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Lebanon Crisis
The cost of reconstruction and recovery for Lebanon following the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war is estimated at $11 billion, the World Bank said in a report on Friday. The report by the World Bank's Lebanon Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment covered damage and losses in 10 sectors nationwide between October 8, 2023, and Dec. 20, 2024. It estimates that of the $11 billion in reconstruction and recovery needs, $3 billion to $5 billion will need to be publicly financed, including for infrastructure sectors. Private financing is required for about $6 billion to $8 billion of the costs, mostly in the housing, commerce, industry and tourism sectors. Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on October 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September. A US-brokered ...
At least three people were killed and around 30 others injured in southern Lebanon on Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on protesters who had breached roadblocks the Israeli army set up a day before, Lebanon's health ministry reported. Demonstrators, some of them carrying Hezbollah flags, attempted to enter several villages in the border area to protest Israel's failure to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon by the 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire agreement that halted the Israel-Hezbollah war in late November. Israel has said that it needs to stay longer because the Lebanese army has not deployed to all areas of southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah does not reestablish a military presence in the area. The Lebanese army has said it cannot deploy until Israeli forces withdraw. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, said in a statement addressing the people of southern Lebanon on Sunday that Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable, and I am
Israel's military Saturday set up roadblocks across border towns and roads in a strategic valley in southern Lebanon, a day before the deadline for it to withdraw from the area under an agreement that halted its war with the Hezbollah militant group. The Israeli military, meanwhile, confirmed that it will not complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon by Sunday as outlined in the ceasefire agreement. The deal that went into effect in late November gave both sides 60 days to remove their forces from southern Lebanon and for the Lebanese army to move in and secure the area, along with U.N. peacekeepers. Israel says Hezbollah and the Lebanese army haven't met their obligations, while Lebanon accuses the Israeli army of hindering the Lebanese military from taking over. In a statement Saturday, the Israeli military said the agreement is progressing. But it said in some sectors, it has been delayed and will take slightly longer. The Lebanese military has said that they had deployed in
Israeli forces carried out several new drone and artillery strikes in Lebanon on Tuesday, including a deadly strike that the Health Ministry and state media said killed a shepherd, further shaking a tenuous ceasefire meant to end more than a year of fighting with Hezbollah. The shooting came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed keep striking with an iron fist against perceived Hezbollah violations of the truce. His defence minister warned that if the ceasefire collapses, Israel will target not just Hezbollah but the Lebanese state an expansion of Israel's campaign. Since it began last Wednesday, the US- and French-brokered 60-day ceasefire has been rattled by near daily Israeli strikes, although Israel has been vague about the purported Hezbollah violations that prompted them. On Monday, it was shaken by its biggest test yet. Hezbollah fired two projectiles toward an Israeli-held disputed border zone, its first volley since the ceasefire began, saying it was a warning
Israeli ground forces reached their deepest point in Lebanon since they invaded six weeks ago before pulling back Saturday after battles with Hezbollah militants, Lebanese state media reported. The clashes and further Israeli bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, came as Lebanese and Hezbollah officials study a draft proposal presented by the U.S. earlier this week on ending the war. Israeli troops captured a strategic hill in the southern Lebanese village of Chamaa, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli border, the state-run National News Agency reported. It said the troops were later pushed back. The agency added that Israeli troops blew up the Shrine of Shimon the Prophet in Chamaa as well as several homes before they withdrew, but the claim could not be immediately verified. Israel's military did not immediately respond to requests for comment but said in a statement that its troops continue their limited, localized and targeted operational .
Israeli strikes killed at least 11 people across Lebanon on Friday including a mother, father and their three kids in a home as rescue workers called off their search for survivors a day after an Israeli strike on a civil defence centre killed 14 emergency workers and volunteers. The airstrikes come as Lebanon's prime minister apparently urged Iran to convince the Hezbollah militant group to agree to a cease-fire deal with Israel, which could require the group to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border. Since late September, Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel. More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire 80 per cent of them in the past month Lebanon's Health Ministry says. The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people mostly civilians and abducting 250 others. Lebanon's Hezbollah group began firing .
Curled up in his father's lap, clinging to his chest, Hussein Mikdad cried his heart out. The 4-year-old kicked his doctor with his intact foot and pushed him away with the arm that was not in a cast. My Dad! My Dad!" Hussein said. "Make him leave me alone! With eyes tearing up in relief and pain, the father reassured his son and pulled him closer. Hussein and his father, Hassan, are the only survivors of their family after an Israeli airstrike last month on their Beirut neighbourhood. The strike killed 18 people, including his mother, three siblings and six relatives. Can he now shower? the father asked the doctor. Ten days after surgery, doctors examining Hussein's wounds said the boy is healing properly. He has rods in his fractured right thigh and stitches that assembled his torn tendons back in place on the right arm. The pain has subsided, and Hussein should be able to walk again in two months albeit with a lingering limp. A prognosis for Hussein's invisible wounds is much .
An Israeli military official said Saturday that Israeli naval forces captured a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon. The operation took place in the northern Lebanese town of Batroun, the official said without providing the name of the person they detained. Earlier on Saturday, Lebanese authorities said it was investigating whether Israel was behind the capture of a Lebanese sea captain who was taken away by a group of armed men who had landed on the coast of Batroun on Friday. The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated, the official said.
A Lebanese ship captain was taken away by a group of armed men who landed on a coast north of Beirut, authorities said Saturday, adding they were investigating whether Israel was involved. Two Lebanese military officials confirmed to the Associated Press that a naval force landed in Batroun, about 30 kilometres north of Beirut, and abducted a Lebanese citizen. Neither gave the man's identity or said whether he was thought to have links to Lebanon's Hezbollah group. They did not confirm whether the armed men were an Israeli force. Speaking to Lebanon's Al-Jadeed TV, Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamie declined to go into details or answer questions about whether it was thought to be an Israeli operation. Three Lebanese judicial officials told AP the incident occurred at dawn Friday, adding that the captain might have links with Hezbollah. The officials said an investigation is looking into the man is linked to Hezbollah or working for an Israeli spy agency and an Israeli
Dany Alwan stood shaking as rescue workers pulled remains from piles of rubble where his brother's building once stood. An Israeli airstrike destroyed the three-story residential building in the quiet Christian village of Aito a day before. His brother, Elie, had rented out its apartments to a friend who'd fled here with relatives from their hometown in southern Lebanon under Israeli bombardment. Things were fine for a few weeks. But that day, minutes after visitors arrived and entered the building, it was struck. Almost two dozen people were killed, half of them women and children. Israel said it targeted a Hezbollah official, as it has insisted in other strikes with high civilian death tolls. This strike in northern Lebanon, deep in Christian heartland was particularly unusual. Israel has concentrated its bombardment mostly in the country's south and east and in Beirut's southern suburbs Shiite-majority areas where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence. Strikes in
Israeli strikes have killed at least 15 people in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, which has long been associated with civilian deaths after Israeli strikes during previous conflicts with Hezbollah. Israel meanwhile struck Beirut's southern suburbs early Wednesday for the first time in nearly a week. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes in Qana late Tuesday. Lebanon's Civil Defence said 15 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of a building and that rescue efforts were still underway. In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more, including four UN peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building. Israel also carried out a wave of airstrikes on the ..
Palestinians in northern Gaza described heavy Israeli bombardment Saturday in the hours after airstrikes killed at least 22 people, as Israel continued to tell people there and in southern Lebanon to get out of the way of its offensives against the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups. In Lebanon, the United Nations peacekeeping force said its headquarters in Naqoura had again been hit, with a peacekeeper struck by gunfire late Friday and in stable condition. It wasn't clear who fired. The shooting occurred a day after Israel's military fired on the headquarters for the second straight day. Israel, which has warned the peacekeepers to leave their positions, didn't immediately respond to questions. Hunger warnings emerged again as residents in northern Gaza said they hadn't received aid since the beginning of the month. The UN World Food Programme said no food aid had entered the north since October 1. An estimated 4,00,000 people remain there. Israel's military renewed its offensive
Israel's ground invasion in Lebanon stretched into its second week as the Hezbollah militant group fired hundreds of rockets deep into Israel with no end in sight to the escalating conflict. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon - mostly in airstrikes - and over a million displaced since the fighting intensified in mid-September. At least 15 Israeli soldiers and two civilians have been killed since the ground operation began, and more than 60,000 people have been displaced from towns along the border for more than a year. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, attacked southern Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza. Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost every day since, coming close to a full-fledged war on several occasions but stepping back from the brink until this month. Here's what to know about the current ground incursion in southern Lebanon: What is the aim of Israeli military