A woman stands inside a heavily damaged home in Kfar Sir, southern Lebanon, on April 21, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

China is urging its citizens in Lebanon and Israel to evacuate or move to safe areas as the conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah is escalating.

“Chinese citizens in Lebanon should take commercial flights to return to China or otherwise leave Lebanon as soon as possible for their own safety,” the Consular Department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement posted on social media platform WeChat on Monday (September 23, 2024).

“Those who need to continue to stay in Lebanon should remain highly vigilant, effectively strengthen their security precautions and emergency preparedness, and avoid going to high-risk areas and sensitive areas in the south,” the statement read.

– AP

The U.S. is sending additional troops to the Middle East during a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said Monday (September 23, 2024).

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. currently has about 40,000 troops in the region.

The new deployments come after significant strikes by Israeli forces against targets inside Lebanon that have killed hundreds, and as Israel is preparing to conduct further operations and the State Department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.

“Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” the State Department cautioned Saturday.

– AP

Smoke seeps out of destroyed buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City’s al-Rimal district, on October 10, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Around 1,500 bodies of Hamas militants have been found in Israel around the Gaza Strip, the army said Tuesday, as it pummelled the Palestinian enclave with air strikes.

“Approximately 1,500 bodies of Hamas (fighters) were found in Israel around the Gaza Strip,” military spokesman Richard Hecht told reporters, adding that security forces had “more or less restored control over the border” with Gaza.

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“Since last night we know that no one came in .. but infiltrations can still happen.”

The army had “nearly completed” evacuation of all the communities around the border, he added.

Hecht said the military had deployed 35 battalions to the border area.

“We are building infrastructure for future operations,” he said.

Israel is reeling under a deadly attack by Hamas militants who stormed the border fence under a barrage of rocket fire on Saturday morning and killed more than 900 people inside Israel.

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In response Israel is carrying out a massive air and artillery bombardment of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip that has so far killed at least 687 people in the coastal enclave.

Before dawn on Tuesday, the Israeli military struck what it said were Hamas targets in Gaza, especially in the Rimal neighbourhood and in the southern city of Khan Yunis.