A child looks on, as members of security forces attempt to evict displaced people from an old hotel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut, Lebanon on October 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.N. said Tuesday (November 19, 2024) that over 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in the less than two months since Israel escalated its attacks targeting Hezbollah.

“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva.

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“Over the last two months in Lebanon, an average of three children have been killed every single day,” he said.

“Many, many more have been injured and traumatised,” he added, highlighting that in the past two months, more than 1,100 children had been hurt in the violence.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October last year in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Since September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns in Lebanon primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, though some strikes have hit areas outside the Iran-backed group’s control.

Since the clashes began with Hezbollah attacks on Israel, more than 3,510 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to authorities in the country, with most fatalities recorded since late September.

Elder said that since the war erupted in Gaza after October 7 last year, at least 231 children had been killed in Lebanon.

“We must hope humanity never again witnesses the ongoing level of carnage of children in Gaza, though there are chilling similarities for children in Lebanon,” he said.

He pointed to the hundreds of thousands of children who have become homeless in Lebanon, and “disproportionate attacks, of which many frequently hit infrastructure children rely on”.

“Medical facilities are being attacked and health workers are being killed at an increasing speed,” he said.

He highlighted that as of November 15, more than 200 health workers had been killed and 300 injured, according to Lebanese authorities.

“The most worrying parallel to Gaza,” he said, was that “the escalation of children killed is eliciting no meaningful response from those with influence”.

“In Lebanon, much the same as has become the case in Gaza, the intolerable is quietly transforming into the acceptable. And the appalling is slipping into the realm of the expected.”

A man stares at the still smoking destruction at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighbourhood in Baalbeck in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley on November 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli strikes killed dozens of people on Sunday (November 10, 2024) in Lebanon and the northern Gaza Strip, where the military has been waging a major offensive for more than a month that aid groups say has further worsened the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people in the village of Aalmat, north of Beirut and far from the areas in southern and eastern Lebanon where the militant Hezbollah group has a major presence. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a further six people were wounded. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

In northern Gaza, an Israeli strike on a home sheltering displaced people in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya killed at least 17 people, according to the director of a nearby hospital that received the bodies.

Dr. Fadel Naim, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said the dead include nine women, and that the toll was likely to rise as rescue efforts continue.

The Israeli military said it targeted a site where militants were operating in Jabaliya, without providing evidence. It said the details of the strike are under review.

A separate strike on Sunday (November 10, 2024) hit a house in Gaza City, killing Wael al-Khour, a Minister in the Hamas-run government, as well as his wife and three children, according to the Civil Defense, a first responders organization that operates under the government.

Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated Jabaliya and the nearby towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun for the past month, allowing in only a trickle of humanitarian aid. Hundreds of people have been killed since the offensive began on October 6, and tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City.

On Friday (November 8, 2024), experts from a panel that monitors food security said famine is imminent in the north or may already be happening. The growing desperation comes as the deadline approaches for an ultimatum the Biden administration gave Israel to raise the level of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on U.S. military funding.

The northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the 13-month-old war, which was triggered by Hamas’ attack into southern Israel. As in other areas of Gaza, Israel has sent forces back in after repeated operations, saying Hamas has regrouped.

The military says it only targets militants, whom it accuses of hiding among civilians in homes and shelters. Israeli strikes often kill women and children.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel after war broke out in Gaza in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed militant group Hamas.

Israel retaliated, and a series of escalations over several months led to all-out war in September, when Israel carried out a wave of heavy strikes and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as most of his top commanders.

Since then, Israel has struck areas deeper and deeper inside Lebanon, while Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire from northern to central Israel. The fighting has killed over 3,000 people in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry, and more than 70 people in Israel.

In videos purporting to show the aftermath of Sunday’s strike in Aalmat, some 40km north of Beirut, people were seen pulling the body of a little girl out of the rubble. The house had been flattened, and several cars nearby were also damaged.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in the border fence and stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023. They killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and militants in their count but say over half the fatalities were women and children.

Israeli bombardment and ground invasions have left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and displaced around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people are living in crowded tent camps with few if any public services and no idea of when they might return to their homes or rebuild.

Cease-fire talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have repeatedly stalled since the start of the year, as have parallel efforts by the U.S. and others to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Qatar, which has served as a key mediator with Hamas, said over the weekend that it had suspended its efforts and would only resume them when “the parties show their willingness and seriousness to end the brutal war and the ongoing suffering of civilians.”