Hezbollah-Israeli Conflict Escalates: Latest Updates on Baalbek Bombing

2024-03-24 13:48:55

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March 24, 2024

17:48 pm

4 wounded in Israeli bombing on Baalbek, eastern Lebanon, and Hezbollah responds

Bekaa Valley – (AFP)
Four people were injured as a result of Israeli raids that targeted the Baalbek area on Saturday night, Hezbollah’s stronghold in eastern Lebanon, according to an Agence France-Presse correspondent, prompting the party to respond.
The Israeli army said, “Earlier tonight, warplanes raided a workshop containing Hezbollah’s weapons in the Baalbek area.”
This is the third strike targeting the area far from the border with Israel during about six months of mutual bombing between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.
An Agence France-Presse correspondent said, “Israeli aircraft fired five missiles at a two-story residential building in the town of Al-Asira, outside the city of Baalbek.”
He added that the raids targeted a Hezbollah center that had been abandoned for some time, wounding four residents of nearby buildings.
About an hour later, Hezbollah said, “In response to the bombing of a place in the city of Baalbek, on Sunday morning we targeted the missile and artillery base in Yoav and the Kaila barracks (the headquarters of the Air and Missile Defense Command), where a force from the Golani Brigade was training after its return from the Gaza Strip. With more than sixty Katyusha rockets.”
The Israeli army stated that it had detected “about 50 rocket shells” fired from Lebanon “towards northern Israel,” noting that it had “intercepted a number of them.”
The Israeli army added that “IDF aircraft raided the platforms that were used to launch some of these missiles.”
Israel did not report any injuries or damage.
For weeks, Israel has been launching deeper air strikes inside Lebanese territory against Hezbollah positions, raising fears of the outbreak of open war.
The raids on Al-Asira, located about 100 kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border, came after a period of relative calm that lasted about ten days.
Hezbollah announced earlier on Saturday that it had targeted a number of Israeli military sites.
There has been an almost daily exchange of bombing across the Lebanese-Israeli border between the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Israeli army, since the outbreak of war between Israel and the movement in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
Hezbollah repeatedly says that stopping its attacks against Israel is linked to reaching a ceasefire in Gaza. However, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant recently stressed that any truce in Gaza will not deviate Israel from its goal of removing Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, warning that if it is not possible to find a diplomatic solution to the situation, “we will do it by force.”
The current escalation between Hezbollah and Israel has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of residents in the border areas on both sides.
At least 323 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the escalation, most of them Hezbollah fighters and at least 56 civilians, according to a tally prepared by Agence France-Presse based on party statements and official Lebanese sources.
In Israel, ten soldiers and seven civilians were killed, according to the army.