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U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert stressed to Speaker Nabih Berri days ago "the need to call for" a presidential election session in parliament as soon as possible, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.
Full StoryThe mayor of Nabatiyeh Ahmad Kahil was among sixteen people killed Wednesday in Israeli strikes on the municipality of the southern Lebanese city.
"The mayor of Nabatiyeh, among others... was martyred. It's a massacre," Nabatiyeh governor Howaida Turk told AFP, adding he had been in the municipality building.
Full StoryThe World Health Organization has called for the protection of health care facilities in Lebanon, where Israel has intensified its military campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks.
"WHO calls for an end to attacks on health care facilities," the U.N. agency said in a statement, adding that heavy bombardment was "forcing a growing number of health facilities to close, particularly in southern Lebanon".
Full StoryThe risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is "very high", the World Health Organization warned Wednesday, after a case of the acute and potentially deadly diarrheal infection was detected in the conflict-hit country.
The WHO highlighted the risk of cholera spreading among hundreds of thousands of people displaced since Israel escalated an air campaign against Hezbollah and launched a ground offensive intended to push the group back from its northern border with Lebanon.
Full StoryThe Israeli military said it has killed a local Hezbollah commander in a southern Lebanese town near the border.
The military said Thursday that an airstrike on Bint Jbeil killed Hussein Awada, who it said was in charge of firing projectiles into Israel from areas near the town.
Full StoryU.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon have said Israeli army forces fired at one of their positions in south Lebanon in a "direct and apparently deliberate" attack that damaged a watchtower.
Peacekeepers in the southern village of Kfarkila observed an Israeli army tank "firing at their watchtower", UNIFIL said Wednesday, adding that "two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged" in what the force called "direct and apparently deliberate fire on a UNIFIL position".
Full StoryHezbollah said Thursday it has destroyed two Israeli tanks near the Lebanese border with "guided missiles", after close combat with Israeli troops staging incursions in the area.
The group targeted two Merkava tanks in Labbouneh near the coastal border town of al-Naqoura, as attacks escalated after Israel intensified bombing of the country last month. The attacks burned the tanks and caused casualties, Hezbollah said.
Full StoryIsrael's army raided Thursday the towns of Tamnnine, Saraaine and Sefri in the Bekaa region.
Military spokesman Avichay Adraee had ordered residents of the Bekaa towns to leave, warning that the area would again be targeted by Israeli forces.
Full StoryThe Lebanese Red Cross said two paramedics were wounded in an Israeli strike on Wednesday that hit a south Lebanon village while on a rescue mission coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers.
Two rescuers in the village of Jwaya sustained "light injuries", said a statement posted on social media, adding that the volunteers were dispatched after "coordination with UNIFIL", the U.N. peacekeeping mission, to search for casualties in an earlier Israeli strike on the same area.
Full StoryThe International Committee of the Red Cross has deployed a team of surgeons to treat war-related wounds at the government-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut.
Many of the patients have been evacuated from hospitals in the south as Israeli strikes intensify there. About 1.2 million people have fled southern and eastern Lebanon.
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