Amid the risk escalation of the Middle-Eastern conflict, Israel launched its biggest-ever aerial strikes targeting Hezbollah militants, sparking fresh fears of an all-out war. The airstrike killed nearly 600 people, including Ibrahim Muhammad Qabisi, the top commander of the Iran-backed militia. In response to the attack, the militant group launched 100 projectiles.
Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into Israel on Tuesday, which targeted the explosives factory and sent families into bomb shelters. The recent attack has raised fresh fears of an escalation of fears around an all-out war. Here are the top ten updates on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cleared his country's stance on its policy towards Lebanon and predicted “complicated days ahead”. “I want to clarify Israel’s policy: we do not wait for the threat; we are ahead of it,” Netanyahu said Monday.
-More than 100 women and children were dead, and around 1,650 people were wounded in the Israeli airstrike, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing the Lebanese health ministry. However, the Israeli officials clarified that most of the people killed in the air strike were members of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
-After executing the biggest-ever airstrike on Lebanon, Israel Defense Minister,Yoav Gallant, on Tuesday, said that Hezbollah has suffered “extremely severe blows”. He also issued a clear warning that Israel has “more strikes ready.”
-"The Hezbollah of today is not the Hezbollah of a week ago. The sequence of blows it faced in its command and control, its operatives, its weapons -- all these things are extremely severe blows," AP quoted Gallant as saying while addressing the troops after an IDF drill that simulated a ground offensive in Lebanon.
-As the recent attacks have ignited fears of an all-out war, several nations have started preparing to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon. According to news agency AP, Britain will send 700 troops to the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus as it prepares for the possible evacuation of its citizens from Lebanon.
-“We continue to urge all sides to step back from conflict to prevent further tragic loss of life. Our government is ensuring all preparations are in place to support British Nationals should the situation deteriorate,” said British Defense Secretary John Healey.
-Hezbollah confirmed the death of one of its top commanders, Ibrahim Kobeisi, due to the attack. Kobeisi is the first member of the militant group to be pronounced dead since Israel and Hezbollah entered a more intense phase of the ongoing conflict.
-Kobeisi was responsible for missile attacks against Israel and was the mastermind behind a 2000 attack in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed, reported AP.
-In another update, the Israeli military said that it identified three drones crossing from Lebanon into their territory, AP reported on Tuesday. The attack set off sirens in coastal towns just south of Haifa — more than 50 km (31 miles) from the border with Lebanon. The attack was thwarted and no casualty was reported.
-Clarifying Israel's intent towards neighbouring countries, its United Nation Ambassador Danny Danon said that the country is “not eager to start any ground invasion anywhere.”
“We prefer a diplomatic solution. But if it’s not working, we are using other methods to show the other side that we mean business,” he said.
