Beirut: Violence returned in the wee hours of Sunday with Israeli troops escalating their military operation on Beirut’s southern suburbs that had not been targeted earlier. Amidst increasing tensions, this recent round of airdrops targeted homes and crippled communal structures and thus can be considered as one of thehend in the continuous conflict.
Sources of Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television said the targets were residential ones, with the church in Hadath near the Saint George Hospital among them. The assault affected the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption which resulted from the rising humanitarian losses in the conflict.
The Israeli military said these attacks were in response to two flares that were shot towards the prime minister’s residence in Caesarea targeting Hezbollah’s command centres and war rooms. But Lebanese media have refuted these allegations, stating instead that the infrastructure devastation included many schools, churches and civil people’s homes.
In a similar attack, a 12-storey residential building at the Mar Mikhael Church crossroads in the chiyah district was flattened by Israeli strikes. Another attack struck schools near the Ali Nasir Secondary School and Bourj Al-Hidaya School in the Bourj Al-Barajneh neighbourhood.
These bombings are constant and the many that are being experienced have forced people to run away from the southern suburbs. Since the start of the attack in September, the casualty figure estimated stands at 3000 dead and more than a million persons displaced by the violence.
There has been much international calls to restraint but the situation remains tense and dangerous more so since Israeli forces warning of further possible attacks. In the course of the ongoing conflict, the people affected by the shocks experience their uncertain future, which testifies to the human consequences of escalated regional conflicts.
When the humanitarian situation is getting worse, the demand for the diplomatic actions increases significantly. This sustained aggression means jeopardising on the already precarious stability of the region; there should be an urgent push to initiate the negotiating process to end the losses and bring relief to thousands affected in the wake of this war.