JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel launched fresh strikes on south Beirut early yesterday, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United States (US) president-elect Donald Trump spoke about the Middle East conflict.
The Israeli premier was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump, calling the re-election “history’s greatest comeback”.
Over the phone, the pair “agreed to work together for Israel’s security” and “discussed threats”, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Not long afterwards, the Israeli military launched its latest strikes on Hezbollah’s main bastion of south Beirut, with AFP footage showing orange flashes and plumes of smoke over the densely populated suburb.
The Israeli army had issued evacuation orders ahead of the strikes, calling on people to leave four neighbourhoods, including one near the international airport.
In Lebanon’s east, the country’s Health Ministry said Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed 40 people, with rescuers combing the rubble for survivors.
“The series of Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek” killed “40 people and injured 53”, the ministry said in a statement.
Hezbollah had pledged the result of the US election would have no bearing on the war, which escalated in September as the Israeli military widened its focus from Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon. In a televised speech recorded before Trump’s victory but aired afterwards, new Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said: “We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight.
“What will stop this… war is the battlefield,” he said.
