2 Canadians killed in Lebanon amid fighting between Israel, Hezbollah | CBC News

Ottawa is aware of two Canadians who have died in Lebanon, amid hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Global Affairs Canada said late Tuesday that it had been “informed of the deaths of two Canadian citizens.”

Few details were immediately available, including the timing of the deaths.

Global Affairs Canada also said it has received a request for consular assistance for injuries sustained recently in the attacks between Israel and its northern neighbour. 

The news came after an Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander and as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a broader war in the Middle East.

Hezbollah early on Wednesday confirmed its senior commander Ibrahim Qubaisi was killed by an airstrike on Tuesday in the Lebanese capital. Israel said Qubaisi headed the militant group’s missile and rocket force.

Since Monday morning Israel’s offensive has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, that country’s Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.

The new offensive against Hezbollah has stoked fears that nearly a year of conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza is escalating and could destabilize the Middle East. The U.K. has urged its nationals to leave Lebanon and said it was moving 700 troops to Cyprus to help with the evacuation.

The UN Security Council said it would meet on Wednesday to discuss the conflict.

“Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon — the people of Israel, and the people of the world — cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

U.S. President Joe Biden earlier made a plea for calm before the UN General Assembly.  

“Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest, even if a situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” he said.

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib criticized Biden’s address as “not strong, not promising” and said the U.S. was the only country “that can really make a difference in the Middle East and with regard to Lebanon.” Washington is Israel’s longtime ally and biggest arms supplier.

The U.S. “is the key … to our salvation,” he told an event in New York City hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Half a million people are estimated to have been displaced in Lebanon, said Bou Habib. He said Lebanon’s prime minister hoped to meet with U.S. officials over the next two days.

The U.S. and fellow mediators Qatar and Egypt have so far been unsuccessful in their efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the nearly year-old war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, a Hezbollah ally.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, whose country and Israel are arch-enemies, told the UN General Assembly the international community must “secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and bring an end to the desperate barbarism of Israel in Lebanon, before it engulfs the region and the world.”

Israel’s military said its air force conducted “extensive strikes” on Tuesday on Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and dozens of launchers that were aimed at Israeli territory.

Early on Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit the seaside town of Jiyyeh, 75 kilometres north of the border with Israel, two security sources said.

WATCH l Caught near the conflict:

‘It’s tough’: Northern Israel residents react to Hezbollah threat

People in Nahariya, in northwest Israel, spoke on Tuesday about how it felt to live in the area as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the attacks had weakened Hezbollah and would continue. Hezbollah “has suffered a sequence of blows to its command and control, its fighters, and the means to fight. These are all severe blows,” he told Israeli troops.

He accused the UN of shirking its responsibility to prevent Hezbollah’s attacks into Israel.

Hezbollah said it launched rockets on Tuesday at the Dado military base in northern Israel and attacked the Atlit naval base south of Haifa with drones, among other targets. 

Suspected Israeli missiles were also launched at the Syrian port city of Tartous and were intercepted by Syrian air defences, Syrian army sources said. The Israeli military declined to comment on the report.

Since the Gaza war started in October, Israel has intensified a years-long air campaign targeting Iran-aligned armed groups and their weapons transfers in Syria.

Funerals were held on Tuesday for people killed in Lebanon by Israel’s bombardment. In the coastal city of Saksakiyeh, Mohammed Helal was defiant as he mourned his daughter Jouri.

“We are not afraid. Even if they kill, dissect and destroy us,” he said.