‘No objection to pilgrim quota cut’

Israel began a third day of strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, hours after Hezbollah confirmed the death of a senior commander in an airstrike on Beirut and a Lebanese minister said only Washington could help end the fighting.

Lebanese media reported that Israeli airstrikes had targeted several areas in the country’s south, beginning at around 5am, causing unspecified casualties.

Hezbollah meanwhile said it had launched a rocket targeting Mossad headquarters near Tel Aviv. Sirens had sounded in the Israeli city early on Wednesday, sending residents into bomb shelters, however the Israeli military later said it had intercepted the missile and no casualties or damage were reported.

Earlier on Wednesday, Hezbollah had confirmed that senior commander Ibrahim Qubaisi was among six people killed by an Israeli airstrike on an apartment block in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday, as Israel had claimed earlier. Israel said Qubaisi headed the group’s missile and rocket force.

Israel’s offensive since Monday morning has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, health minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV. Tuesday’s attacks came after Monday’s barrages racked up the highest death toll in any single day in Lebanon since the 15-year civil war that started in 1975.

Israel’s new offensive against Hezbollah has stoked fears that nearly a year of conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza is escalating and could destabilise the Middle East. Britain urged its nationals to leave Lebanon and said it was moving 700 troops to Cyprus to help its citizens evacuate.

The UN security council said it would meet on Wednesday to discuss the conflict.

“Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon – the people of Israel – and the people of the world – cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza,” UN secretary general António Guterres said.

At the UN, which is holding its general assembly this week, US President Joe Biden made a plea for calm. “Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest. Even if a situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” he said.

Lebanon’s foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib criticised Biden’s address as “not strong, not promising” and said the US was the only country “that can really make a difference in the Middle East and with regard to Lebanon.” Washington is Israel’s longtime ally and biggest arms supplier.

The US “is the key … to our salvation,” he told an event in New York City hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Up to half a million people are estimated to have been displaced in Lebanon, said Bou Habib. He said Lebanon’s prime minister hoped to meet with US officials over the next two days.

In Lebanon, displaced families slept in shelters hastily set up in schools in Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon. With hotels quickly booked to capacity or rooms priced beyond the means of many families, those who did not find shelter slept in their cars, in parks or along the seaside.

Fatima Chehab, who came with her three daughters from the area of Nabatieh, said her family had been displaced twice in quick succession.

The Israeli regime has conducted a series of deadly airstrikes on the Syrian capital of Damascus, with Syrian media reporting three rounds of strikes in the capital area in one night.

An Israeli aircraft launched several missiles from the occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, targeting locations southwest of Damascus.

Syrian air defenses successfully intercepted many of these missiles, according to the Syrian state media.

According to the Syrian military, the Israeli aggression led to the martyrdom of three civilians, the injury of nine others, and significant damage to private property.

The Al Mayadeen news outlet reports that local journalist Safaa Ahmad was among those killed in the attack, which hit the Mezzeh neighborhood in the Syrian capital. Rescue crews are dealing with fires on the ground.

Syrian television said one of its anchors was killed in the Israeli strike on Damascus on Tuesday.

State television said in a statement that it "mourns anchor Safaa Ahmad who was martyred in the Israeli aggression on the capital Damascus."

The official SANA news agency earlier said "air defense systems are intercepting hostile targets for the third time tonight in the Damascus area," using a phrase that usually refers to Israeli aggression.

Subsequently, another wave of attacks was aimed at the suburbs of Damascus which was intercepted by air defenses.

Syria has consistently called on the UN Security Council to take action against these assaults, which it views as clear violations of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Israel frequently targets military positions inside Syria, especially those of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah which has played a key role in helping the Syrian army in its fight against foreign-backed terrorists.

The Tel Aviv regime rarely comments on its attacks on Syrian territories, which many see as a knee-jerk reaction to the Syrian government’s phenomenal success in confronting and decimating terrorism.

Damascus has time and again called on the UN Security Council to put an end to the regime’s attacks that violate Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Israeli attacks on Syria come amid the regime’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip which has killed more than 41,600 people, mostly women and children, over the past year.

A new wave of Israeli airstrikes have reportedly hit the Dahiyeh area in the south of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, which had come under deadly aerial attacks by the regime just hours earlier.

The strikes targeted several buildings in the al-Hadath and Laylaki neighborhoods in the area on Saturday.

Shortly afterwards, reports pointed to “a third wave of strikes” on al-Hadath as well as strikes against Choueifat, another southern Beirut suburb, with subsequent accounts putting the total number of the attacks at more than 30.

The Israeli military claimed that it was conducting strikes targeting “weapons belonging to Hezbollah…that were stored beneath civilian buildings” in southern Beirut.

Hezbollah's Media Relations’ Office, however, asserted, “The enemy's claims about the presence of weapons or weapons depots in the civilian buildings targeted by the bombing in the southern suburb are false.”

Simultaneous Israeli airstrikes targeted areas near the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, including al-Bass, Burj al-Shamali, and al-Maashouq.

Also on Saturday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon warned that the country was facing bloodshed not seen in decades, and that the crisis could deteriorate even further.

"The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” Imran Riza said. “We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning.”

On Friday, Israeli warplanes struck at least six residential structures in Dahiyeh's Haret Hreik neighborhood, killing at least eight people and wounding some 80 others.

The attacks came as part of the regime’s escalation against Lebanon that has been targeting the country since October 7, when Tel Aviv launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

The escalation has taken a deadlier turn since Monday, claiming the lives of more than 700 people across the country.

Hezbollah has been responding to the aggression with numerous retaliatory operations targeting the occupied Palestinian territories.