Israel expands strikes to northern Lebanon as more than one million people flee their homes

Israeli attacks continued on Saturday as rumours circulated over the fate of killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s successor, Hashem Safieddine

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburb of Beirut on Saturday (EPA)

Israel has expanded its intense bombing campaign in Lebanon, pounding a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country and unleashing dozens of strikes on the suburbs of Beirut.

Israeli warplanes hit areas as far north as the Beddawi camp, outside the city of Tripoli, on Saturday. The strikes killed a member of Hamas’s military wing in Lebanon, along with his wife and two daughters, according to the Palestinian militant group.

Israel said he served Hamas’ executive authority in Lebanon and had been directing attacks in the occupied West Bank.

This marks the first time Israel has struck northern Lebanon since the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

The strikes come amid swirling rumours about the fate of Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was himself killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh in the Lebanese capital last week.

Hezbollah has yet to comment on the alleged death of Nasrallah’s heir, but if true, it would be another blow to the group and its patron, Iran.

A Lebanese security source told Reuters that Mr Safieddine has been out of contact since Friday, and ongoing Israeli strikes have prevented rescue workers from searching the site of the attack. Axios, citing three Israeli officials, reported that Mr Safieddine was in an underground bunker that was the focal point of the raid.

Damaged cars at the site where an apartment building was targeted by an Israeli military strike in the Palestinian refugee camp of Al-Baddawi in Tripoli (EPA)

In a briefing, Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on Friday that they were still assessing the outcome of the raid, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

Israel has sharply escalated its bombing campaign in Lebanon and launched a ground invasion after a year of exchanging fire with Hezbollah, that was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October attacks on southern Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

Israel claims in recent days it as launched what it calls a “limited” ground incursion to allow the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to their homes in northern Israel, which has been bombarded by Hezbollah.

In less than two weeks, strikes and ground raids have killed 1,400 people in Lebanon, including women, children, and paramedics, with at least 25 people killed on Friday alone, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The strikes have also decimated Hezbollah’s top leadership. Israel claims it has killed 250 Hezbollah operatives, while nine of its own soldiers have been killed in the fighting.

Plumes of smoke have filled the skies over Beirut as Israeli strikes have hit the bustling and densely populated suburb of Dahiyeh, almost nightly. Large swathes of southern Lebanon have been reduced to rubble.

Rumours have circulated about the fate of Hashem Safieddine (pictured), the potential successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed last week. (AP)

Lebanese authorities report that the fighting has forced more than a million people to flee their homes, a fifth of the country’s population. Aid workers on the ground told The Independent that the movement of people is unprecedented, with many sleeping on the streets, by the beach, or even fleeing into wartorn Syria.

Nearly 375,000 people have crossed into Syria in less than two weeks, according to Lebanese authorities.

People continued to cross the border on Friday, scrambling through rubble and craters after Israel hit the key Masnaa crossing the day before. Israel claimed it targeted the crossing because Hezbollah was using it to transport military equipment into Lebanon.

Despite intense international efforts for a ceasefire, battles also continue in Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s bomardment has reached nearly 42,000, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Almost 90 per cent of Gaza’s residents are now displaced amid widespread destruction.

Israel’s military have warned Palestinians to evacuate along the strategic Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, which has been a major obstacle to reaching a ceasefire deal. The military instructed people in parts of the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps to move to Muwasi, a coastal area designated as a humanitarian zone.

On Saturday night, rallies were held for some of the 101 hostages snatched from southern Israel and still believed to be in Gaza. There family members and supporters demanded the Israeli government sign a ceasefire hostage exchange deal to bring their loved ones home.

Hamas militants captured at least 250 hostages on 7 October and have held most of them in tunnels deep beneath the war-ravaged strip. There had been hopes for an imminent deal to release the remaining captives, but those negotiations collapsed in recent months.

More than a million people have fled their homes in Lebanon amid the airstrikes from Israel (Reuters)

At a protest in southern Israel, hundreds of demonstrators and relatives of the hostages chanted “everyone [home] now with a deal now” and “why are they still in Gaza?”.

Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat, 41, was on a list of those to be released before the deal collapsed, spoke at one of the rallies. She was shot dead by Hamas militants in Gaza in September as Israeli forces closed in.

He said it was too late to bring Carmel back alive but that other hostages could still be rescued. However, he believes the ongoing regional conflict makes this increasingly dangerous and difficult.

“It seems the Israeli government has chosen to keep the war going indefinitely and to sacrifice the hostages because getting them back is not a priority,” he told The Independent. “We’ve feared this for a long time, but we still hoped they might sign a deal.”

International tensions flared on Saturday when Irish president Michael Higgins accused the Israeli military of “threatening” its peacekeeping soldiers in Lebanon. Israel had requested that the UN Interim Force in Lebanon vacate certain villages in the south of the country.

Unifil was created by the UN Security Council in March 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and restore international peace and security. Ireland contributes 347 soldiers to the 10,000-strong Unifil force.

Calling it “outrageous” president Higgins said on Saturday “Israel is demanding that the entire Unifil force operating under UN mandates walk away.”

“This is not only an insult to the most important global institution to which 193 members are committed, but it is also an insult to the soldiers and their families who have taken risks so we might all live in peace and protect the most vulnerable,” he added.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Damascus that “we are trying to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon”. The minister did not specify which countries were pushing the initiatives, only noting that they included regional states and some outside the Middle East.

Mr Araghchi’s comments came a day after Iran’s supreme leader praised its recent missile strikes on Israel and said the country was ready to strike again if necessary. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that Iran “will pay” for what Israeli military has called an “unprecedented” barrage of missiles.