Death toll from Israeli strikes on Lebanon rises to 3,189

The death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the beginning of the latest round of Israeli-Hezbollah conflict on Oct. 8, 2023 had reached 3,189, with injuries rising to 14,078, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Sunday.

The ministry said in a notice that Israel launched air strikes on the town of Almat in the Jbeil District of northern Lebanon on Sunday, killing at least 20 people including children.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement on Sunday saying that the Israeli army killed a commander of the artillery unit of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IDF also said that the Israeli army discovered and destroyed a large underground tunnel of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, with a command room and weapons storage facilities inside.

Hezbollah said on the same day that it fired rockets at Israeli troops and other targets during the day. Meanwhile, Hezbollah militants fought with Israeli troops in the suburbs of the town of Aitaroun in southern Lebanon, causing casualties among Israeli soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday officially took responsibility for a deadly attack targeting Hezbollah in September.

"I wanted to launch the pager operation," Netanyahu said at a weekly cabinet meeting. "They told me in the cabinet, 'Don't do it; the United States will oppose it.' I didn't listen to them."

It marks the first time an Israeli official has publicly acknowledged Israel's role in the attack, which sharply escalated cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanon that have persisted since October 2023.

The operation, conducted in two waves on September 17 and 18, involved the detonation of thousands of explosive-laden pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies across Lebanon and Syria, aiming at Hezbollah members. At least 42 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured during the attack, according to Lebanese reports.

The ongoing clashes between Israel and Hezbollah began on Oct. 8, 2023 -- one day after Hamas launched an attack on Israel. Since Sept. 23 this year, the Israeli army has intensified its airstrikes against Hezbollah across Lebanon, resulting in significant civilian casualties and displacement of residents from many areas.

China's software and information technology service industry reported double-digit year-on-year growth in terms of revenue in the first eleven months of 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Thursday.

Data show that from January to November, China's software business revenue reached 12.2903 trillion yuan (about 1.68 trillion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 10.7 percent.

The revenue from information technology services maintained double-digit growth, accounting for 67.3 percent of the total industry revenue. Among these, cloud computing and big data services generated a revenue of 1.2691 trillion yuan (about 173.86 billion U.S. dollars), marking a year-on-year increase of 10.5 percent.

In the eleven-month period, software business exports continued to improve, reaching 51.01 billion U.S. dollars, up 4.8 percent year on year.