Israel attacks Lebanon: Deaths mount as Beirut buildings bombed ‘to dust’
- Israel carries out multiple air strikes targeting residential apartment buildings in southern Beirut in attack described as “unprecedented”, and children are reported among those killed as rescuers dig through rubble.
- Israel’s military launches waves of attacks on Beirut after dismissing global calls for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, intensifying a bombing campaign that has killed more than 700 people in Lebanon since Monday.
- Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa tells UN Security Council that Israel is “a rogue state” that must be held accountable for “the crimes” committed in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and against the Lebanese people.
- The Israeli military has launched a wave of deadly air attacks on Beirut, destroying at least six residential towers with six killed and more than 100 wounded – with the toll expected to jump significantly.
- President Joe Biden said the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the strikes on Lebanon’s capital, but he has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary US force posture” in the Middle East.
- Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian called the strikes “state-sponsored terrorism”, while Iranian Foreign Minister Sayyed Abbas Araghchi told the UN Security Council that US-supplied 5,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs were used in the attack.
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has endorsed a joint US-France plan for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, saying “we cannot afford endless negotiations”, as with Gaza.
- At least 20 Palestinians were killed throughout Gaza on Friday, including in an Israeli strike on a tent encampment for displaced people in Deir el-Balah.
The Rogue State was actually Lebanon, which is ostensibly a national government, but allowed its territory to be used to launch massive attacks on another state.
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