Monday was the bloodiest day in Lebanon since Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel.

Israel launched a massive series of air strikes this morning that have so far killed 492 people according to the Lebanese government and the Israelis are warning of more attacks to come.

The war is escalating fast, a process that is being driven by the scale of Israel’s air offensive.

They are warning civilians to leave the areas they’re targeting. The next, they’ve said, will be the Bekaa Valley in the north-east of Lebanon which is a Hezbollah stronghold.

Even before the current escalation, well over 100,000 Lebanese had to leave their homes because of Israeli strikes, with no immediate expectation of being able to return.

We are seeing yet another very large escalation by the Israelis.

Perhaps their calculation is that they believe Hezbollah is in such a weakened position right now that this is their opportunity to really inflict some damage on it, and to change the strategic picture in the hills and towns on either side of the border between Israel and Lebanon.

While the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict has been going on for decades, the current war between them started the day after the Hamas attacks on 7 October last year.

Hezbollah started a limited but continuous campaign of rocket fire over the border, trying to tie down Israeli troops and damage Israeli property and people. Around 60,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate to the centre of the country. In the last few days, returning them to their homes has been added to Israel’s list of war aims.

The US and UK, and other allies – and critics – of Israel believe that the only hope of cooling this dangerous crisis is to get a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has said attacks on Israel will go on until a Gaza ceasefire happens. But it seems pretty clear at this point that neither the leader of Hamas nor the leader of Israel is prepared to go for the deal the US has put on the table.

The war itself has overwhelming support from Israelis, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains unpopular with significant parts of Israel’s electorate, despite an improvement in his poll ratings.

Many Israelis also think Netanyahu is an appalling leader who tells lies and has abandoned the hostages in Gaza. So he is a very controversial character, but bolstered in the parliament by the right wingers who support him, he is politically secure.

His decision to go on the offensive is risky.

While Hezbollah is wounded, it has plenty of capacity to hit back. And that is why Israel’s friends and enemies are still preparing for the worst.

Business & Finance

Market Impact

A wobbly Chinese economy, long hobbled by a protracted property crisis, has sent investors scurrying away from the volatile stock market while banks have also continued to cut deposit rates. That’s sent investors – from large banks and insurers to mutual funds to rural financial institutions – pouring into the bond market.

THE National Lottery Set For Life numbers are in and it’s time to find out if you’ve won the top prize of £10,000 every month for 30 years.

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Tonight’s National Lottery Set For Life numbers are: 12, 18, 30, 35, 43 and the Life Ball is 06.

The first National Lottery draw was held on November 19 1994 when seven winners shared a jackpot of £5,874,778.

The largest amount ever to be won by a single ticket holder was £42million, won in 1996.

Gareth Bull, a 49-year-old builder, won £41million in November, 2020 and ended up knocking down his bungalow to make way for a luxury manor house with a pool.

1. £1.308 billion (Powerball) on January 13 2016 in the US, for which three winning tickets were sold, remains history’s biggest lottery prize
2. £1.267 billion (Mega Million) a winner from South Carolina took their time to come forward to claim their prize in March 2019 not long before the April deadline
3. £633.76 million (Powerball draw) from a winner from Wisconsin
4. £625.76 million (Powerball)  Mavis L. Wanczyk of Chicopee, Massachusetts claimed the jackpot in August 2017
5. £575.53 million (Powerball)  A lucky pair of winners scooped the jackpot in Iowa and New York in October 2018

Sue Davies, 64, bought a lottery ticket to celebrate ending five months of shielding during the pandemic — and won £500,000.

Sandra Devine, 36, accidentally won £300k – she intended to buy her usual £100 National Lottery Scratchcard, but came home with a much bigger prize.

The biggest jackpot ever to be up for grabs was £66million in January last year, which was won by two lucky ticket holders.

Another winner, Karl managed to bag £11million aged just 23 in 1996.

The odds of winning the lottery are estimated to be about one in 14million – BUT you’ve got to be in it to win it.

Technology

Market Impact

Demand for use of Arm’s technology in personal computers got a boost after Microsoft unveiled ambitious plans last month to launch a new breed of PCs with artificial intelligence features to compete with Alphabet and Apple. 

A recent video circulating on social media shows a Russian attack on a Ukrainian M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle.

Footage from Pokrovsk

Analysts pointed out that the Russians employed Kornet anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), which are known for their effectiveness even against heavily armored units.

The footage, recorded near Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine — a current focal point of Russian military operations — illustrates a critical moment in the ongoing conflict. On September 23, the British Ministry of Defence reported that Russian forces are approximately five miles from the city, though their advance has slowed in recent weeks.

Kornet missiles can engage targets at distances of up to 5.5 kilometers or 8 kilometers (3.42 miles or 4.97 miles), depending on the version, according to WP.

Despite being hit, the video shows Ukrainian soldiers successfully evacuating the M2A2 Bradley, a testament to its protective capabilities. Had they been in a less armored vehicle, their chances of survival would have been significantly lower.

The calls and texts came seemingly at random, on landlines and mobile phones across southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut. They left their recipients, ground down by almost a year of conflict, with little doubt about what to expect.

“Hizbollah is forcing the Israeli army to act against its terrorist infrastructure in your villages,” a voice in slightly accented Arabic said to the thousands of people contacted on Monday. “Residents of this area must leave your homes now . . . because we do not wish to harm you.”

The warnings from Israel had echoes of those it gave to Palestinians in Gaza ahead of new offensives, and within hours Lebanon too felt the brunt of Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the country in decades.

Israel’s military struck hundreds of targets stretching across southern and eastern Lebanon, killing 356 people and injuring more than 1,200, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

No day had been as bloody in Lebanon since Israeli tanks rolled over its border in 2006, triggering a 34-day war with Hizbollah.

As the air strikes rolled through Monday, panic spread through swaths of Lebanon.

The country had been gripped by angst since Iran-backed Hizbollah launched rockets at Israel the day after Hamas’s deadly assault on southern Israel last October. For many, a land war felt all but inevitable.

“It’s massacre upon massacre upon massacre,” said Abboudi, an emergency responder in Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, who spent the day dodging air strikes and transporting victims to nearby hospitals. 

Monday’s violence hit a country still haunted by its civil war, which saw various sectarian militias brutalise one another and their respective communities from 1975 to 1990.

When it ended, Beirut was in ruins, as was its social fabric, the ravages of war visible in every neighbourhood.

The country has been shaken by bouts of violence and instability since, not least the devastating 2006 war with Israel, and the 2020 Beirut port blast, which killed more than 200 people, injured thousands more and levelled parts of the city.

Praised for their resilience, Lebanese citizens often wonder how much more they and their small country can take.

Lebanon’s health ministry on Monday said women, children and medics were among the dead. Footage on social media showed them bloodied and broken, being pulled from rubble.

Tens of thousands of people fled north in a chaotic exodus, packed tightly into cars that jammed the main highway all the way to Beirut, as plumes of smoke rose behind them.

WhatsApp groups sprang up with offers of housing for the displaced, while schools were converted into emergency shelters.

“We have no idea where to go and my children are hungry,” Abu Ali Ahmad desperately asked a police man in Beirut, after arriving in a pick-up truck with his wife and four children.

Others were frantically heading to supermarkets to stock up on canned goods and fuel, running errands they thought they wouldn’t be able to once the war “really” began.

University student Abir Hammoud said she had been “paralysed with fear” waiting for her mother to pick her up after classes were cancelled.

With traffic across the city at a standstill, she found comfort by donating blood. “I don’t know what else to do,” Hammoud said.

Monday was the culmination of a devastating week for both Lebanon and Hizbollah, its most powerful political and military force.

Mass detonations ripped through the militant group’s communications devices, killing 37 people, followed by an air strike that wiped out two senior commanders, more than a dozen elite officers and scores more civilians on Friday.

It was a stinging blow to Hizbollah that undermined its credibility in the eyes of its members and support base. Some in Beirut speculated that Monday’s warnings to residents were designed to further weaken their spirits.

With around 110,000 people already displaced along Lebanon’s southern border, it was not clear how many people would be affected by Israel’s warnings. But there were still several thousand people living within 5km of the border, according to government data.

Israel has accused Hizbollah of transforming entire communities in the south into military zones, hiding rocket launchers and other infrastructure in residential communities from which it draws support.

The Israeli warnings left open the possibility that some residents could be living in or near targeted structures, without knowing that they are at risk.

That uncertainty was the final straw for many fleeing north on Monday.

“I stayed as long as I could, I really did,” said Nelly Abboud, who packed her car with her three kids and left Nabatiyeh to stay with relatives in Beirut. “But I couldn’t take it any more — I don’t want to die, I don’t want my kids to die.”

As she drove north, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the Lebanese people to “get out of harm’s way now”. “Once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes,” he said.

“How can we believe anything they say?” asked Abboud. “My parents stayed behind . . . because they know Israel wants to make them leave and seize their land. We know this has been the Israeli strategy since day one.”

Data visualisation by Steven Bernard