Beit Lahiya, Israel, in flames: Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah and the U.N. mission UNIFIL

The ministry says that forty people have been wounded in the strikes on the town of Beit Lahiya, which was one of the first targets of the ground invasion. The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas target.

Hezbollah is partially financed by the Iranian government and the Israeli forces would keep striking the Iranian proxy until it collapses.

In the middle is the U.N. peacekeeping mission UNIFIL, which said Israeli forces on Sunday “deliberately demolished an observation tower and perimeter fence of a U.N. position” in southern Lebanon. It resisted Israeli attempts to leave its positions.

“Beirut in flames,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on social media. Hezbollah has paid for the attacks on Israel, and will continue to pay a heavy price.

Lebanon’s army has largely kept to the sidelines in the war. The military is respected in Lebanon but isn’t strong enough to defend the country against an Israeli invasion, or to force Hezbollah to disarm.

TEL AVIV, Israel, and BEIRUT — Israel’s military carried out airstrikes overnight on targets in Lebanon that the military says are linked to a financial institution that undergirds the militant group Hezbollah. Lebanon is assessing the damage.

Israeli military warnings on social media said that certain buildings in southern Beirut and the Bekaa Valley were located close to Hezbollah facilities. Those inside the highlighted buildings were told to evacuate immediately and remain at least 500 meters (547 yards) away from them “for your safety and the safety of your family members.”

The Israeli military misidentified one target in a notice for the southern part of Lebanon. The location was labeled as Grand Cinema ABC Verdun and it is in a mall in central BEIRUT more than 6 miles away.

Gaza’s Number-One Doctors Without Borders: Israeli-Hezbollah Attacks on Hospitals in the Second Day of the Gaza War

A year of escalating tensions and frequent cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the war in Gaza turned into all-out war last month. There were ground troops dispatched to Lebanon early this month.

Israel’s announcement came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called civilian casualties in Lebanon “far too high” in the Israel-Hezbollah war, and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in and around Beirut.

Hamas-led mercenaries killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250, after they blew holes in Israel’s security fence. There are still around 100 captives held in Gaza, and some of them are believed to be dead.

Israel ordered all of the population of the northern third of Gaza to flee to the south in the war’s early stages, and reiterated those instructions this month. 400,000 people are thought to have remained.

Internet connectivity went down in northern Gaza late Saturday, making it difficult to gather information about strikes and complicating rescue efforts.

Doctors Without Borders, the international charity known by its French acronym MSF, called on Israeli forces to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza after the Health Ministry said Israeli troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend.

A child and six other people were killed in central Gaza when a car was hit by a strike. AP journalists counted the dead.

The Israeli-Lebanese Interaction After a Palestinian War-Fire: A Memorandum on a Bankruptcy in the Gaza Strip

The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has the US calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. After talks between Israel and Hamas ceased in August neither country had shown interest in such a deal.

Among the dead were parents and eight children, according to Raheem Kheder, a medic. He said the building was destroyed by the strike.

The statement claimed that it was a sign of Israel’s “bankruptcy” and assured customers their funds were safe. There was a group leaving the areas surrounding its branches.

A cash-based organization is referred to as AQAH. He said the cash will be thrown out in the event of a strike, as it has large accounts with big Lebanon banks.

David Asher, an expert on illegal financing who worked at the U.S. Defense and State Departments, is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

The registered nonprofit, sanctioned by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, provides financial services and is also used by ordinary Lebanese. Hezbollah uses the name benevolent loan to help build its support among the Shiite population in a country where state and financial institutions have failed.

Lebanese microfinance institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan, the Bethe-Aleka valley and Tyre

Evacuation warnings affected southern Beirut, the eastern Bekaa valley and parts of southern Lebanon. AP video showed strikes near Lebanon’s only airport but it continued to operate.

The Israeli military posted messages on the internet in Arabic instructing people in Lebanon to leave certain buildings that are home to branches of the bank.

In the wake of the UN warnings, Israel struck several buildings and its military would continue to attack Hezbollah, according to the foreign minister.

Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, wrote on social media that Al-Qard Al-Hassan was a “microfinance institution” modeled after the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. She said a small institution in Lebanon provides small loans to low income individuals against specific assets, allowing women to use their jewelry as a form of security.

Ihab Hamadeh, a member of the Lebanese parliament affiliated with Hezbollah’s political wing, insisted that the group did not profit from Al-Qard Al-Hassan. He said the financial institution provides a variety of services to all of its consumers, as well as awarding scholarships to students overseas. “We tell the depositors in Al-Qard Al-Hassan that you will not lose a single penny,” he wrote on Telegram.

The hospital in Baalbek was reported to have been evacuated due to a strike on the one Al-Qard Al-Hassan branch. But in a statement Lebanon’s health ministry denied that, and said the hospital was operating normally. Several patients were moved out of rooms facing the branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan because of the Israeli threats.

There have not yet been the precise details of deaths and injuries tied to the strikes. Lebanon’s National News Agency said the strikes on at least one of the financial branches caused damage to other floors in the same building, as well as neighboring buildings, including nearby stores. And in the city of Tyre, the agency reported that “severe damage to surrounding homes” and to a nearby radio station had resulted from the strike on one branch.

A drone that the Iranian state news agency says Hezbollah sent from Lebanon had targeted the family residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the northern city of Caesarea, according to the prime minister’s office. Sara, the wife of Prime Minister Netanyahu, described on her social media that it was an attack on all of Israel and an attempt to kill the prime minister.