28 September 2024

Concerns Grow as Conflict Escalates Between Israel and Hezbollah

Anna Gordon

U.S., U.K. and United Nations officials urged restraint as tensions ramped up between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Lebanon’s health ministry reported that at least eight people were killed and 59 people were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Southern Beirut on Sept. 20. The strike was a targeted assassination aimed at top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed in the attack, according to Reuters.

After days of escalating conflict, Israel carried out extensive airstrikes targeting Southern Lebanon on Sept. 19 and Hezbollah retaliated on Sept. 20, prompting fears of further conflict and a wider Middle East war. It comes just days after thousands of pagers and other wireless devices, many of which were used by Hezbollah, exploded in Lebanon and parts of Syria in an unprecedented deadly attack that killed at least 37 people and wounded 3,000. While Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, Hezbollah officials and multiple news outlets have suggested that the Israeli government was responsible.

Hezbollah said on Sept. 20 that it had launched multiple strikes targeting Israel’s military in the north of the country. Around 140 rockets were launched at northern Israel, the IDF said, with some fired at the occupied Golan Heights, Safed, and Upper Galilee areas intercepted. The IDF later said that it had launched an airstrike on Lebanon’s capital Beirut. In a post on social media platform X earlier in the day, the Israel Foreign Ministry wrote, “Make no mistake: those who harm the people of Israel will pay the price.”

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