Politics Israel attacks southern suburbs of Beirut again

The southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut have once again been rocked by Israeli air strikes.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, several people are said to have been killed. Israel's military had ordered the residents of certain buildings to evacuate and is continuing to attack the financial structures of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah in the country. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in the evening that the Iranian-backed Shia militia had hidden cash and gold worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a bunker under a hospital in the south of Beirut. The information could not be independently verified.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will first meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Izchak Herzog in Israel today at the start of a new trip to the Middle East. There and in other countries in the region, he wants to hold "intensive talks" on ending the war in the Gaza Strip, releasing the Israeli hostages and alleviating the suffering of Palestinian civilians, Blinken wrote on Platform X. Meanwhile, the Israeli army is continuing its battles against the country's enemies in Gaza and Lebanon.

Army spokesman: Are not at war with Lebanon's people

Army spokesman Hagari called on the Lebanese government and international organizations not to allow Hezbollah to use the assets stashed under the al-Sahel clinic in southern Beirut for terrorist purposes and attacks on Israel. He warned that the air force was monitoring the area. However, the hospital itself would not be attacked. "I would like to emphasize: We are not at war with the Lebanese people," Hagari said.

The director of the hospital, Fadi Alameh, denied the accusations and announced in an interview on Lebanese television that the hospital would be evacuated as a precautionary measure. The hospital had no links to political parties, he asserted. Alameh called on the Lebanese army and the authorities to search the building.

Meanwhile, the attacks in the south of Beirut continue. According to the Lebanese state news agency NNA, the Haret Hreik neighborhood was one of the areas hit. According to Lebanese reports, one of the Israeli airstrikes hit the area around the university hospital.

Israel continues to attack Hezbollah's financial structure

Since Monday night, the Israeli army has also been targeting branches of the Al-Kard Al-Hassan association, a kind of Hezbollah bank. Almost 30 targets throughout Lebanon have been bombed, explained Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi in the early evening. In Beirut, an underground depot containing cash and gold worth millions had been hit, said army spokesman Hagari. The assets in the bunker under the al-Sahel clinic in the south of the capital, which was not attacked, are estimated by the military to be worth around half a billion dollars.

In a targeted air strike in Syria's capital Damascus, the successor to the recently killed finance chief of the Hezbollah militia was also eliminated, Hagari said. The Syrian state news agency Sana reported that two civilians had been killed and three others injured in the attack. Pictures showed a destroyed car. This information cannot be independently verified either.

Israel's army emphasized that Hezbollah should not be given the opportunity to regroup. The two most important sources of income for their terrorist activities are direct donations from Iran in the form of cash and gold - as well as the citizens of Lebanon, said Hagari. People are offered financial services through the Al-Kard Al-Hassan association. By continuing to smuggle US dollars into Lebanon, Iran is devaluing the national currency and exacerbating the already severe economic crisis in Lebanon.

Israel: Hezbollah also finances itself through companies in Turkey

Hagari also accused Hezbollah of financing itself through companies in Turkey as well as in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. He did not say in his video message which companies in Turkey, a NATO country, were involved.

Hezbollah, which is also allied with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has been attacking Israel almost daily with rockets and drones since the beginning of the Gaza war in October last year. On Monday, around 170 missiles were fired at Israel, the army announced in the evening. As a result, the sirens continued to wail during the night in northern Israel.

The Hezbollah militia has declared that it will only cease its attacks on Israel once a ceasefire has been agreed for Gaza. However, the talks mediated by the USA, Egypt and Qatar on an end to the fighting have not made any headway for months. The recent killing of Hamas leader Jihia Sinwar did nothing to change this. It remains to be seen whether US Secretary of State Blinken's new trip to the Middle East will have any effect.

The war was triggered by the massacre by Hamas and other extremists from Gaza in Israel on October 7 last year, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. Israel therefore wants to destroy Hamas, which has ruled the sealed-off Gaza Strip for years. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, more than 42,000 people have died since the start of the war. It is not clear how many of them are civilians, and the figures cannot be independently verified. According to the UN, however, the figures are largely credible and most of those killed are women and children.

Israel accuses UN aid workers in the Gaza Strip of lying

Meanwhile, Israel is sharply defending itself against the accusation made by UN aid workers that the Jewish state is blocking humanitarian aid for civilians in the coastal region. The deputy director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, Sam Rose, told CNN that "almost nothing" is currently arriving there. "That's a lie, Sam Rose, and you know it," replied the Israeli Palestinian Authority Cogat on Platform X.

Since May, 500,000 tons of aid have reached the Gaza Strip. UNRWA is simply incapable of distributing the goods and is trying to cover this up by spreading untruths, the Israeli authority explained. The claims of both sides could not initially be independently verified.

As its most important ally, the USA set Israel a deadline of 30 days last week to improve supplies to the people in the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, US arms deliveries to Israel could be jeopardized.

SDA