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Airstrikes and evacuations
Lebanon remained under Israeli air raids and artillery shelling, with the official Lebanese News Agency saying a Zionist strike targeted the town of Sidiqeen in the Tyre District, leaving two people dead and several others injured.
“An AI-based UN report: Preliminary damages of the war in Beirut and Mount Lebanon up to April total 365 million dollars”
Civil defense teams recovered the body of a victim from the site of an Israeli raid that targeted the town of Tir Debba in the Tyre District, while a Zionist drone targeted a car at the western entrance to the town of al-Dour in southern Lebanon yesterday morning.
The Israeli occupation army warned southern Lebanese villagers to evacuate before attacking them, as part of its violations of the ceasefire in force since April 17.
On the humanitarian front, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that the death toll from the Zionist aggression against Lebanon since March 2 to Tuesday reached 3,666 dead and 11,321 wounded.
In parallel, the UN Development Programme said direct damage to buildings in Beirut and Mount Lebanon governorates amounts to more than $365 million, with more than 7,600 housing units damaged and more than 3,000 apartments destroyed completely.
Raji backs talks
Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raji told a hearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly that direct negotiations between the Lebanese government and Israel represent the only path to a comprehensive solution and to end the war.
Raji said the military option has proven ineffective, and he criticized Hezbollah’s role by saying what it calls the 'resistance' has not achieved its declared goals but has contributed to dragging Lebanon into more violence and Israeli occupation.
Raji also stressed that restricting weapons to the Lebanese state is a national demand aimed at strengthening state institutions and enabling it to extend its authority over all Lebanese territory.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk announced his intention to send an independent and neutral assessment mission to Lebanon to investigate human rights and international humanitarian law violations that have occurred since March 2.
The Lebanese Health Ministry announced that the death toll from Israeli airstrikes since March 2 rose to 3,666 killed and 11,321 wounded, as military operations continued despite the ceasefire announced on April 17.
Schools face disruption
Beyond the battlefield, Lebanon’s education system is absorbing damage from the August 4 Port of Beirut blast, with Commerce du levant saying 128 institutions in Beirut and the Mount Lebanon region sustained significant or minor damage.
“Lebanon remains under the pressure of the Zionist war machine, where three Lebanese were killed and several others wounded yesterday, Wednesday, by Zionist airstrikes targeting several areas in southern Lebanon, while the Israeli occupation army continued to carry out air raids and artillery shelling on scattered towns”
Father Rector Charbel Massaad said, “Fortunately, the school was empty,” as he described walls ripped by the shards of classroom windows after the Port of Beirut explosion.
At Saint Joseph’s College of Wisdom in Achrafieh, the paper said about 590 students attend during the school year, while all doors were blown out and about twenty unstable walls must be demolished.
Repairs for the two institutions near the blast site are estimated at more than $700,000, with Nayla Daoun saying, “Work should take at least three or four months.”
UNICEF is cited as collecting preliminary information that the 128 schools typically enroll about 55,000 students, while 20 technical vocational schools hosting several thousand students were also affected.
