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2024.10.22 19:53 GMT+8

Israel's deadly Beirut hospital strike, Hezbollah targets Israeli tank

Updated 2024.10.22 19:53 GMT+8
CGTN

Rescuers search for survivors under the rubble a day after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb of Jnah. /Ibrahim Amro/AFP

MAIN HEADLINES

• Lebanese state media reported Israeli strikes near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre after Israel's military issued an evacuation call. Lebanon's official National News Agency reported that "enemy aircraft launched a series of strikes" that targeted the area.

• Lebanon's health ministry said 13 people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli strike near a south Beirut hospital the previous night. Another 57 people were wounded in the strike near the Rafik Hariri Hospital, Lebanon's biggest public health facility, located a few kilometers from the city center, the health ministry said. READ MORE BELOW

• Hezbollah said in a statement that its fighters targeted "a Merkava tank as it advanced" near the south Lebanon border village of Taybeh, "causing it to catch fire," adding that fighters had clashed with Israeli troops on the village's outskirts.

• The Israeli military said that it had struck several Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and command centers overnight, including a key naval base in Beirut.

• Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli positions in the Tel Aviv suburbs including an intelligence base, and launched rockets at a naval base in north Israel's Haifa.

• Gaza's civil defense agency said four Palestinians were killed in strikes, while several homes were blown up in the northern area of Jabalia, a focus of the recent fighting. 

• The poverty rate across the Palestinian territories will almost double this year to 74.3 percent after months of fighting in Gaza, according to a report by the UN Development Programme. READ MORE BELOW

• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel to push for a ceasefire in Gaza after his administration called for an end to the war in Lebanon "as soon as possible." It is his 11th trip to the Middle East since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in October 2023.

• The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that at least 42,718 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants. The toll includes 115 deaths in the previous 48 hours, according to the ministry, which said 100,282 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.

• Iran's neighbors have pledged they will not allow the use of their "soil or airspace" for any attack, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, as Israel weighs a retaliation for the Islamic republic's missile strike.

• Israel said it struck around 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over 24 hours, ramping up its offensive to hit the group's finances.

• The Israeli army arrested 28 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The detainees taken by Israeli forces overnight included a child and former prisoners, according to a statement by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. 

A man inspects the debris a day after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb of Jnah, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. /Ibrahim Amro/AFP

IN DETAIL

Israel strikes Lebanon's biggest public hospital

Lebanon's health ministry said 13 people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli strike near a south Beirut hospital the previous night, revising upwards its initial toll of four.

Another 57 people were wounded in the strike near the Rafik Hariri Hospital, Lebanon's biggest public health facility, located a few kilometers from the city center, the health ministry said. 

The facility in the Jnah neighborhood sustained minor damage in the strike, which flattened four buildings in its vicinity, according to a journalist in the area. Rescuers were still searching for survivors beneath the rubble, said the correspondent who heard a cell phone ringing under chunks of concrete.

The strike on Monday night came as Israel targeted Beirut's southern suburbs with heavy strikes following evacuation warnings. The Ouzai neighborhood, minutes away from Jnah, was hit for the first time during the conflict, Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported.

There was no warning, however, for the area around the Rafik Hariri Hospital, which is densely-populated and has seen an influx of people displaced from areas further south.

Nearly a month of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah has killed at least 1,489 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures. It has displaced more than a million people, according to Lebanese authorities, with thousands crossing the border to neighboring Syria.

The strikes on Ouzai and Jnah triggered an exodus of residents, piling more pressure on shelters struggling to accommodate the displaced.

 

UN warns poverty rate in Palestinian territories doubling

The poverty rate across the Palestinian territories will almost double this year to 74.3 percent after months of fighting in Gaza, according to a report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

"The immediate consequence of the war, not just in physical infrastructure destruction, but also in terms of poverty, livelihoods and loss of livelihoods, is enormous," said Achim Steiner, head of the UNDP. 

The poverty rate had been 38.8 percent at the end of 2023 but another 2.61 million Palestinians fell into poverty this year, bringing the total to 4.1 million.  

"It's quite clear from this socio-economic assessment, that the level of destruction has set back the state of Palestine by years, if not decades, in terms of its development pathway," Steiner said.

The study estimates that this year unemployment in the Palestinian territories could rise to 49.9 percent and that GDP will be 35.1 percent lower than without the war in Gaza. Steiner said that even if humanitarian aid is delivered each year, the Palestinian economy will not return to its pre-crisis levels for a decade or more. 

Recovery will also require support to rebuild destroyed capital and the lifting of "stifling economic conditions."

The study says Israel's bombing campaign created 42 million tonnes of rubble in Gaza, creating major health risks. The destruction of solar panels is particularly dangerous given the lead and other heavy metals they release. 

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Source(s): AFP
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