Air attacks continue on Lebanon, Israel ignores ceasefire call

"News about a ceasefire is not true," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X and vowed to carry on with Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. The Israeli PM’s office released a statement to the same effect. Foreign minister Israel Katz also took to X to say "there will be no ceasefire in the north… Israel will continue to fight against the terrorist organisation Hezbollah with all our might until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes".

Hezbollah had earlier targeted Israeli military installations in northern parts of Israel and fired hundreds of rockets, some of which penetrated the missile defence system and hit ‘open ground’ according to Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

Netanyahu has not bothered to respond to the call for ceasefire issued by 12 of Israel’s allies including the US, the UK and France. Israeli forces say its fighter jets will continue to target infrastructure on the Syria-Lebanon border, which is used by Hezbollah to "transfer weapons", it claimed.

The death toll from Israel’s bombings has been rising and Al Jazeera reported the toll to have crossed 620. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported that more than 90,000 people in Lebanon have been on the move in the past four days, adding to the 110,000 displaced in the past year.

“We have heard the minister of interior say shelters are accommodating more than 70,000 people. Some of the displaced are having to rent apartments, and some are staying with friends and relatives”, it said in a statement.

Qatar has officially stated that says it is receiving "horrific reports from Lebanon about targeting whole families, in a way that is similar to the atrocities in Gaza". Qatar government spokesperson Majed al-Ansari called for a de-escalation of the situation in Lebanon at a news conference in Doha. Al-Ansari says the Qatari government is seeing "no discrimination between civilian and military targets" in these attacks by Israel.

As reported earlier, Iran had declined a plea made by Hezbollah to intervene and launch strikes on Israel, saying the timing was not right. this is a crisis for a near-bankrupt state.

Long years of strife have reduced Lebanon to near bankruptcy and the country has been living off international aid for years and does not have enough funds to help people in need, reported humanitarian agencies. “This is not going to be easy and it seems that we’re just at the beginning,” said a spokesman for one of the agencies.