Hezbollah elects Naim Qassem to succeed Nasrallah
· RTE.ieLebanon's Hezbollah has elected its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the group's headquarters in Beirut in September.
The group said in a written statement that its Shura Council had elected Mr Qassem, 71, in accordance with its established mechanism for choosing a secretary general.
He was appointed as Hezbollah's deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group's then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.
Mr Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, and has long been one of Hezbollah's leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media, including as cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.
Nasrallah was killed on 27 September, and senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine - considered the most likely successor- was killed in Israeli strikes a week later.
Since Nasrallah's killing, Mr Qassem has given three televised addresses, including one on 8 October in which he said the armed group supported efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon.
UNIFIL headquarters attacked
United Nations peacekeepers said that a rocket, likely fired by Hezbollah or an affiliated group, hit its headquarters in southern Lebanon, leaving some peacekeepers with minor injuries.
"A rocket hit UNIFIL's headquarters in Naqoura, setting a vehicle workshop on fire," the force said in a statement, adding that it "was fired from north of UNIFIL's headquarters, likely by Hezbollah or an affiliated group".
UNIFIL said some peacekeepers suffered minor injuries and said it had opened an investigation into the incident.
"We remind Hezbollah and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property," it said.
UNIFIL has accused Israel of several violations against its forces in south Lebanon since the full-scale Israel-Hezbollah war erupted in September.
The incident marked the first time the peacekeeping force blamed Hezbollah for an incident since the conflict started.
UNIFIL did not provide details on the injured peacekeepers.
But the Austrian defence ministry said eight Austrian soldiers with UNIFIL were wounded in a rocket attack in Naqoura.
The injuries were "minor and superficial," Austrian the defence ministry said.
Initially set up in 1978 to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces after they invaded Lebanon, UNIFIL has around 10,000 peacekeepers from some 50 countries deployed in south Lebanon.
Meanwhile Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley overnight killed more than 60 people across a dozen towns, the district governor said, the deadliest day yet in the area in more than a year of hostilities.
Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble this morning.
Israel has ramped up its air strikes across Lebanon over the last month, saying it is targeting Hezbollah.
Lebanese officials, rights groups and residents of affected towns say the strikes are indiscriminate.
No evacuation orders were given for any of the towns struck overnight.
A local governor said 67 people had been killed and more than 120 wounded and the death toll was expected to rise.
"That's only the people who've been removed from under the rubble and we still don't have the final toll. This is the most violent day for Baalbek in the last year," he said.
The toll included nine people killed in Ram, its mayor said, including a woman and her four children.
More than 2,700 people have been killed by Israeli bombardments of Lebanon since Israel's military and Hezbollah began exchanging fire more than a year ago in parallel to the war in Gaza.
At least two-thirds were killed in the last five weeks alone, when Israel stepped up its bombing campaign.
The expanded strikes have targeted the port city of Tyre.
Yesterday, Israel issued a new evacuation order for swathes of the city and carried out strikes that damaged the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, which sit within the evacuation zone.
The strikes and detonation of homes have left towns along Lebanon's border with Israel in ruins, according to satellite imagery.
The war has displaced at least 1.3 million people, more than 800,000 inside Lebanon according to the UN's migration agency.
More than half a million people have crossed into Syria, according to Lebanese authorities, most of them Syrians.
A Syrian war monitor said that two people were killed in an Israeli strike near the border this morning, the second strike in less than a week near a key land crossing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israeli warplanes "attacked vehicles near Al-Nazariya Village in Al-Qaseer countryside" along the border with Lebanon, adding that "two people inside the vehicles were killed".
The NGO said the area lies on a smuggling and transportation route between Lebanon and Syria.
The attack comes less than a week after Israel's military confirmed a similar strike on the nearby Jousieh crossing, claiming it was being used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons.
Lebanese and United Nations officials warned that strike had jeopardised the main escape route for people fleeing the conflict in Lebanon in search of refuge in Syria.
Israel had previously struck the Masnaa crossing further south, leaving it unusable.