Hezbollah pauses attacks
\nIsraeli strikes kill over 80 people \u2013 including medics \u2013 across country, says Lebanon\u2019s health ministry spox
\nNews agency
\n beirut
\nIsrael carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah broke out last month, even as the Iran-aligned group paused attacks on northern Israel and Israeli troops in Lebanon under a two-week US-Iran ceasefire.
\nConsecutive explosions shook Beirut, sending smoke billowing across the capital, as Israel\u2019s military said it had launched the largest coordinated strike of the war. More than 100 Hezbollah command centres and military sites were targeted in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, it said.
\nThe strikes killed 89 people \u2013 including a dozen medics \u2013 and wounded 700 across the country, Lebanon\u2019s health ministry spokesman told Reuters.
\nIn Beirut, Reuters reporters saw people on motorcycles picking up wounded and transporting them to hospitals because there were not enough ambulances to get them in time. A group of firefighters worked to put out flames in a car park after one strike left more than a dozen cars scorched and mangled.
\nThe head of Lebanon\u2019s syndicate of doctors, Elias Chlela, called in a written statement for \u201call physicians from all specialities\u201d to head to any hospital they could to offer help. One of Beirut\u2019s biggest hospitals said it was in need of donations of all blood types.
\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight that the ceasefire suspending the six-week-old US-Israeli war against Iran did not apply to Lebanon, and the Israeli military said operations against Hezbollah there would continue.
\nThat position contradicted comments by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key intermediary in the US-Iran ceasefire talks, who had said the truce would include Lebanon.
\nLebanon\u2019s state news agency NNA had reported continued Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon earlier in the day, including artillery shelling and a dawn airstrike on a building near a hospital that killed four people. An Israeli strike on the southern city of Sidon killed eight people and wounded 22 others, Lebanon\u2019s health ministry said.
\nA further strike hit central Beirut in the early evening, NNA reported.<\/p>\n
\u2018A grave violation\u2019
\nHezbollah stopped attacking Israeli targets early on Wednesday, three Lebanese sources close to the group told Reuters. The group\u2019s last public statement on its military activity was posted at 1am (2200 GMT Tuesday), saying it had targeted Israeli troops inside Lebanon on Tuesday evening.
\n\u201cHezbollah was informed that it is part of the ceasefire \u2013 so we abided by it, but Israel as usual has violated it and committed massacres all across Lebanon,\u201d senior Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told Reuters.
\nAnother Hezbollah lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, told Reuters the Israeli strikes were \u201ca grave violation of the ceasefire\u201d and that there would be \u201crepercussions for the entire agreement\u201d if they continued.
\nThe group is likely to issue a statement outlining its formal position on the ceasefire and on Netanyahu\u2019s assertion that Lebanon is not included, the three Lebanese sources said.
\nLebanese President Joseph Aoun, welcoming the US-Iran ceasefire, said Beirut would continue its efforts to ensure that Lebanon was included in any lasting regional peace agreement.
\nMost of Wednesday\u2019s strikes were in civilian-populated areas, Israel\u2019s military said. Hours before the strike, the military had issued warnings for some areas of southern Beirut and southern Lebanon. No such warning was given for central Beirut, which was also hit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hezbollah pauses attacks Israeli strikes kill over 80 people \u2013 including medics \u2013 across country, says Lebanon\u2019s health ministry spox News agency beirut Israel carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah broke out last month, even as the Iran-aligned group paused attacks on northern Israel and Israeli troops in Lebanon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n