If a precarious and temporary truce has been reached between the United States and Iran, Israeli army bombs continue to rain down on Lebanon. On the first day of the ceasefire, Wednesday, April 8, the Hebrew state launched a hundred missiles in ten minutes, causing a real carnage: 357 dead, including women and children, and 1,223 wounded, according to a provisional report from the Lebanese Ministry of Health. However, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army congratulated himself on having dealt “a hard blow” to Hezbollah. Since March 2, the Israeli military campaign has claimed 1,953 victims and over 6,000 injured in the Cedar country, where food insecurity is increasing.
100 strikes in ten minutes on Lebanon: Israel launches the “Eternal Numbers” at first glance.
While Pakistan, a mediator between Washington and Tehran, considered that the current ceasefire included Beirut, this assertion was rejected by the Israelis. Until a call for restraint from the American side and international pressure prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept negotiations, scheduled for next week in Washington. Without silencing the bombs for the moment.
Negotiations between Lebanon and Israel next week
Talks between Lebanon and Israel are scheduled for next week in Washington, a U.S. official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday, April 9. After a call for restraint from Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had ordered his cabinet to engage in “direct negotiations” with Lebanon. According to the Israeli Prime Minister, these unprecedented discussions for decades will “focus on the disarmament of Hezbollah” and on “establishing peaceful relations” between the two countries, which are still technically at war.
Lebanon, however, wants “a ceasefire before any negotiations begin,” a Lebanese official said requesting anonymity. “This painful loss only strengthens our determination to obtain a ceasefire that will protect Lebanon and our population in the south,” reacted Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in a statement, following the announcement of the deaths of several security forces members. President Joseph Aoun called on the international community to “take responsibility to end repeated Israeli aggressions.”
On the other hand, Hezbollah rejected any direct negotiation between Lebanon and Israel, calling for an “Israeli withdrawal” from the south of the country. The leader of the pro-Iranian Shiite paramilitary party called on Lebanese officials not to make “unwarranted concessions” to the Hebrew state. The President of the Iranian Parliament, for his part, demanded a truce in Lebanon, among other conditions, before any peace negotiation with the United States.
Diplomatic pressures on Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu had warned on Thursday: the strikes against Hezbollah will continue to restore “security for the residents of the north” of Israel. In the evening, the Israeli army announced that it had begun to strike Hezbollah’s “firing sites” in southern Lebanon. At least thirteen members of the Lebanese security forces died in the city of Nabatiyeh. On the other hand, the Israeli army stated on Friday that it had “dismantled” over 4,300 Hezbollah infrastructures since March 2, and killed 180 Hezbollah fighters in its Wednesday strikes.
However, the Israeli army had issued an evacuation order on Thursday afternoon for densely populated neighborhoods in southern Beirut, but had not carried out its threat by Friday afternoon. “Diplomatic pressures are underway on Israel from European countries, Gulf States, and Egypt to avoid the renewal of Israeli strikes on Beirut, after the ‘black Wednesday’,” explained a Western diplomat on Friday to AFP.
Violette, a 90-year-old Palestinian, has seen “too many wars,” from the Nakba to the evacuation of Southern Lebanon.
Friday morning, sirens sounded across Israel, including in Tel Aviv and the coastal city of Ashdod, after rockets were fired from Lebanon, the Israeli army indicated. Later, Hezbollah announced that it had launched missiles at a naval military base in Ashdod, in the south of the Hebrew state. In a statement, the pro-Iranian group stated that this was a “response” to the April 8 strikes, adding that “this response will continue until the aggression ceases.”
Rising food insecurity
The United Nations warned on Friday about the rapid increase in food insecurity in Lebanon. “The convoys of the World Food Program [WFP] continue to operate, but the operational environment is becoming increasingly complex,” said the director of this UN agency in Lebanon, Allison Oman. “Security can no longer be taken for granted, as needs are rapidly increasing,” she emphasized in Geneva, speaking from Beirut.
According to the UN agency for refugees, some 150,000 people are still in southern Lebanon. Over a million people have been displaced since the start of the war. The crisis in Lebanon “is rapidly becoming a food security crisis,” said Allison Oman, explaining that the WFP is already observing clear signs of rising food prices, especially for bread and vegetables, throughout the country.
On the other hand, the representative of the World Health Organization in Lebanon, Abdinasir Abubakar, indicated that “13 hospitals have been damaged and 6 have had to close their doors.”
