Israeli strike killed at least three Palestinians in a house in Gaza City, with three more killed in two separate strikes in the territory's north and center.

Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,586 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

© Agence France-Presse

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Ailing pope 'critical but stable', Vatican says

Ailing pope 'critical but stable', Vatican says

Agence France-Presse

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Pope Francis, who is in hospital with pneumonia in both lungs, is still in a critical condition but is stable and working from his sick bed, the Vatican said Tuesday.

Catholics across the globe have been praying for the 88-year-old amid hope he may be turning a corner on what doctors warn could be a long path to recovery.

"The Holy Father's clinical condition remains critical but stable," the Vatican said the evening of Francis's 12th day in the papal suite of Rome's Gemelli hospital.

"There have been no acute respiratory episodes and hemodynamic parameters continue to be stable," it said in a statement, referring to measurements such as heart rate and blood pressure.

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Francis, admitted on February 14 with breathing difficulties, suffered asthmatic respiratory attacks at the weekend that required high levels of oxygen and blood transfusions to combat anaemia.

On Tuesday, "he underwent a scheduled follow-up CT scan in the evening for radiological monitoring of bilateral pneumonia", the Vatican said.

"The prognosis remains reserved," it said.

Despite his critical condition, the leader of the world's nearly 1.4 billion Catholics has striven to keep up with Church matters from his hospital suite on the Gemelli's 10th floor, according to the Vatican.

"In the morning, after receiving the Eucharist, he resumed work activities," the statement said.


- 'Praying for you' -


The Argentine pope worked Monday too, receiving the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Francis approved the canonisation of two Venezuelan and Italian laymen who died in the early 20th century, while authorising the first steps towards sainthood for three 19th-century priests.

He also called the parish priest of Gaza's Catholic community, as he has routinely done since the war there broke out, the Vatican said.

This time, he was thanking him for a video the parish sent him.

"The whole world is praying for you... and everyone wishes you good health," the priest said in the video, published on Vatican News.

Catholics left messages and candles outside the hospital, where a group of faithful held up a banner reading: "Today, more than ever, we need you Francis".

Dozens of people attended special prayers for the pope at an Argentine church in Rome Tuesday evening, led by Italian Cardinal Baldassare Reina.

In the chapel of Our Lady of Lujan at the Santa Maria Addolorata church, faithful could leave messages for Francis in a notebook, which would then be sent to him.

"Prayers are being sent from every part of the world... Let it become a choral prayer, (to) give Pope Francis health, strength, give him the ability to face this moment too, as he has always done", Reina said.


- 'Breath of fresh air' -


In Buenos Aires, where the former Jorge Bergoglio served as archbishop before being made pope in 2013, hundreds of Argentines prayed for the pontiff.

Speaking in the plaza where Bergoglio used to rail against injustice and inequality, Archbishop Jorge Garcia Cuerva called Francis's papacy "a breath of oxygen for a world suffocated by violence, suffocated by selfishness, suffocated by exclusion".

"Let our prayer be that breath of fresh air that reaches his lungs so that he can recover his health," he said.

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, a former coordinator of the pope's Council of Cardinals, told La Repubblica daily Tuesday he felt hopeful the pope would pull through.

"It's not yet time for him to go to heaven," Maradiaga said.

"He is someone who does not back down in the face of difficulty, does not get discouraged, does not freeze, and does not stop moving forward," he told the paper.


- Recovery time -


Doctors have cautioned that any recovery will take time and that Francis will likely stay in hospital beyond this week.

The pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has increasingly suffered health complications in recent years.

He is prone to respiratory infections, is overweight and suffers knee and hip pain that has led to his reliance on a wheelchair.

It takes a young person at least two weeks to get over double pneumonia, Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, told newspaper La Stampa.

"For an older person like Pope Francis, with all the added complications... you have to wait even longer for a complete recovery," Andreoni said.

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