Israel and Hezbollah exchange heavy fire in major escalation

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August 25, 2024
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Israel has said it carried out a wave of pre-emptive strikes across southern Lebanon to thwart a large-scale rocket and drone attack by Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said fighter jets destroyed thousands of the Iran-backed armed group’s rocket launchers on Sunday morning. Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal movement, said three fighters were killed.

Hezbollah said it still managed to fire 320 rockets and drones at Israel in retaliation for the assassination of a senior commander. Israel’s military said an Israeli navy soldier was killed.

The exchange was a major escalation after 10 months of hostilities that have raised fears of an all-out war.

There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October.

Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Palestinian group, which is also backed by Iran. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.

Since October, more than 560 people have been reported killed by Lebanon’s health ministry, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, while 26 civilians and 23 soldiers have been killed in Israel, according to authorities.

The UN says almost 200,000 people have also been displaced on both sides of the border.

Israel’s attack on Hezbollah at around 04:30 (01:30 GMT) on Sunday was its biggest since the full-scale war between them in 2006.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said about 100 fighter jets “struck and destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels” in more than 40 areas of southern Lebanon.

Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said it launched the strikes after identifying “extensive preparation” for a large-scale aerial attack by Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that Israeli aircraft had struck Beaufort Castle, the Bir Kalb area, and the outskirts of the towns of Ain Qana, Kfar Fila, Louaizeh, Bsalia, Kfar Melki, Sajd and Sarba.

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August 27, 2024
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2 minutes Read

Aid struggles to reach survivors as Sudan dam collapse, floods wreak havoc

Emergency responders were scrambling on Tuesday to find out how many people remain missing after waters burst through a dam in eastern Sudan, resulting in the worst in a series of floods that have devastated a country already torn by 500 days of war.

The collapse of the Arbaat Dam on Sunday killed 30 people and likely dozens more, in the latest in a series of inundations around the country as this year’s rainy season hits heavier, and in places earlier, than in past years.

War-shattered Sudan is already suffering from the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises, and the flooding has impeded aid delivery already disrupted by the conflict between the army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

“Even before the dam burst people were trapped by the flooding and couldn’t get anything from Port Sudan. The aid coming in now can’t get to the people,” said Mohamed Othman, a leader from one of the flooded villages.

“Children are hungry and the roads are closed.”

A single excavator carried people and food across the water in Arbaat.

Some 118,000 people have been displaced nationwide and more than 300,000 affected across the country, as the floods destroy homes and spread diseases including cholera.

“We don’t know how many are unaccounted for (in Arbaat). It’s very difficult to get information out from there,” said U.N. OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke.

In the Darfur region, the flooding has blocked food deliveries, including the first shipment of supplies from the World Food Programme to famine-threatened Kreinik since the re-opening of the Adre border crossing to humanitarians.

The bridge leading to the town, where thousands of displaced people are sheltering with little food, was destroyed in the rains, said one local volunteer.

WFP on Sunday said that the first shipments since mid-July had made it through the al-Tina border crossing into North Darfur, having been blocked by flooding there.

In Tokar, also in Red Sea state, at least 500 households were displaced as of Sunday, as people wade through rivers in between damaged homes.

Overnight, heavy rains hit several parts of Northern Sudan, with images on social media showing collapsed roofs and flooded neighbourhoods, though little official information was immediately available on losses there.

Source: reuters.com

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August 27, 2024
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2 minutes Read

UN agencies concerned by Mpox spread in Congo’s refugee camps

U.N. agencies on Tuesday raised the alarm about the spread of mpox in Democratic Republic of Congo’s refugee camps where people are more susceptible to infection because of depleted immune systems and cramped living conditions.

More than 7 million people are uprooted across Congo which has one of the highest displacement levels in the world, including those fleeing internal conflicts and disasters and those arriving from Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said that some 42 suspected mpox cases have so far been reported in refugee camps and transit centres in South Kivu, eastern Congo where there are nearly 2 million internally displaced people and refugees.

“For those fleeing violence, implementing many of the mpox measures is a tremendous challenge,” said Dr. Allen Maina, Public Health Chief for UNHCR. “They have no space to isolate when they develop symptoms of the disease,” he added, saying that infected individuals were opting to distance themselves from crowded shelters to sleep in the open to protect others.

Congo has had more than 18,000 suspected mpox cases and 615 deaths this year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which declared an mpox health emergency this month after a new variant called clade Ib emerged.

Mpox, which causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, is sexually transmitted but can also spread through close contact with an infected person.

While it is not clear yet if they are the new, seemingly more contagious clade Ib strain, WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said South Kivu is an area where this variant was mostly circulating.

“(People) are already very stressed, hungry, terrified, displaced. So there’s an immunological deficit, an immunological weakness which makes them more likely to become ill with anything they get, including mpox,” she said at the same press briefing. An unknown number of mpox cases, including among children, have also emerged in North Kivu displacement camps.

Asked whether Congo’s camps could become incubators for a broader spread of the disease, Maina said the focus should be on disease prevention and improving camp conditions.