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Israel’s offensive in Lebanon has displaced 1.2 million, prime minister says
Nearly one quarter of the Lebanese population has been displaced by Israel‘s military campaign there, the country’s caretaker prime minister said.
Najib Mikati said 1.2 million people — out of Lebanon’s total 2022 population of 5.49 million, according to United Nations data — have been forced from their homes by Israel’s air and ground attacks.
“We are trying to cope with these problems, but to tell you the truth, security-wise, the most important thing now is to arrange for them shelter, food and how we can manage these displaced peoples,” Mikati said during an online event Wednesday hosted by the American Task Force on Lebanon, a nongovernmental organization.
Mikati said that the number of displaced people is the largest in the nation’s history, which has been punctuated by civil war and conflict with neighboring nations.
To date, 867 centers have been opened to receive displaced persons in public schools, educational complexes, vocational institutes and universities, Lebanese authorities said, with more than 200,000 Syrians and more than 76,000 Lebanese also crossing the border into Syria.
MORE: Israel-Gaza-Lebanon updates: Several killed as Israel bombs central Beirut
Israel’s bombardment has been especially intense in the south of the country, where Israeli troops are now engaged in heavy fighting with Hezbollah units per Israel Defense Forces battlefield reports.
The IDF has issued evacuation notices for some 90 villages there, warning residents to evacuate north of the Awali River around 37 miles from the Israeli border.
Anyone using vehicles to cross from the north to the southern side of the Litani River — around 18 miles north of the Israeli border — is endangering their “personal safety,” IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee said.
Israel is demanding that Hezbollah withdraw its forces north of the Litani, as the militant group agreed to do as part of a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution ending the last major cross-border conflict.
Airstrikes are also still pummeling Beirut, particularly the densely-populated southern suburb of Dahiya — known as a Hezbollah stronghold in the capital and described by author Hanin Ghaddar as “Hezbollahland.”
It was in a bunker under Dahiya that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israeli strikes on Sept. 27. Israel used bunker-busting bombs in the assassination, an Israeli official familiar with the strike told ABC News.
The IDF said it is hitting Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructure” and “weapons manufacturing plants” in “precise” strikes in the capital. Meanwhile, Hezbollah units continue firing rockets and drones across the border into Israel.
Displaced children play at a makeshift encampment amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces at a beach in Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 1, 2024.
© Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters
MORE: What are Israel’s goals in its south Lebanon incursion?
The IDF has issued multiple evacuation orders for residents of Dahiya. Another series of massive strikes rocked the suburb overnight Thursday.
Many people are living on the street, in parks and sheltering under trees. Others sleep on the city’s beaches to avoid the attacks.
“Another sleepless night in Beirut,” the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis, wrote on X. “Counting the blasts shaking the city. No warning sirens. Not knowing what’s next. Only that uncertainty lies ahead. Anxiety and fear are omnipresent.”
Lebanese health officials say more than 1,900 people have been killed across the country since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing into Israel across the shared border.
More than 9,000 others have been wounded, officials said.
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“We no lose o” — VeryDarkMan sings and dances after court hearing against Femi Falana and Falz held today.
A TV chef who fled to London after his opposition of Vladimir Putoin has been found dead while on a promotional tour
A Russian TV chef who criticised Vladimir Putin has been found dead in a Belgrade hotel
Alexei Zimin, 52, died suddenly on a promotional tour to the Serbian capital. Authorities have said his cause of death is currently “unclear”.
Zimin fled Russia to London after his oppositions of Putin. Zimin was once a popular figure on Russian cooking shows. He also owned Zima restaurant in Soho, which he founded after he had left Russia following Putin’s invasion of Crimea.
In a statement released by Zima magazine today, a spokesperson said: “Alexei Zimin, the project’s editor-in-chief and the chef of the Zima restaurant, has passed away. Alexei was not only a colleague, he was our friend, a close person with whom we were lucky to go through a lot – both good, kind and sad.”
London-based exiled Russian TV chef, editor and restaurateur Alexei Zimin, dies at 52.
It concluded: “Thank you to everyone for the words we received today about Alexei. We are hurting together with you.”
Zimin had also been editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of GQ magazine.
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