BEIRUT: The Israeli military carried out at least five airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday, after Israel’s defence minister ruled out any ceasefire in Lebanon until Israel’s goals had been met.

Smoke rose over Beirut as blasts shook the capital around mid-morning. The explosions followed an Israeli military warning posted on social media identifying 12 sites in the southern suburbs and saying it would take action against them soon. It warned residents they were located near Hezbollah facilities.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the latest strikes. Residents have largely fled the southern suburbs since Israel began bombing the area in September.

In Israel, air raid sirens sounded in parts of the north, sending residents running for shelter, and the military said a number of “suspicious aerial targets” were launched from Lebanon. There were no reports of injuries.

Ignited by the Gaza war, the conflict at the Lebanese-Israeli border had been rumbling on for a year before Israel went on the offensive in September, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.

Israel has dealt heavy blows to Hezbollah over the last seven weeks, killing many of its top leaders including Hassan Nasrallah, flattening parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, and causing vast destruction in border villages in south Lebanon.

Meeting with Israel’s general staff for the first time, Israel’s newly appointed Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Monday there would be no ceasefire in Lebanon until Israel achieves its goals.

“Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own, and meet the goals of the war in Lebanon - disarming Hezbollah and its withdrawal beyond the Litani River and returning the residents of the north safely to their homes.”

Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar had said earlier on Monday there had been “a certain progress” in ceasefire talks, whilst adding the war against Hezbollah was not yet over.

The main challenge facing any ceasefire deal would be enforcement, he said.

Hezbollah has said it is ready for a long war against Israel and has kept up rocket fire.

SOUTH OF THE LITANI

The Lebanese government, which includes Hezbollah, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire based on the full implementation of a U.N. Resolution that ended a war between the group and Israel in 2006.

The resolution calls for the area south of the Litani to be free of all weapons other than those of the Lebanese state. Lebanon and Israel have accused each other of violating the resolution.

Israel’s offensive has driven more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon in the last seven weeks. Since hostilities erupted a year ago, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed 3,243 people and injured 14,134, the Lebanese health ministry said. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Hezbollah attacks have killed roughly 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon over the last year.

Aftermath of Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, displaced people seek shelter

Dozens of people were killed in Israeli military strikes on northern Lebanon and the Gaza strip, including as many as 20 children, authorities said.

Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people in Lebanon and northern Gaza on Sunday, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have been discussing the way forward for when Trump takes office in January. The Israeli leader said he has spoken with Trump three times since the U.S. presidential election last week and that they “see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects, and on the dangers they reflect.” Netanyahu said he sees “great opportunities facing Israel, in the area of peace and its expansion,” but did not expand on his statement.   Before the election, Trump, according to Israeli news accounts, told Netanyahu that he wanted Israel to resolve its wars against two Iranian-supported groups, Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, before his inauguration as president on January 20. Israeli President Isaac Herzog is scheduled to meet with outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday in Washington as the mid-month deadline approaches for Israel to meet a Biden administration ultimatum that it allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza to assist Palestinians or risk possible restrictions on U.S. military funding. Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated Jabaliya and the nearby northern Gaza towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun for the past month, allowing in only a trickle of humanitarian aid. Experts from a panel that monitors food security say famine is imminent or may already be happening.   In the Sunday fighting, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 23 people, including seven children, in Aalmat village north of Beirut, far from the areas in the east and south where Hezbollah militants have a major presence. Lebanon's health ministry said another six people were wounded. Watch related report by Arash Arabasadi: There was no Israeli evacuation warning and no immediate Israeli comment on the attack. In northern Gaza, an Israeli strike on a home sheltering displaced people in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya killed at least 17 people including nine women, according to Dr. Fadel Naim, director of Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City. The Israeli military, without offering evidence, said it had targeted a site where militants were operating. It said the details of the strike are under review. A separate strike hit a house in Gaza City, killing Wael al-Khour, a minister in the Hamas-run government, as well as his wife and three children, according to the Civil Defense first responders who operate under the government. In Syria, the state news agency SANA said an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, killing seven civilians. The Britain-based opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, suggested Hezbollah was targeted, but Israel did not offer any immediate comment. The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, although about one-third of them are believed to be dead. Israel's counteroffensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas militants. Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.

[Dabanga] Airstrikes killed dozens and injured others in Nyala and neighbouring Beleil in South Darfur and Mellit, El Koma, and Kabkabiya in North Darfur on Saturday and Sunday, according to a Radio Dabanga listener. Multiple political actors and groups have condemned the "random" air raids.

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and Lebanon kill dozens of people

The statement, however, did not provide the details of the air strikes and was silent on whether international coalition was involved in the operation.

The offensive began hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump discussed Syria over the phone and agreed on the need to combine efforts in the fight against terrorism.

Today in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister will explain her decision to authorise airstrikes against Syria alongside France and the United States.

U.S. airstrikes in Iraq on December 29 — in response to the killing of an American contractor two days prior — killed two dozen members of the Iranian-backed militia Kata'ib Hezbollah. In the days since, thousands of pro-Iranian demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, with some forcing their way into the embassy compound…

U.S. airstrikes in Iraq on December 29 — in response to the killing of an American contractor two days prior — killed two dozen members of the Iranian-backed militia Kata'ib Hezbollah. In the days since, thousands of pro-Iranian demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, with some forcing their way into the embassy compound…

Republican Senators John McCain and Ted Cruz applauded Donald Trump for ordering airstrikes on Syria on Thursday night saying he deserves the support of American people.

Palestinian militants, Islamic Jihad, fired two rockets into southern Israel from Gaza today and the Israeli military responded by hitting a number of Hamas outposts.