Today, the United Nations condemned as "illegal" Israel's aerial attack on the Palestinian refugee camp in Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank, where 18 people died on Thursday.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is calling for an independent investigation into the attack, the deadliest in the West Bank since 2000.
The office said the attack was part of a "deeply troubling unlawful use of force" by the Israeli military in the West Bank.
Those operations caused great harm to Palestinians and damaged buildings and infrastructure, which, as reported, is "another clear example of the IDF's (Israeli Security Forces) systematic use of lethal force that is often unnecessary and disproportionate, and therefore illegal."
The Israeli army claims that its attack on the Izbeli camp in Tulkarem killed a local Hamas leader who was allegedly preparing an attack on Israel on the occasion of the anniversary of the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7 last year.
A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas described the attack as a heinous crime and a massacre.
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The Israeli military estimates it has killed around 250 Hezbollah fighters, including several battalion commanders, since the start of the ground operation in Lebanon earlier this week.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the military was still assessing the damage caused by airstrikes in southern Beirut on Thursday evening that he said targeted Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters, Reuters reports.
The Israeli ground operation in southern Lebanon was described by the military as "limited, localized and targeted incursions" aimed at destroying Hezbollah's infrastructure in the border area, particularly in villages near Israel.
If this is achieved, the residents of the northern part of the country, who were evacuated after the start of cross-border conflicts between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, almost a year ago, will be able to return home, Israeli media reports.
Israel's 98th and 36th divisions are currently operating in several Lebanese villages near the border with Israel, where, the army claims, soldiers have found large amounts of Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure left behind.
More than half a million Lebanese civilians have fled southern Lebanon after the Israeli army warned them to evacuate, the army estimates.
Soldiers are most often hit by anti-tank fire and mortar attacks during operations, but there have also been battles in the immediate vicinity.
The ground operations are taking place simultaneously with airstrikes on top Hezbollah commanders in the Lebanese capital Beirut, and targets across the country and arms shipments from Iran.
In southern Lebanon, amid ground operations, more than 2.000 Hezbollah sites were hit from the air.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi threatened today that Tehran will respond strongly if Israel attacks it.
Aragchi was in Beirut for a meeting with Lebanese officials.
"If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one," Aragchi said after a meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Iran fired missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, and the Israeli army bombed Lebanon last night.
All the employees of the Marjayoun public hospital in the south of Lebanon were evacuated after the death of four paramedics in an Israeli drone attack, so that hospital is no longer functioning, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.
The role of that hospital has been very important since Israel intensified its airstrikes on September 23. The head of emergency services, Shošana Mazrani, said that the employees had to flee because of an Israeli drone near the hospital.
Israel also carried out an attack on the Khirbet Salim Islamic Health Organization center this afternoon, injuring people, the Lebanese National News Agency added.
Another member of the ambulance service was killed and another wounded during the rescue in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which had been heavily bombed the night before.
Lebanon's interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, held a series of meetings today aimed at pressuring Israel to allow safe rescue and transport of victims of the airstrikes.
At least 102 Lebanese emergency workers have been killed since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah a year ago.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned today that the Middle East is on the "precipice of a regional armed conflict" after the escalation of Israeli attacks last night.
The warning states that civilians have been bearing the brunt of the conflict over the past year, due to hostage-taking in Israel, the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 41.000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health in the enclave, and now civilians in Lebanon are being killed in Israeli attacks.
"The ICRC calls on all parties to avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas because they cause random injuries, leading to a potentially high toll of civilian casualties" and damage, the statement said.
The ICRC helped return 105 hostages kidnapped by Hamas to Israel on October 7 in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails during a week-long ceasefire last November, the agencies reported.
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The entire staff of the Marjayoun public hospital in southern Lebanon was evacuated on Friday morning after an Israeli drone strike killed four paramedics, putting the hospital out of business, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.
The hospital was one of the main providers of medical services in southern Lebanon, especially after Israel's intensified air campaign, which began on September 23, forced many medical workers to leave the region.
"They were shooting in the immediate vicinity, so we had to run away. The area is very dangerous, there is no one on the roads and I am driving alone," said Šošana Mazrani, head of emergency services at the Mardžajun public hospital, as she ran away.
At least 102 Lebanese paramedics have been killed since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began last year.
Israel's military said its warplanes targeted Hezbollah targets near a key border crossing between Lebanon and Syria overnight.
"Infrastructure near the Masna border crossing between Syria and Lebanon was hit last night," the military statement said.
It is said that the airstrikes were aimed at preventing the flow of weapons into Lebanon from neighboring Syria, and among the targets was an alleged underground tunnel used to transfer weapons across the border, the Guardian reports.
Israeli soldiers carried out extensive raids this morning in the Hebron province of the occupied West Bank, arresting more than 24 people, including minors, local sources told the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
Most of those arrested were reportedly taken from the city of Beit Umar.
Human rights groups and international organizations have accused Israel of widespread abuse of prisoners arrested in raids in the occupied West Bank.
It is alleged to have involved abuse and degrading treatment, including keeping prisoners blindfolded and tied in cramped cages, as well as beatings, intimidation and ill-treatment.
The number of victims in Gaza has reached 41.802, the ministry of health of that territory announced.
"At least 41.802 Palestinians have been killed and 96.844 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7," the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
The ministry added that thousands of other dead are probably still trapped in the ruins of the area.
The Israeli army said it killed the head of Hezbollah's communications unit in strikes on southern Beirut on Thursday afternoon local time.
Avichay Adraj, the Arab spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said that Mohamad Rashid Skafi had been the group's communications chief since 2000.
Hezbollah has yet to issue a casualty statement following the Israeli attacks in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday.
A UN refugee agency official said most of Lebanon's nearly 900 shelters are full and people fleeing Israeli attacks are increasingly sleeping in the open.
"Most of the nearly 900 collective shelters established by the Lebanese government no longer have capacity," UNHCR's Rula Amin told a briefing in Geneva.
"With the arrival of winter, UNHCR is concerned that conditions for those affected by the escalating conflict will further deteriorate," reports Reuters. her words to journalists.
According to the Lebanese government, more than 300.000 people - the vast majority of them Syrians - have crossed from Lebanon into Syria in the past 10 days to escape increasing Israeli bombardment.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran's attack on Israel on Tuesday was "minimum punishment" for Israel for its "horrific crimes".
Khamenei called Israel a "vampire" regime, adding that the Islamic Republic will carry out "all its obligations in this regard" against Israel with "strength and courage", reports the BBC.
Khamenei said Iran's missile attack on Israel was "legal and legitimate".
"The operation of our armed forces a few nights ago was completely legal and legitimate," he said, adding that his country would not "delay or rush to carry out its duties" in dealing with Israel.
He said that the enemy of Iran is also the enemy of the Palestinian state, Lebanon and other Muslim nations, and called on the Muslim nations to "tie a belt of defense" from Afghanistan to Yemen and from Iran to the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Iran's supreme leader described the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year, which killed 1.200 people, as a legitimate "act".
"The Palestinian people have a legitimate right to defend themselves. To stand up to these criminals - the occupying forces. There is no court or international organization that can blame the Palestinian people for simply defending their homeland," he said.
Khamenei assessed that Israel "pretends to win strategically through assassinations and murders of civilians" and said that Israel cannot seriously harm either Hezbollah or Hamas.
Israeli police said that a rocket attack by Hezbollah caused extensive damage in the north of the country.
Earlier, the Israeli army announced that it had identified nearly twenty missiles that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
Police officials said they received reports of several areas hit by rocket fire across Kiryat Shmona and the Lower Galilee, with reports of extensive damage. Several fires broke out, but no injuries were reported.
Police officers and bomb disposal teams were at the sites of the attacks.
Firefighting teams worked to put out the fire that broke out after a direct hit to a garage in Kiryat Shmona, according to a statement from the Fire Protection and Rescue Service.
"Firefighters are working to extinguish the fire that broke out on the spot, preventing it from spreading to nearby buildings and searching the area for the injured," the statement said.
Hezbollah said it targeted Kiryat Shmona with a rocket attack "in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to barbaric Israeli attacks on towns, villages and civilians."
Halil Al-Haja, the top Hamas leader outside Gaza, gave an interview to the BBC in Doha, where most of the Palestinian militant group's political leadership is based.
He explained why Hamas carried out the attacks on October 7, in which about 1.200 Israelis and foreigners, mostly civilians, were killed and about 250 people were taken hostage.
"We had to alarm the world, to tell them that we are a nation with a goal and demands. It was a blow to Israel - the Zionist enemy and a wake-up call to the international community. We had to do something to tell the world that there is a nation that has been under occupation for decades." , he pointed out.
When asked why Hamas killed so many civilians, including children, Al-Haja claimed that Hamas fighters were ordered not to target civilians.
"There were certainly personal mistakes on the field -- fighters may have felt their lives were in danger," he said.
Most of the Israeli victims were civilians, killed in their homes, on the streets of their communities and elsewhere along the wide swath of territory bordering Gaza.
Al-Haja was asked if it was worth it, since today Gaza is in ruins, more than 40.000 people are dead, and Hamas's ability to fight Israel has been significantly reduced.
Who is responsible for this? The occupation and its army. Who is destroying Gaza? destroy all of Gaza? Is that not enough for them? But they are motivated by the desire to kill, occupy and destroy," he replied.
Al-Haja said a truce was "within reach" on July 2, but those talks collapsed after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set "new conditions".
He added that Israel wants to "eliminate" Hamas and all Palestinians.
"Give us our rights, give us a fully sovereign Palestinian state," he said.
Over the summer, Al-Haja was reported to have led indirect negotiations with Israel on a Gaza ceasefire with the guidance of the group's leader, Yahya Sinvar.
The Lebanese army said its soldiers returned fire after one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli attack on a military facility in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the Guardian reports.
The soldier was killed "as a result of an attack by the Israeli enemy on a military center in the Bint Jbeil - South area, and members of the military station returned fire," the Lebanese army said on Friday.
Another Lebanese soldier was killed in a separate incident Thursday while conducting a rescue and evacuation mission with the Red Cross, according to a military statement.
Iran's foreign minister has arrived in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's official National News Agency.
"At this moment, the Iranian plane has arrived at Rafik Hariri International Airport, where Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi is," NNA reported.
Aragchi will meet with the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Najib Mikati, and the Speaker of the Parliament, Nabih Beri.
Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health announced that 37 people were killed in Israeli ground and air strikes in the last 24 hours, while 151 people were wounded.
The Lebanese Red Cross today called on people to donate blood to help save the lives of the injured.
The United Nations Security Council has extended its "full support" to the body's Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after Israel denied him hospitality.
The 15-member Security Council states in a statement that "any decision not to cooperate with the UN Secretary General or the United Nations is counterproductive, especially in the context of escalating tensions in the Middle East," although they did not directly implicate Israel.
Gold prices rose today due to the conflict in the Middle East.
Geopolitical tensions, particularly with Israel and Iran, have pushed up gold prices and unless these risks abate, prices are likely to remain near record levels, said Ajay Kedia, director of Kedia Komoditis in Mumbai.
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Israel's military launched a series of strikes on southern Beirut on Thursday night, in one of the most intense bombardments of the city since the campaign began last week, targeting a potential successor to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
A source close to Hezbollah told the AFP news agency that Israel carried out 11 consecutive attacks on the group's stronghold in the Lebanese capital.
Hashim Safiyedin, the most likely candidate to replace Hassan Nasrallah as the leader of Hezbollah and the current chairman of the organization's executive council, was the target of these attacks, the New York Times and Axios reported, citing Israeli officials.
The outcome of the attack, which is said to have targeted a meeting of senior Hezbollah officials, is still unclear.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will lead a memorial service for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as part of Friday's Friday prayers in Tehran, CNN reports.
It will be the first time Khamenei has led the prayer in nearly five years, and he is expected to reveal Iran's plans in the wake of the massive rocket attack on Israel in a public address.
Nasrallah was killed a week ago in an Israeli attack on the underground headquarters of this militant group in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
A senior commander of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Abbas Nilforushan, was killed along with Nasrallah and other Hezbollah commanders. His death will also be commemorated during Jumu'ah prayers.
Khamenei last led Friday prayers in January 2020, after Iran fired missiles at a US military base in Iraq in response to an attack that killed Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani.
US President Joe Biden told reporters that he does not believe that there will be a total war in the Middle East, but that a lot still needs to be done.
"How confident are you that it won't rain? Look, I don't believe there will be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it. But there's still a lot to do, a lot," he replied when asked if he was confident it wouldn't lead to a general conflict, reports the Guardian.
Asked if he would send US troops to help Israel, the US president said: "We have already helped Israel. We will continue to protect it."
On Thursday, Biden said his administration was "considering" possible Israeli attacks on Iran's oil facilities, sending oil prices soaring.
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