Habib Siddiqui

  The UN’s humanitarian office has called for an investigation into an Israeli air strike that killed 23 people in northern Lebanon on Monday. Spokesman Jeremy Laurence said the strike, on the Christian-majority village of Aitou, raised "real concerns" with respect to international humanitarian law. Laurence said that 12 women and two children were understood to be among the dead from the bombing, which destroyed a residential building that had been recently rented out to a family displaced from the south. Rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the rubble in Aitou on Tuesday - far from the focus of the conflict to date in the south of Lebanon, Beqaa Valley and parts of Beirut. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is yet to comment on the strike. ADVERTISEMENT Lebanon says 21 killed in air strike in country’s north Drone attack on Israel puts spotlight on Iron Dome's limitations Elie Alwan, the owner of the house in Aitou, told reporters that it had been rented to a fami

  The death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon since last October rose to 2,309, with 10,782 others injured, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Monday.  Earlier on Monday, the Health Ministry said three people were killed and 84 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on the Nabatieh district in southern Lebanon. Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,542 people, injuring over 4,555 others, and displacing more than 1.34 million people. The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed nearly 42,300 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year. Despite international warnings that the Mideast was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, it expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching an incursion

  The Hannibal Directive is a command issued by the   Israeli   military. Its purpose is to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by using heavy fire to stop the abductors – even if that may harm or kill those being taken. It has been used during Israeli operations during the past two decades but has come under scrutiny since the 7 October attacks and  Israel's war on Gaza . An investigation by the  Israeli newspaper Haaretz  in July 2024 reported that the Israeli army used the directive when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing an estimated 1,139 people. More than 250 soldiers, civilians and foreign nationals were also kidnapped and taken into  Gaza  following the attack. But use of the directive, it is alleged, resulted in the deaths of Israeli civilians and soldiers. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on  Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Here, Middle East Eye looks at the history and