At least 29 people were killed today in Israeli strikes in several areas across Lebanon, especially in strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced.
The Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah opened a front against Israel on October 8, 2023 in support of the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
After almost a year of cross-border shooting, the situation escalated into open war on September 23, when the Israeli army carried out a campaign of powerful strikes in Lebanon.
The main targets of the strikes are Hezbollah strongholds in the south and east of the country, but some also hit regions where Hezbollah is not traditionally located.
Today, 12 people were killed and eight were wounded in the mountainous area of Shuf, south of Beirut, the Ministry of Health reported.
Lebanon's national news agency Ani reported that the strike was aimed at a residential building where displaced people who fled Israeli bombardments were housed.
A few kilometers to the north in the mountainous area of Alej, east of Beirut, eight people were killed and more were wounded, according to the ministry.
A security source told AFP that the strike was aimed at the villa where the displaced were taking refuge.
In the south of Lebanon, where since September 30 the Israeli army has been making incursions into Lebanese territory, seven people were killed in strikes aimed at the towns of Tefahta and Rumin, the ministry reported.
Israel has also targeted the major city of Nabatieh as well as the coastal city of Tyre, which has been regularly bombed in recent days.
In addition, two people were killed in strikes in the Herel area of the eastern Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria and where Hezbollah has a stronghold.
On the other hand, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah announced that it fired rockets at an air base south of Tel Aviv in central Israel, as well as explosive drones at a military base near the city of Nahariya in the north of the country. Two residents of Nahariya were killed in a rocket attack, the Israeli city authorities said.
This morning, Israel carried out 13 airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to the Anna agency, and this followed Israel's call for evacuation in several districts of the city.
Since the end of September, Israeli aviation has regularly bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut, where between 600.000 and 800.000 people lived before that.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah terrorist targets in southern Beirut, and command centers, weapons production sites and other terrorist infrastructure.
According to the Lebanese authorities, more than 3.300 people have died since the beginning of the conflict in October 2023, most of them since September.
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog said during a meeting at the White House that Iran is an "evil empire" and should be the "primary target" of the US to ensure that the country and its allies do not achieve their intentions to destroy Israel and acquire nuclear weapons. .
Herzog met with US President Joseph Biden at a time of ongoing conflict and uncertainty in the Middle East.
He drew attention to today's airstrike from Lebanon in which two Israelis were killed.
In addition, he emphasized that it is necessary for Israel to return the 101 hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the attack on southern Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, in order to end the fighting in Gaza.
"First of all, we have to get the hostages back," Herzog said, and Biden said he agreed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the continuation of the war in Gaza until a "total victory" over Hamas and promised to bring home the hostages, but faced criticism that dozens of abductees were detained after more than a year of war.
Iran's allies, including the Palestinian Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah, are at war with Israel. The Yemeni Houthi rebels also intervened in the conflict, and Iran attacked Israel twice and that country retaliated.
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The Secretary of State of the United States of America (USA) Anthony Blinken has reportedly decided to continue the delivery of weapons to Israel in the foreseeable future before tomorrow's deadline for Jerusalem to significantly ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Two US officials told Axios that Israel has taken important steps to address the crisis, adding that they expect more to be done in the coming days.
In October, the administration of US President Joseph Biden sent a letter to Israel warning that it could ban the delivery of offensive weapons based on a US law that blocks the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in the conflict zone.
In the letter, Israel was given a deadline of 30 days from October 13 to take a series of steps that would alleviate the growing humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Israeli media remind.
Following Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election last week, the Biden administration's influence on Israel has been reduced, given that the president-elect is likely to drop the arms transfer ban when he returns to office in less than two months.
The Israeli army announced today that it is opening the fifth crossing for humanitarian aid to Gaza, which is one of the key demands of the US to Israel to increase humanitarian aid, the Associated Press reported.
The crossing across from Kibbutz Kisufim, the closest to the city of Deir al-Balah in Gaza, will allow the delivery of food, water and medical supplies and shelter equipment to the central and southern part of the enclave.
Israel has come under fire from aid organizations and the international community for not allowing enough aid to enter Gaza, causing residents to starve, especially in the northern part of the Palestinian territory.
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At least 20 people were killed and 13 injured in Israeli airstrikes in the area of Mount Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced today, Reuters reports.
In one attack on Joun in the Chouf district in the Lebanon Planiba area, 12 people were killed and eight were wounded, the ministry announced.
In the second, in the town of Balčmaj, eight people were killed and five wounded, the ministry added.
Fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement continued in Lebanon as the Israeli army launched airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday, carrying out one of the heaviest daily assaults yet on Hezbollah-held territory.
Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 24 people in the Gaza Strip in the past 31 hours, including 11 in a makeshift cafeteria in the so-called humanitarian zone, health officials said.
In Lebanon, Israeli warplanes targeted southern Beirut suburbs as residents were told to evacuate their homes.
The new attacks on both fronts come at a time when a deadline set by the US for Israel to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza expires, otherwise it risks limiting US military aid.
A group of eight international agencies assessed in today's report that Israel has not met the demands of the US.
Large explosions rocked the suburbs of Dahiya, south of Beirut, shortly after the call for the evacuation of 11 houses.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, and the Israeli military said they contained Hezbollah installations, which could not be confirmed by independent sources.
Late last night, the village of Ain Yacoub in northern Lebanon was attacked and at least 16 people were killed, the Lebanese Civil Defense said. Four Syrian refugees were among the victims, and ten people were wounded.
Israel has been intensively bombing Lebanon since the end of September and has announced that it will paralyze Hezbollah and stop the Lebanese extremist organization's cross-border fire.
Five people were killed in an attack on a house east of Beirut this afternoon. There were displaced people in it, among them children and women, France Press reported.
At the same time, Israel continues its attacks on Gaza, which have been latent for more than 13 months, and were triggered by the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israeli territory.
Late last night, an improvised cafeteria where displaced people used to come in Muvasi, the center of the humanitarian zone that Israel declared a few months ago, was attacked.
At least 11 people were killed, including two children, said officials at Naser Hospital, where the victims were taken. In the city of Khan Yunis, 11 more people were killed in an Israeli attack on a three-wheeled tuk-tuk with a trailer.
In another attack today on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, three people were killed, including a woman, and 11 were wounded, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the victims, the Associated Press reported.
In an attack on a group of people near the clinic managed by the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees in Deir al-Balah in the central part of Gaza, six people were killed, two of them children, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital announced. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attacks.
A few hours earlier, the army announced a small expansion of the humanitarian zone, calling for Palestinians to be evacuated from other parts of Gaza and sheltered there. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians took shelter in tents in Muwasi and the surrounding desert area of dunes and fields along the Mediterranean Sea.
Israeli forces have also been encircling the northernmost part of Gaza since early October, fighting members of the Islamist Hamas they say have regrouped there.
The army announced today that four soldiers were killed in Jabalia in the north, bringing the number of soldiers killed to 24 since the attack on the north began again.
Palestinian officials say hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, but the exact number is unknown because rescuers cannot reach buildings destroyed in the attacks. Israel has ordered residents to evacuate, but the UN estimates that around 70.000 remain.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced today that the number of dead Palestinians since the beginning of the war in Gaza has reached 43.665, and the number of wounded has reached 103.076.
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A drone from Lebanon hit a kindergarten near the city of Haifa in the north of Israel today, but not a single child was injured because they were in a bomb shelter at the time of the attack.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene of the attack saw the remains of the drone scattered on a children's playground.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah launched at least four drones during the day, and that the air force intercepted some of the drones.
Israeli media reported that a tree near the kindergarten was hit and that the drone exploded, causing minor damage to the building and fence, and that the windows of the kindergarten were broken.
Alarm sirens did not go off in the Haifa suburb, but employees, aware of nearby warnings, took the children to a shelter as a precaution.
Lebanese extremist Hezbollah has not yet claimed responsibility for the drones launched today, but it has confirmed that it fired rockets at Israel.
The Israeli military said it was investigating why the sirens did not go off in Nesher, where the checkpoint is located, although they were activated in other northern areas as the army intercepted the drones.
Drones pose a challenge to Israel's air defense systems and many such aircraft have evaded interception, causing damage and killing people.
Hezbollah began shelling northern Israel on October 8 last year in solidarity with the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Since the beginning of the conflict in Lebanon, more than 3.200 people have been killed and over 14.000 wounded, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
In Israel, 73 people were killed and more than 600 people were wounded by Hezbollah fire, according to data from the prime minister's office.
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At least 43.665 Palestinians have been killed and 103.076 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
Of that number, 62 Palestinians were killed and 147 were injured in the last 24 hours, the ministry said.
Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Beri, who is negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah, said that "there is no person in their right mind who can think that we will agree to a settlement or a solution that favors Israel at the expense of Lebanon and its sovereignty."
In the last 24 hours, contradictory statements about the ceasefire negotiations have been coming from Israel. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that "some progress" had been made, while Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday morning that "there will be no ceasefire or pause" in Lebanon.
According to leaked drafts of the cease-fire proposal published in Israeli media, Israel seeks to use Lebanese airspace at will, as well as the right to take offensive actions in Lebanon if it deems that Hezbollah is violating the terms of the cease-fire agreement, the Guardian reports.
These demands are considered to represent maximalist Israeli positions in future ceasefire negotiations and are expected to be rejected by Lebanese and Hezbollah officials, who see them as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.
On Tuesday morning, Israel carried out more than ten air strikes on Dahiya, a southern suburb of Beirut, which is the most intense bombardment of the city in recent weeks, the Guardian reports.
An Israeli military spokesman posted on social media maps of 11 buildings it claimed belonged to Hezbollah, and warned civilians to stay away. About 40 minutes after the warnings were issued, the bombardment began, and explosions were heard throughout the capital, followed by the sound of Israeli jets.
Video footage shows two missiles hitting a building at least ten stories high, leveling it completely. Among the destroyed places is a well-known restaurant, as well as a medical complex.
Al Jazeera reports that at least six people were killed in a new Israeli air strike on Gaza today.
The network states that the attack targeted "a crowded area near the Al Nor Mosque in the western part of the city of Deir Al Balaha in central Gaza" and that, in addition to the six dead, ten seriously injured were admitted to the American field hospital.
Benjamin Netanyahu's government banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reports that, again as an almost daily occurrence, Jewish worshipers entered the Al Aqsa Mosque compound and performed religious rites, which is prohibited.
Wafa describes this as a provocation, stating that dozens of people entered the site, revered in both Muslim and Jewish traditions, "under the protection of the Israeli occupation police."
A long-standing policy dictates that Jewish prayer is not allowed in the Muslim part of the site, which Jews call the Temple Mount.
In August, Israel's far-right Internal Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir walked into the site and said, contrary to official Israeli government policy, that "our policy is to allow Jewish prayers." He is still part of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned recent statements and calls by several Israeli officials to impose what they call "sovereignty" over the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
"The ministry sees these statements as a blatantly colonial and racist continuation of the ongoing campaign of extermination and forced displacement of the Palestinian people. These actions show a flagrant disregard for international legitimacy and consensus, especially on the two-state solution, and openly challenge the Arab-Islamic summit held yesterday in Riyadh and its resolution", according to the statement that the Embassy of Palestine provided to the media.
The Ministry emphasizes that the long-standing failure of the international community to implement United Nations resolutions on the Palestinian case, together with inaction to stop Israel's campaign of destruction, has encouraged the Israeli ruling right to intensify its systematic war crimes and grave violations aimed at erasing the Palestinian case by causing and undermining prospects for a solution with two states.
They urgently demand a decisive response from the United States and the world community, advocating for a decisive UN Security Council resolution granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations, ordering an immediate end to Israel's campaign of extermination, and establishing binding mechanisms for the implementation of the General Assembly resolution and the advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice.
"Furthermore, the Ministry emphasizes that imposing international sanctions on Israel, the occupying power, along with targeting its leaders, settlement advocates and extremist factions, is essential to halting Israel's relentless assault on Palestinian rights and ensuring a future based on justice and accountability," they conclude. in the statement.
Reuters reports that there have been at least five Israeli airstrikes on Beirut so far this morning.
Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, says at least 11 people were killed in an Israeli bombardment of a tent housing displaced people in Al Mawasi, west of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
"Among the dead were two children and three minors who were in a cafe watching their favorite team play football," he said.
Two other people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the northern part of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, adding that several people were still trapped under the rubble.
At least eight people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the northern part of Gaza City.
The Israeli military said it was investigating why the warning sirens did not sound after the drone entered Israel from Lebanon and crashed in Neshera, on the outskirts of Haifa.
The Times of Israel reports that "a drone launched from Lebanon hit a kindergarten, causing minor damage but no injuries. The children were sheltered despite the absence of a siren."
It is assumed that "employees may have received a warning from the civil protection command by telephone or heard sirens from other areas in the distance".
The IDF also stated on its official Telegram channel: "So far, no reports of injuries have been received."
Lebanese media reported that two people were killed and six were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Hermel, which is located in the northeast of the country near the border with Syria.
Israel has failed to comply with the US request to allow the Gaza Strip greater access to humanitarian aid, international humanitarian organizations said today, stating that conditions are currently worse than at any time since the start of Israeli attacks 13 months ago.
US President Joseph Biden's administration last month gave Israel 30 days to provide more food and other emergency aid to Gaza, threatening Tel Aviv that US military aid could be cut if it did not. The deadline expired today.
Israel has announced a series of steps, but US officials have recently hinted that Israel is still not doing enough, although no official measures have yet been announced.
New Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters yesterday that he is confident that "the issue will be resolved." The Biden administration may have less influence after the re-election of Donald Trump, who was a staunch supporter of Israel in his first term.
A report released today by eight international humanitarian organizations lists 19 measures in line with US demands. Israel is said to have failed to comply with 15, and to have only partially complied with four. "Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support for a humanitarian response, but at the same time took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, especially in the north of Gaza where the situation today is even more dire than a month ago," it said.
In an October 13 letter signed by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, they call on Israel to, among other things: allow at least 350 truckloads of goods to enter Gaza each day, open a fifth border crossing, allow people living in tents to coast to move inland before winter and to provide access for aid groups to hard-hit northern Gaza. It also calls on Israel to stop legislation that would hinder the work of the UN Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA).
Reports from "Anera", "Care", "MedGlobal", "Mercy Corps", "Norwegian Refugee Council", "Oxfam", "Refugees International" and "Save the Children".
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Newly appointed Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said there will be no ceasefire or pause in Lebanon, where Israel has carried out a series of airstrikes and ground incursions in recent weeks. More than 3.000 people died.
"The warning and strong actions carried out by the Israeli army and security agencies against Hezbollah, as well as the elimination of Nasrallah, are a picture of victory and offensive activities should be continued in order to weaken Hezbollah's capability and realize the fruits of victory," Katz wrote on social networks.
"There will be no ceasefire or pause in Lebanon. We will continue to strike Hezbollah with full force until the goals of the war are achieved. Israel will not agree to any deal that does not guarantee Israel's right to carry out and prevent terrorism on its own soil, as well as the achievement of the goals of the war in Lebanon, which include the disarmament of Hezbollah and their retreat beyond the Litani River, as well as the safe return of northerners to their homes," he added.
Katz was appointed defense minister last week after Benjamin Netanyahu fired Yoav Galant, citing disagreements over strategy.
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expressed hope on Monday that Israel will extend its sovereignty to the occupied West Bank next year, and announced that he will ask the government to seek the support of the new US President Donald Trump in this, reports Reuters.
Smotrič is also responsible for the security of settlers in the West Bank within the Ministry of Defense, which was part of the coalition agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Smotrich said he hopes the new Trump administration will support Israel's goal of expanding sovereignty.
For years, the minister has been calling for expansion into the occupied West Bank, the territory the Palestinians want under their future state.
Smotrich told a meeting of his far-right party that he instructed Israeli authorities in charge of settlements in the West Bank to "begin professional and extensive staff work to prepare the necessary infrastructure" for the expansion of sovereignty, his office said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a separate statement that the government has not yet made any decision in that direction, although settler leaders are confident that Trump will support such moves.
"The last time we talked about this issue was in the first term of President Trump," Sar said, then announced that it might be "discussed again with friends in Washington."
The United States has supported the two-state solution of Israel and Palestine for decades and has urged Israel not to expand settlements.
The West Bank is one of the territories that Israel conquered in the 1967 war.
Most of the world powers consider the Israeli settlement of those areas illegal. Israel disputes this, citing its historic claim to the West Bank and describing it as a security bulwark.
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The Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced this morning that at least 14 people were killed in several Israeli attacks on the Palestinian territory.
"At least 14 people were killed and dozens more injured this morning after several (Israeli) attacks on the Gaza Strip," Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told AFP.
The Israeli army announced this morning that four soldiers were killed in the north of the Gaza Strip.
This brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed in the Palestinian territory to 376 since the start of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip on October 27, 2023.
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