[AnNahar] Israel conducted several rounds of air strikes on Hezbollah's main bastion in the southern suburbe of Beirut, sending huge clouds of smoke soaring above the densely populated area.
Friday's strikes were heard across the Mediterranean city and sparked panic in the residential area that has been Hezbollah's main stronghold for decades.
They were by far the fiercest strikes to hit Beirut's suburbs since Israel shifted its focus from the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
to Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
this week, pounding Hezbollah strongholds around the country and killing hundreds of people.
Israeli television networks reported that Hezbollah chief Sayyed
 ...Arabic term meaning your/his lordship . Groveling in His Exalted Presence is encouraged...
His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
was the target of the first violent mostly peaceful strike, though a source close to the group said he was "fine".
"He's pining for the fjords"
Nasrallah enjoys cult status among his supporters and is the only man in Lebanon with the power to wage war or make peace, but he leads a life in hiding to avoid liquidation.
The Israeli army claimed early Saturday that its air strikes killed "Muhammad Ali Ismail, the commander of Hezbollah's missile unit in southern Lebanon, and his deputy," as well as "other bigwigs.".l
The strikes felt "like an earthquake", according to Ahmad Ahmad, who fled his house in the southern suburbs.
A teacher in her 40s, Abir Hammoud, said: "I felt like the building was going to collapse on top of me."
The strikes were followed by a second bombing hours later, which Israel's military said targeted Hezbollah weapons stored in buildings in the area, a claim the group denied.
Hezbollah started fighting Israeli troops along the Lebanon border a day after its Paleostinian ally Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in an address to world leaders on Friday that there would be no let-up in the battle against Hezbollah until Israel's northern border was secured.
- WARNING TO CIVILIANS -
A source close to Hezbollah said the initial wave of strikes had levelled six buildings, and according to a preliminary toll, six people were killed and 91 maimed.
Israeli military front man Daniel Hagari said the strike had targeted "the central headquarters" of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the city.
After the Beirut strikes, Hezbollah said it had fired more rockets into Israel "in defense of Lebanon and its people". There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Israeli military warned civilians in parts of Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold to evacuate the area before conducting its second bombing.
It also said it would not allow Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
to transfer weapons to its ally Hezbollah through Beirut airport -- adding that its jets were ready to intervene should any such transfers be detected.
Israel's army said the second wave of strikes had targeted Hezbollah targets in the Tyre area of southern Lebanon.
- 'DEADLIEST IN A GENERATION' -
The U.N. has repeatedly condemned this week's sharp escalation of violence in Lebanon.
"We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning," the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, said.
In Israel, too, many were weary of the violence.
"It is incredibly exhausting to be in this situation. We don't really know what's going to happen, there's talk of a ground offensive or a major operation," said Lital Shmuelovich, a physiotherapy student.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
appealed again for a ceasefire, after a U.S.-led bid for a truce failed earlier this week.
"The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgement, it is necessary," Blinken said.
In New York, Netanyahu also addressed the war in Gaza, saying that Israel's military would continue to fight Hamas until it achieved "total victory."
Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink of all-out war.
But despite months of mediation efforts, a Gaza ceasefire remains elusive.
Hamas' October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages seized by bad boys, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,534 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The U.N. has described the figures as reliable.
- 'CHANGE THE RULES' -
The Lebanon violence has raised fears of wider turmoil in the Middle East, with Iran-backed murderous Moslems across the region vowing to keep up their fight with Israel.
Netanyahu took aim at Iran in his U.N. General Assembly address, saying: "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you."
He added: "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that's true of the entire Middle East."
Analysts have said Iran would try to resist being dragged into the conflict.
But following the Beirut strikes, Iran's embassy in Lebanon said: "This reprehensible crime... represents a dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game."
Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, later condemned the strikes, branding them a "flagrant war crime". 
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