Israel carried out air strikes in Beirut, northern Lebanon

Israel has expanded bombings in Lebanon on 5 October, hitting the suburbs south of Beirut through 12 air strikes and attacking a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

This is the first time Israel has attacked northern Lebanon. The attack on the Bedavi camp, near Tripoli in the north, left a Hamas commander killed, the Palestinian group declared terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union, as well as his wife and two daughters, the Palestinian group reported.

Tripoli is in the north and is far from most of the attacks carried out by Israel, which have mostly centered south of Lebanon and Beirut.

Israel has killed some of Hamas' officials in Lebanon since it started between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in October last year. Israel has also killed high leaders of Hezbollah, which is a militant group and political party that controls most of the south of Lebanon.

Few six people have been killed in dozens of air strikes Israel carried out during the night and Saturday, the state news agency in Lebanon reported.

The Israeli Army said special forces have carried out targeted ground raids against Hezbollah's infrastructure in southern Lebanon, destroying rockets, rocket launchers, surveillance towers and weapons depots. The military also said that it destroyed tunnels that Hezbollah, according to her, used to approach the Israeli border.

Hezbollah has been declared a terrorist organisation by the United States, while the European Union has put its armed arm on the blacklist, but not even its political party, which has seats in the Lebanese Parliament.

Close to 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed and another 1.2 million have fled their homes since Israel intensified air strikes in late September in order to damage Hezbollah's group and oust it from the border. Earlier in the week, Israel began ground offensive in southern Lebanon. In recent days, nine Israelite soldiers have been killed in battle with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the army has said.

In the past two weeks, almost 375,000 people have left Lebanon for Syria because of fighting, according to Lebanese Government data.

As the fighting continues in Lebanon, Israel is also continuing its war in Gaza against Hamas. On 5 October, in northern Gaza and in the central part of the enclave, at least nine people, including two children, have been killed during Israeli attacks, Palestinian health officials said.

Hamas attacked the north of Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping some 250 others - an attack that sparked the war in Gaza. As a result of the Israeli offensive, almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. / REL