At least 9 children among 19 killed in Israeli strikes on Beirut

Explosions rocked southern Beirut — the capital city of Lebanon — on late Oct 6 evening killing at least 19 people including nine children on the anniversary of the Oct 7 Hamas attacks, as Israelis held memorials to mourn the victims of the deadly assault a year ago.

The attack took place shortly after the Israeli military in a statement ordered civilians to immediately flee northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp and began heavy bombardment.

Ceremonies and protests in Jerusalem and Israel's south began around 06:29 a.m., the hour when Hamas-led militants launched rockets into Israel at the start of the Oct. 7 attack last year.

Meanwhile, at least five people were wounded in Haifa on Oct 7 in a Hezbollah rocket attack - the first time the Iran-backed militant group has struck the northern Israeli city in its ongoing conflict with Israel. In a statement, Hezbollah said that it launched the rockets at Israel’s Carmel military base, while Israeli authorities reported rockets and shrapnel dropping around the city.

Beirut saw some of the heaviest Israeli airstrikes of the war so far on Oct 6 night, with huge explosions again rising over the southern suburb and Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiya.

According to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), strikes also continued in southern Lebanon, where the third division — the 91st Galilee Division — joined the nascent incursion on Oct 6. The 91st Galilee Division "began a limited and targeted ground operation in southern Lebanon," IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on X.

"Since the beginning of the war, the Galilee Division has been fighting defensively in tandem with numerous offensive operations targeting the enemy and its infrastructure in southern Lebanon from the air and on the ground," he added.

According to Adraee, over the past few weeks, the division's forces have carried out hundreds of attacks and eliminated dozens of terrorists. Notably, Israel has intensified its bombing of Beirut since Oct 3, launching dozens of attacks on Dahiya and its surroundings.

Fresh strikes land every few hours during the day leading to fierce nighttime barrages. On Oct 6 night, a massive fiery blast lit up the sky over the capital after the IDF struck a weapons depot. Ammunition could be seen detonating following the attack, according to media reports.

Hostage families protest

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum rallied outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence on Oct 7 morning to mark one year since hundreds were taken as hostages during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel.

According to a statement by the Forum, “Families sounded a two-minute siren outside Netanyahu's home, "urging him to end the abandonment of their loved ones and to bring back all the hostages in a deal -- the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial,"

The Forum has been a part of massive public pressure on Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire and hostage-release deal with Hamas in Gaza. There are around 101 hostages still being held by militants inside the strip, around two-thirds of whom are thought to be alive, according to the Forum.

Meanwhile, on Oct 7, Israeli President Isaac Herzog began a series of planned visits to border communities impacted in
Hamas' attacks on the same day last year with a stop at the site of the Nova Festival in Re'im.

Pertinently, in Gaza, at least 41,870 people have been killed and over 97,000 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 2023. In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on Oct 7 last year, and over 200 people were taken captive when the militants blew holes in Israel's security fence and stormed into nearby army bases and farming communities in a surprise attack.