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16-10-2024
SYDNEY: Australia has warned its citizens not to travel to Israel and urged Australians there to leave the country while commercial flights remained available, citing the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.
“The Australian government has serious concerns the security situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories could deteriorate rapidly,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a post on X late Monday.
There continues to be a high threat of military and terrorist attacks against Israel and Israeli interests across the region, the Australian government’s travel advisory said.
Some airlines have reduced and suspended flights to Israel after the escalation in conflict caused airspace closures, the advisory said.
Israel on Monday expanded its targets in its war with Hezbollah, killing at least 21 people in an airstrike in north Lebanon, health officials said, while millions of Israelis took shelter from projectiles fired back across the border.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed on Sunday in central Israel after a Hezbollah drone strike.
Israel expanded its targets in its war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 21 people in an airstrike in the north, health officials said, while millions of Israelis took shelter from projectiles fired back across the border.
So far the main focus of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon has been in the south, the Bekaa Valley in the east and the suburbs of Beirut.
The strike in the Christian-majority town of Aitou hit a house that had been rented to displaced families, the town’s mayor Joseph Trad told media. In addition to the deaths, eight people were injured, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Rescue workers at the site of the strike searched through piles of rubble on Monday, where burned vehicles and trees could be seen strewn across the ground.
Israel ordered residents of 25 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River, which flows some 60 km (35 miles) north of the Israeli frontier.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting a military base in central Israel where four soldiers were killed on Sunday by a Hezbollah drone strike, said Israel would continue to attack the Iran-backed movement “without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon including Beirut”.
At the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, couple Jalal Ferhat and Amal Tefayeli and their five children were among those offloading belongings from buses, hoping to leave Lebanon.
“There are strikes in our neighborhood and destruction, and they (Israeli forces) hit near my house,” said Ferhat, 40, from Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon. “I have children, you can’t just stay where you are.”
In central Israel, residents rushed to shelters as sirens sounded. The military said three projectiles that had crossed from Lebanon had been intercepted. No injuries were reported.
The Israeli military in a statement said approximately 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel on Monday.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah resumed a year ago when the militant group began firing rockets at Israel in support of Palestinian militants Hamas at the start of the Gaza war. It has escalated sharply in recent weeks.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,309 people in Lebanon over the last year, the Lebanese government said in its daily update. The majority have been killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. (Int’l News Desk)
