More than 3.000 people have died in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced today.
The announcement adds that at least 13.492 people were wounded.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel a day after Hamas's surprise attack on southern Israeli territory on October 7 last year, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict escalated dramatically on September 23 with intense Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, killing hundreds and displacing nearly 1,2 million people.
Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon on October 1 and caused widespread destruction in border villages, but made little progress on the ground in that country.
In Israel, 72 people, 30 of them soldiers, died in Hezbollah attacks.
(Beta)
The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced today that ambulances can no longer operate in the north of the Palestinian enclave, where a new Israeli offensive has been ongoing for almost a month.
Ejad Zakut, an official of the Ministry told reporters that many wounded people are bleeding in the streets.
The Ministry's statement stated that Israeli forces continue to bomb Kamal Advan Hospital and that some employees and patients were injured. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.
The civil defense in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, announced last Sunday that it could no longer operate in the north because its members were being fired upon by Israeli forces.
Israel launched its latest offensive in northern Gaza in early October, focusing on the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp, where Hamas is said to have regrouped.
The Israeli army is also attacking nearby Beit Lahia.
The entire population of northern Gaza has been ordered to evacuate by the army, and tens of thousands have fled to Gaza City in recent weeks.
Three hospitals in the north are barely functioning and largely inaccessible due to the fighting.
Israeli forces raided one of them, claiming it was occupied by extremists, which Palestinian officials denied.
Israel has sharply reduced the aid it delivers to Gaza, even after the US warned that it could jeopardize military support for the country.
(BETA)
Al Jazeera reports that Israel attacked the Syrian capital Damascus.
The attack came hours after Israeli special forces captured a man in Syria accused of helping an Iranian network gather intelligence on targets in Israel, the military said.
"The operation prevented a future attack and led to the discovery of the operational methods of Iranian terrorist networks located near the Golan Heights," the Israeli military said in a statement on Platform X.
Gaza's health ministry said it may be making its "last call for help" as the Israeli army continues to pressurize the Kamal Advan hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
The ministry says Israeli soldiers "continue to bombard and destroy" the hospital, affecting all its facilities.
"There are many injured among medical staff and patients. Medical staff cannot move between hospital wards and cannot save their injured colleagues," the ministry said.
An Israeli court said the breakdown in peace talks between Israel and Hamas may have been caused by the leaking and falsification of documents involving a close aide to the prime minister.
The leaked documents, published by Britain's Jewish Chronicle and Germany's Bild tabloid, came at a crucial time for the hostage negotiations.
The documents claimed that Hamas was planning to smuggle Israeli hostages into Egypt, jeopardizing any peace deal.
More than 100 hostages out of a total of 251 taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023 are still in captivity and their location remains unknown.
Commentators say the documents were leaked to protect Netanyahu, who faces the possibility of prosecution for allegedly accepting bribes, the Guardian reports.
Benny Gantz, who was until recently in Netanyahu's war cabinet, said that if classified security information was used for a "campaign of political survival" it was not only a crime but a "crime against the nation".
Opposition leader Jair Lapid said that if the prime minister was aware of the information leak, "he is complicit in one of the most serious security violations", and that if he was not aware, he should not be in that position.
The families of the hostages said this was "an unending moral low. This is a fatal breach of what remains of trust between the government and its citizens."
A resident of a building damaged in the attack in Al-Bira, in the occupied West Bank, during which several cars were set on fire, told Agence France-Presse that ten people, who he said were Jewish settlers, poured liquid on the vehicles and then set them on fire.
He shouted from his apartment, so the settlers fled for a while, and when he went out with his neighbors to put out the fire, the settlers shot at them, reports Beta.
The governor of Ramallah and Al-Bira, Lajla Ganam, told reporters that there could have been a massacre in the building where more than 60 people live, and that the attacks are increasing because the residents are not punished.
About 490.000 Jewish settlers live in settlements in the occupied West Bank that are considered illegal under international law. About three million Palestinians also live in that territory.
Israeli media reported that during the attack, the words "War in Judea and Samaria" (the biblical name for the West Bank) were written on the walls. These terms are used by Jewish settlers and the Government of Israel.
According to Palestinian eyewitnesses, the attackers fled towards the nearby Jewish settlement of Beit El.
An Associated Press reporter counted 18 burning vehicles.
Lebanese MP Ali Kreis accused Israel of trying to turn the southern parts of the country into "burnt zones where there will be no living conditions even after the end of the war and attacks."
"These southern villages and cities are fighting against the Zionist machine. Lebanon said that we want to implement UN Resolution 1701 and that we want the Lebanese army to protect the borders and maintain security and stability, and that the presence of UNIFIL represents an international guarantee for the implementation of the international resolution Kreis stated after visiting the south of the country.
Israel's military claims it is carrying out "limited, localized, targeted strikes based on accurate intelligence in the wooded terrain along the border fence in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has gained a foothold," but Lebanese authorities say the death toll from Israeli airstrikes inside the country has exceeded 2.800. person, reports the Guardian.
Both Reuters and the Palestinian Wafa news agency report that medical sources in Gaza have informed those agencies that seven people were killed today in an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. Numerous people have been reported as injured, while some are missing.
Reuters reports that three people were killed in an Israeli attack on a house in the Nusairat camp in Gaza. Referring to local medical sources, the total number of dead in Gaza today reaches ten people.
Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs today condemned the "destabilizing presence" of the US in the Middle East, as Washington announced the deployment of B-52 strategic bombers in the region to defend Israel, Iran's sworn enemy.
"We have always believed that the American presence in the region is a destabilizing presence," Iranian diplomacy spokesman Esmail Bagai told a news conference.
Last Sunday, the Pentagon announced the arrival of US B-52 bombers and other forces in the Middle East to "defend Israel", a close US ally, and warned Iran.
"Increasing the (American) presence will create more tension and certainly will not affect our determination to defend ourselves," Bagai said, responding to a question about the arrival of American bombers.
On October 26, Israeli planes attacked military facilities in Iran in retaliation for Iran's launch of rockets into Israel on October 1.
Iran reported "limited damage" and added that four soldiers were killed, as well as one civilian.
Tehran presented its attack as a response to the killing of the leaders of the Islamist movements Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip.
Iran and Israel have been exchanging threats as the Israeli military battles Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a movement allied with Iran.
(BETA)
Israel's Haaretz reports that the arrests are continuing after a joint investigation by the police, internal security services and the army on suspicion of "endangering national security".
An Israeli court ruled Sunday night that leaking military intelligence to the prime minister's office and then to foreign media could jeopardize the security services' ability to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
The court approved the publication of the name of Eli Feldstein, a spokesman from Netanyahu's circle, who is a suspect in this case. It was also revealed that the other three detained persons who are being questioned are members of the security establishment.
Haaretz reports that the Shin Bet made another arrest today.
The Israeli military released a statement claiming to have killed the commander of the Radwan Hezbollah anti-tank missile system.
Calling him Riyad Rida Gazawi, the IDF said he "planned and carried out a significant number of terrorist attacks, including firing anti-tank missiles at Israeli civilians and at Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon," the Guardian reports.
Since October 1, the Israeli army has been making incursions inside Lebanon, claiming that the targets of the attacks are members of Hezbollah.
Lebanese authorities say more than 2.800 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the past month.
Earlier today, Israel also said it had killed a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon's Barachit area, identified as Abu Ali Rida.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza released updated casualty figures, saying 33 Palestinians were killed and 156 injured in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours.
The ministry claims this brings the total number of people killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel began its military campaign against Hamas in October last year to 43.374, while 102.261 people have been wounded.
Germany has called on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to enter northern Gaza, where a lack of basic resources has led to a "desperate" and "unbearable" situation, a German foreign ministry spokesman said.
"We urgently call on the Israeli government to fulfill its obligations under international law," Reuters reported, citing a spokesman's statement at a regular press conference in Berlin, adding: "Israel has the right to self-defense against Hamas under humanitarian international law."
Earlier today, Israel announced that it had officially notified the UN of the ban on the Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) operating inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that thousands of people gathered in Halhul, north of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, for the funeral of a 14-year-old child who was shot dead by Israeli security forces.
Israeli media reports that around 50 rockets have been fired at Israel from Lebanese territory so far during the day.
A burst of 20 rockets was aimed at the western Galilee, while 30 were fired at the upper Galilee.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their homes in the north of Israel, and Benjamin Netanyahu's government lists securing their safe return as one of the goals of its campaign in Lebanon, the Guardian reports.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israel continued its attack on Gaza overnight, stating that "local sources reported a series of consecutive explosions north of the Nusairat refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip, while occupation warplanes targeted the town of Rafah in the south."
Wafa states that there are dead and wounded after the attack. According to medical sources at Kamal Advan Hospital in northern Gaza, one child was injured. They stated for this news agency that "artillery fire targeted the hospital wards, the children's ward, the hospital yard and the water tanks".
Palestinian media sources also report that between 15 and 20 cars were set on fire in Al Bireh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, called this incident "a crime by terrorist settler militias," reports the Wafa agency.
The Times of Israel reports that Israeli police said they had launched an investigation.
The Wafa agency also reports that one person was wounded after Israeli security forces opened fire near Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and that Israel detained a man in Beituniya, west of Ramallah.
The Israeli army said it had killed a senior commander of Hezbollah, the militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon, writes AFP.
Israel accused him of overseeing air and anti-tank missile attacks on Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Abu Ali Rida, a Hezbollah commander in the Barachi area of southern Lebanon, was "eliminated" in an airstrike, the Israeli military said, without giving further details.
Rida "was responsible for planning and executing aerial and anti-tank missile attacks on the Israeli army and oversaw the terrorist activities of Hezbollah operatives in the area," Israel said in a statement.
Israel has continued to attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since fighting between the two sides intensified in late September. In October, Israel even launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
In recent weeks, Israel has killed several commanders of Hezbollah, a group the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, while the European Union has blacklisted only the military wing, but not the group's political party. The Hezbollah party has seats in the Lebanese parliament.
Among the leaders killed by Israel was the group's previous leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
(Radio Free Europe)
Iran and Azerbaijan, two neighboring countries with strained relations in recent years, are holding joint naval exercises in the Caspian Sea today, Iranian state media reported.
That "combined aid and rescue exercise in the Caspian Sea" will be completed tomorrow, and is being organized by the Iranian Navy, the IRNA agency reported.
The exercises are taking place in Bandar Anzali, a city located in northwestern Iran. Two ships of the Azerbaijani Navy are to join the Iranian destroyer Deilaman, Irna added.
Relations between the two countries worsened in January 2023 when a gunman stormed the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, killing a diplomat and wounding two security guards.
In retaliation, Baku declared four employees of the Iranian embassy in Azerbaijan persona non grata in April 2023.
A month later, Iran expelled four Azerbaijani diplomats.
Relations between the two countries have traditionally been tense.
Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, is a close ally of Turkey, Iran's historical rival, but also of Israel, Iran's sworn enemy.
Israel is the main supplier of arms to Azerbaijan.
Analysts believe that the territory of Azerbaijan could be used for a possible Israeli offensive against Iran, which Baku denied.
(BETA)
Today, Israel officially informed the United Nations about the cancellation of the agreement with the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced after the decision of the parliament that voted to end cooperation.
"According to the instructions of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the UN about the cancellation of the agreement between the State of Israel and UNRWA," the statement said.
Israel has previously accused UNRWA of pretending not to notice extremists among its staff, which the UN agency has denied.
(BETA)
Bonus video:
