Five killed in Lebanon as Israeli forces advance across key Litani River Eleven children killed or injured on average every 24 hours in Lebanon amid Israeli attacks, UN children’s agency says. At least five people have been killed in Israeli air strikes targeting towns in southern Lebanon, as Lebanese and Israeli military delegations plan to hold security talks at the Pentagon. The attacks on Friday came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces had crossed the Litani River in Lebanon, which runs about 30 kilometres north of their shared border, in an expanded ground offensive. Recommended Storieslist of 4 items - list 1 of 4How War Changed Eid in Lebanon - list 2 of 4US and Iran reach tentative deal for 60-day truce extension, officials say - list 3 of 4US-Iran 60-day proposal: What we know - list 4 of 4Harvard Medical School graduate dedicates speech to Lebanon and Palestine Israel’s latest military operation started despite the “ceasefire” that began on April 17, and was extended for 45 days on May 17 following indirect talks mediated by the United States. Israel-Lebanon talks At the Pentagon talks later on Friday, Lebanon will demand that Israel halt its ongoing attacks, which have intensified in recent days. The Lebanese delegation includes six officers, headed by the army’s director of operations, Georges Rizkallah. On the Israeli side, Brigadier General Amichai Levin, head of the strategic division within the army’s planning directorate, is in Washington for the talks, according to an Israeli military spokesman. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that a ceasefire with Israel was crucial. A statement from his office said that during a phone call, Aoun “emphasised the need to exert all efforts to reach a ceasefire, considering it an essential gateway to moving on to any other step”. Rubio reiterated the US administration’s commitment to consolidating the outcomes of previous ambassador-level negotiations between Israel and Lebanon in Washington, and expressed his support for Lebanon’s stability, independence and sovereignty, the statement added. ‘Eleven children killed, injured every 24 hours’ In Friday’s attacks on southern Lebanon, four people were killed in an Israeli strike on a building in the town of Abbasiyeh, near the city of Tyre. Another person was killed in a separate strike on Deir Qanoun al-Nahr, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported. NNA said Israeli forces also carried out a new series of air raids on the towns of al-Baisariyah, as-Sarafand and Khirbet Selm. Also targeted was a motorcycle on a road near al-Abbassieh causing injuries. Fifteen children have been killed in Lebanon and 62 injured over the last seven days, the United Nations said. The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, called the figures “staggering”, and stressed that, under international humanitarian law, children have to be protected at all times during conflict. “According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, 77 children have reportedly been killed or injured over the past week alone,” UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires told a media briefing in Geneva. “Fifteen children killed and 62 injured in seven days. That’s an average of 11 children every 24 hours. We understand the vast majority of these children were impacted by air strikes in south Lebanon. Only yesterday, seven children were killed and 30 injured,” he added. A humanitarian catastrophe Several aid organisations fear they may have to pull out of southern Lebanon because of relentless attacks. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been forced from their homes by Israel’s military since March 2, and require urgent humanitarian assistance. “If the security situation continues to deteriorate, we might have to leave certain areas. There are certain red lines we cannot cross for the security of our teams,” Jeremy Ristord, with medical NGO Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, told Al Jazeera. About 40 hospitals in the south are already closed, he noted. “On top of that, rescue teams are already working under intense strain in adapting their interventions in the face of the degrading security situation,” said Ristord, noting that rescuers fear “double-tap strikes” by Israel. “Sometimes they’re not even able to intervene.” He noted that 126 civil defence workers have been killed and 310 wounded in the war since March – “that’s four casualties a day”. Israeli military ‘heavily bombarding’ Hezbollah Also on Friday, the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for an additional seven towns in southern Lebanon, two of them about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Israel. The Israeli prime minister visited troops near the border, according to a video released by his office. There, he said that Israeli forces had crossed Lebanon’s Litani River and advanced; and that they were also operating in Beirut and the Bekaa Valley as part of actions against Hezbollah across the Lebanese front. “Netanyahu made a surprise visit to the Lebanese border on Friday, confirming that Israeli troops are now positioned north of the Litani River; there has been a focus of Israeli firepower … throughout Nabatieh district,” said Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Tyre in Lebanon. Israeli troops have broken through Hezbollah’s second lines of defence, and are now “heavily bombarding” the armed group’s third lines of defence”, Hitto added.
Five killed in Lebanon as Israeli forces advance across key Litani River Eleven children killed or injured on average every 24 hours in Lebanon amid Israeli attacks, UN children’s agency says. At least five people have been killed in Israeli air strikes targeting towns in souther…
See this event through different lenses
Compare how Western, Iranian, Israeli, Global South, and Pro-Peace perspectives frame this event.
Compare PerspectivesLoading notes...
A tanker identified as the Kaifan was struck by an unknown projectile northeast of Oman’s Limah in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a July 21 report from UK Maritime Trade Operations. No ships were observed transiting the strait that day. Attribution of the strike and links to prior incidents have not been confirmed by the vessel’s owner.
Goldman Sachs has projected Brent crude averaging $80 per barrel in the fourth quarter and $75 in the following year, conditional on reduced Middle East tensions, while noting upside risks from potential shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz or Red Sea.
Brent prices rose above $91 per barrel amid recent U.S.-Iran exchanges and Houthi threats to Saudi shipments before edging lower on Tuesday. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that mediators had proposed a 10-day ceasefire to preserve an interim agreement.
Opening summary: Iran claims attacks on strait of Hormuz ships amid fresh US strikes Welcome to our live coverage of the latest developments in the Middle East crisis. Iran attacked a tanker in the strait of Hormuz early on Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the ship, as Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis announced they were imposing an immediate maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea after the two sides traded fire last week for the first time in years.
A Houthi official said the Bab al-Mandeb strait – at the southern end of the Red Sea, through which about 12% of the world’s trade usually passes – would be closed to the Saudis in response to the kingdom’s “unjust blockade on Yemenis for over 10 years”.
Saudi Arabia said it would take “all necessary measures to protect its vessels in accordance with international law”. A 10 consecutive night of US airstrikes has not compelled Tehran to loosen its grip on the strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global energy supplies.
But even as Iran’s president said the country had returned “full-scale war”, the Iranian interior minister travelled to Pakistan – a key mediator in the conflict – for talks. In key developments: The latest US strikes came hours after Donald Trump said Iran would pay “many times over” for killing US soldiers after multiple service members were killed in action over the weekend.
A tanker came under attack early Tuesday in the Hormuz strait off Oman, forcing the crew to abandon the vessel, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed the attack as well as two other attacks on ships in the waterway on Monday.
The US military’s Central Command said its latest airstrikes were to “degrade” Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the strait and included hitting military command centres and missile and drone launch sites. Iranian media reported strikes in parts of the country including Bandar Abbas, Tabriz and Bushehr, home to the country’s only operational civilian nuclear power.
Iran’s launched attacks in response against Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, which all host US forces. Oil prices softened after hitting their highest levels in more than a month in the previous session. Brent crude futures eased 0.4% to $88.87 a barrel by 0052 GMT on Tuesday while US West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery was steady at $82.
47 a barrel. Democrats have seized on the deaths of three US troops killed in Iranian strikes to urge Trump to urgently reverse his resumption of the war with Iran amid widespread anxiety over climbing casualties. The Lebanese army began taking charge of security in three southern villages, the US said, as a deal to secure an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah faced its first test on the ground.
US forces struck the tanker Settebello in the Gulf of Oman on June 10, killing three Indian crew members when munitions hit the engine room and adjacent areas. Maritime tracking data indicate the vessel had transported Iranian oil under US sanctions for several years and conducted offshore transfers prior to the strike.
The US military described the action as a precision operation, while reports note the ship was stationary at the time.