Iraq’s top Shiite cleric calls for end to Israeli ‘aggression’ on Lebanon

BAGHDAD: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Shiite Islam’s highest authority in Iraq, appealed Monday for “every possible effort” to end Israeli “aggression” against Lebanon, where it is targeting the Shiite Hezbollah movement.
Sistani called for “the exercise of every possible effort” to end this “barbaric aggression and to protect the Lebanese people.”
Lebanon said 50 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in Israeli strikes on the south on Monday, the heaviest daily toll in nearly a year of cross-border clashes.
“Continued Israeli enemy raids on southern towns and villages... killed 50 people and wounded more than 300, with children, women and emergency workers among the dead and wounded,” a health ministry statement said, adding that the toll was provisional.

Dozens of Israeli air strikes hit Lebanon’s south and east Monday as Israel’s military warned Lebanese to move away from Hezbollah targets.