{"id":52961,"date":"2026-04-05T18:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/52961\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T18:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:09:12","slug":"israel-launches-new-strikes-on-lebanon-forces-closure-of-syria-border-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/52961\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel launches new strikes on Lebanon, forces closure of Syria border crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israeli strikes on south Beirut<\/a> and its suburbs killed at least four people on Sunday, a day after Israel<\/a> threatened to hit Lebanon<\/a>‘s main border crossing with Syria<\/a>, forcing it to close.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military also carried out deadly attacks on Lebanon’s south, one of which killed seven people including a family of six.<\/p>\n

Israel has launched airstrikes across Lebanon as well as a ground invasion in the south since March 2, when armed group Hezbollah entered the war in the Middle East on the side of its backer Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah<\/a> on Sunday claimed to have fired a cruise missile at an Israeli warship off the coast, but the Israeli military told AFP it was “not aware” of such an incident.<\/p>\n

One of Israel’s strikes in Beirut on Sunday killed at least four people and wounded 39 in the Jnah neighbourhood, the Lebanese health ministry said.<\/p>\n

It landed about 100 metres away from the Rafik Hariri<\/a> University Hospital, the largest public medical facility in Lebanon, a medical source told AFP.<\/p>\n

Another attack struck a building elsewhere in the area that the Israeli military had warned it would target.<\/p>\n

After the first attack, 53-year-old Jnah resident Nancy Hassan thought she was safe at home.<\/p>\n

“Shortly after, the planes were flying overhead, and we heard a huge bang, then stones rained down on us,” she told AFP.<\/p>\n

Hassan lost her daughter in an Israeli strike on the same area during the 2024 war between Hezbollah and Israel.<\/p>\n

“My daughter was killed, she was 23 years old. Today, her friends were killed. Every time, they bomb us in the neighbourhood without warning,” she added.<\/p>\n

Zakaria Tawbeh, deputy head of the Rafik Hariri hospital, said they received “four killed, three Sudanese and a 15-year old girl, and 31 wounded”.<\/p>\n

“Lots of glass was broken, and some of our patients had panic attacks.”<\/p>\n

Israel also launched several strikes on the nearby southern suburbs, an area now largely evacuated but where Hezbollah holds sway.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the military warned it had “begun striking Hezbollah infrastructure sites”.<\/p>\n

Vital crossing<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Israel had said it would target the Masnaa border crossing<\/a> between Lebanon and Syria, the main gateway between the two countries.<\/p>\n

“Due to Hezbollah’s use of the Masnaa crossing for military purposes and smuggling of combat equipment, the (Israeli army) intends to carry out strikes on the crossing in the near future,” said the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee, urging people to leave the area.<\/p>\n

The border post was quickly evacuated on the Lebanese side.<\/p>\n

In Syria, borders and customs public relations director Mazen Aloush insisted the crossing was exclusively used by civilians, and said it would temporarily due to the threats.<\/p>\n

Masnaa is a vital trade route for both countries and a key gateway to the rest of the region for Lebanese people.<\/p>\n

Military expert Hassan Jouni told AFP that Israel’s threat to strike the crossing “is not based on sound security considerations, but rather aims to pressure the Lebanese government… to disarm Hezbollah”.<\/p>\n

At another border crossing further north known as Qaa, an AFP correspondent on Sunday saw a long line of cars and vans waiting to enter Syria as people sought an alternative route.<\/p>\n

Family killed<\/p>\n

Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the start of the war have killed more than 1,400 people, including 126 children, and displaced over a million, according to Lebanese authorities.<\/p>\n

In the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Hatta, far from the border with Israel, an Israeli strike killed seven people including a four-year-old girl, the health ministry said Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Lebanese army mourned an off-duty soldier killed in the attack.<\/p>\n

The Israeli army had issued an evacuation warning for the town on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

Read moreLebanon condemns Israel\u2019s ‘clear intention’ to impose new occupation of its territory<\/a><\/p>\n

A source from Lebanon’s civil defence told AFP that a family of six who had been displaced from a town further south were waiting for a relative to pick them up in a vehicle when they were killed. The relative also perished in the strike.<\/p>\n

An AFP photographer saw at least eight homes destroyed by attacks in Kfar Hatta.<\/p>\n

As Israeli troops push into border areas in southern Lebanon<\/a>, destroying villages, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun<\/a> reiterated his call for talks with Israel, saying he wanted to spare his country’s south from destruction on the scale seen in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.<\/p>\n

“Why don’t we negotiate… until we can at least save the homes that have not yet been destroyed?” he said in a televised address.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli strikes on south Beirut and its suburbs killed at least four people on Sunday, a day after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2166,100,37,72,93,21236,18868,96,95],"class_list":{"0":"post-52961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-border-crossing","9":"tag-hezbollah","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-israeli-military","12":"tag-lebanon","13":"tag-nancy-hassan","14":"tag-rafik-hariri","15":"tag-southern-lebanese","16":"tag-syria"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116353444237013668","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}