Middle East latest: Dozens killed in Gaza as Israel says it targeted a weapons facility
Israeli strikes killed not less than 30 folks in Gaza, together with on a house the place displaced households had been sheltering, based on Palestinian well being officers.
Ten folks had been killed early Tuesday, together with 4 kids and two girls, and a strike late Monday on the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya killed at least 20 people, together with eight girls and 6 kids, well being officers mentioned.
The Israeli navy mentioned it targeted a weapons storage facility from which a militant had operated, and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Israel has been waging a huge offensive in northern Gaza — which was already probably the most remoted and closely destroyed a part of the territory — for practically a month.
Regardless of growing pressure from the United States and others in the worldwide group for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes in opposition to the Hezbollah militant group are increasing beyond Lebanon’s border areas. Israel can also be combating a seemingly endless war in opposition to Hamas in northern Gaza.
For the reason that battle between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, not less than 3,000 folks have been killed and a few 13,500 wounded in Lebanon, the Well being Ministry reviews.
Greater than a 12 months of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed greater than 43,000 folks, Palestinian well being officers say. They don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, however say greater than half of these killed had been girls and kids. The warfare started after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 folks — principally civilians — and abducting 250 others.
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UNITED NATIONS — Northern Gaza has been beneath “a near-total brutal siege” for the previous month and Palestinian civilians are ravenous whereas the world watches, the performing U.N. humanitarian chief mentioned Tuesday.
Joyce Msuya mentioned in a put up on X that Israeli navy floor operations have left Palestinians with out the necessities to outlive, compelled them to flee for security a number of occasions, and reduce off their escape and provide routes.
“These atrocities must stop,” she mentioned.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric advised reporters that the humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, visited the Al Moumanya faculty in Gaza Metropolis on Tuesday. The varsity was run by the U.N. company serving to Palestinian refugees recognized as UNRWA and is now sheltering a whole lot of households, most of whom fled the north.
Hadi advised U.N. Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres that situations in the college “are unbearable,” saying households lack meals, water and functioning bogs and are crammed into very overcrowded amenities. the U.N. spokesman mentioned.
Hadi advised the U.N. chief that “sewage at the school is running everywhere, and waste is everywhere,” Dujarric mentioned.
BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike that hit an condominium constructing in a village south of Beirut killed not less than 15 folks, Lebanon’s Well being Ministry mentioned Tuesday.
The ministry mentioned the toll isn’t closing and operations to rescue folks from beneath the rubble are ongoing.
Lebanon’s state information company mentioned the airstrike hit an space recognized as Barja simply north of the port metropolis of Sidon. It was not instantly clear what the goal of the airstrike was.
Earlier on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike killed one individual and wounded 20 others in the close by city of Jiyeh.
Each assaults hit areas that haven’t been a common goal of Israeli navy operations and had not acquired prior evacuation warnings
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed his common protection minister, Yoav Gallant, in a shock announcement that got here as the nation is embroiled in wars on a number of fronts throughout the area.
The transfer sparked protests throughout the nation.
Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds over the warfare in Gaza. However Netanyahu had prevented firing his rival earlier than taking the step as the world’s consideration was targeted on the U.S. presidential election. Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” between the boys in his Tuesday night announcement.
Within the early days of the warfare, Israel’s management introduced a unified entrance as it responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault. However as the warfare has dragged on and unfold to Lebanon, key coverage variations have emerged.
The White Home on Tuesday declined to touch upon Netanyahu’s determination to oust the protection minister however referred to as Gallant “an important partner on all matters related to the defense of Israel.”
“As close partners, we will continue to work collaboratively with Israel’s next Minister of Defense,” the White Home Nationwide Safety Council mentioned in a assertion.
ARIDA, Lebanon — Israel’s escalated aerial bombardment of Lebanon has pushed over half a million folks to cross the border into Syria, overwhelming already strained sources.
Among the many arrivals, an estimated 7,000 are pregnant, with about 800 anticipated to offer delivery throughout the subsequent month, Muriel Mafico, the consultant of the United Nations Inhabitants Fund in Syria, advised The Related Press.
“The majority of the people who arrived in Syria are women and children,” she mentioned. “Once again, it is women and children who are paying a heavy price.”
Mafico mentioned the UNFPA, together with its worldwide and native companions, is offering companies on the border as nicely as following up on these girls who’re ending up in shelters or staying with family in Syria.
However, she mentioned, “the response so far is less than adequate due to the constraints on resources that we have.”
The Lebanese General Security recorded 361,300 Syrians and 177,864 Lebanese crossing into Syria between Sept. 23 and Nov. 1, according to a report by Lebanon’s crisis response unit.
JIYEH, Lebanon — An Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in a coastal town south of Beirut killed at least one person, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
The ministry said 20 others were wounded in the strike Tuesday in Jiyeh, around 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the port of Sidon.
The attack hit an area that has not been a regular target of Israeli military operations and had not received prior evacuation warnings.
“It felt like it was inside the house,” Malika Al Hajj, an elderly woman living in the area, told The Associated Press. “I ran away — I don’t even know which neighbor brought me out, because everything was black. You couldn’t see anything.”
Once outside, Hajj said she discovered that the strike had hit the nearby building where her nephews live.
“Men, women and children” reside inside, she mentioned. “I just want to be reassured. I saw some of them, but the others, they told me, were taken to the hospital.”
At the site of the strike, the building’s skeletal frame stands amid the rubble, its concrete shattered, windows blown out and metal twisted from the impact.
Families were seen leaving the area, carrying what belongings they could gather.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it conducted an airstrike on a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in Syria on Tuesday.
The military said the strike targeted the facility run by Hezbollah’s munitions unit in the Syrian town of al-Qusayr, near the border with Lebanon. It said Hezbollah had recently expanded its facilities in the area to step up weapons smuggling into Lebanon from Syria.
The strikes hit an industrial zone in al-Qusayr, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a conflict-monitoring group. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria over recent years, primarily targeting government-controlled areas, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses these operations. The strikes often target Syrian forces or Iranian-backed groups.
On Monday, an Israeli airstrike struck near the Sayida Zeinab suburb, south of Damascus, an area where Iran-backed groups are active. The Israeli military claimed responsibility for killing the head of Hezbollah’s military branch in Syria, whom it identified as Mahmoud Mohammed Shaheen.
For the past month, Israel has been carrying out an escalated bombardment campaign in Lebanon, aiming to cripple the Hezbollah militant group, which is allied with Syria and Iran. Israel has also launched ground incursions just across the Israel-Lebanon border, saying it aims to put an end to a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Dozens of Palestinians trickled southward from war-ravaged northern Gaza, recounting how they had hardly eaten in days with aid long cut off to the area under heavy Israeli bombardment and military campaign.
Leaving the far northern town of Beit Lahiya, the families — mostly women and children — dragged rucksacks and satchels with belongings as they walked down a street entering Gaza City, where every building had been completely flattened or partially destroyed.
“We came barefoot. We have no sandals, no clothes, nothing. We have no money. There is no food or drink,” mentioned Huda Abu Laila.
Israel launched a recent offensive in northern Gaza in early October, specializing in Jabaliya, a densely populated, decades-old city refugee camp the place it says Hamas had regrouped. Different areas additionally hit embrace Beit Lahyia and Beit Hanoun, located simply north of Gaza Metropolis, like Jabaliya.
The U.N. estimated final week that some 100,000 folks stay in the affected space. It has mentioned no assist has reached the far north of the enclave for weeks. On Monday, the Palestinian Well being Ministry in Gaza mentioned that there are not any ambulances or emergency crews at present working north of Gaza Metropolis.
Israel has repeatedly issued evacuation warnings for the whole thing of northern Gaza, together with Gaza Metropolis, the place a number of hundred thousand extra Palestinians stay.
GENEVA — The World Well being Group says it’s working to rearrange medical evacuations for greater than 100 folks from Gaza on Wednesday, which might be the biggest such operation of its variety in six months.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO consultant for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, mentioned the U.N. well being company was serving to coordinate the evacuations via the Kerem Shalom crossing primarily based on a record of precedence candidates drawn up by the Well being Ministry in Gaza.
Talking by video from Gaza to reporters in Geneva, Peeperkorn mentioned medical evacuations have been organized for 282 folks since Israeli forces compelled the closure of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Might 6.
Earlier than the Rafah closure, practically 4,700 folks had been ferried out of Gaza in medical evacuations because the Oct. 7 assaults final 12 months, he mentioned.
The biggest one since Might concerned 97 individuals who had been evacuated on Sept. 11. Hundreds of individuals stay on ready lists to get out.
WHO mentioned folks with power situations like most cancers as sufferers from trauma circumstances – accidents — had been amongst these to be evacuated. Peeperkorn mentioned most can be taken to the United Arab Emirates for additional care, whereas about 30 had been to go to Romania. (edited)
ISLAMABAD — Iran’s overseas minister on Tuesday reiterated that his nation doesn’t search an escalation in the Middle East however reserved the suitable to defend itself in opposition to Israel’s assault with a “measured and calculative” response.
Iranian officers are more and more threatening to launch one more strike in opposition to Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted navy bases and different places and killed not less than 5 folks.
Iranian International Minister Abbas Araghchi, talking at a information convention throughout a go to to Pakistan, mentioned that “unlike the Israeli regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not seek escalation.”
“We reserve our inherent rights to legitimate defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and we will certainly respond to the Israeli aggression in a proper time and in a proper manner in a very measured and very calculated manner,” he mentioned.
Araghchi met with Pakistan’s International Minister Ishaq Dar, who referred to as for an pressing cease-fire to de-escalate tensions in the area.
BEIRUT — The Lebanese Purple Cross will ship one other convoy Tuesday to Wata al-Khiam in southern Lebanon to seek for and take away the our bodies of 15 folks killed in an Israeli airstrike, Lebanon’s state-run Nationwide Information Company mentioned.
Paramedics accessed the positioning of the strike two days prior and eliminated 5 different our bodies, however wanted to return with bigger automobiles to take away the rubble. The NNA mentioned the deployment is in coordination with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, recognized as UNIFIL, which is the standard process.
The Purple Cross didn’t instantly touch upon the information, however expressed concern in current weeks over a number of cases the place Israel has struck in or near areas the place they’ve deployed paramedics to seek for wounded folks and casualties.
The Israeli navy mentioned it issued warnings to the residents there in late October to evacuate forward of strikes on Hezbollah militant targets, and advised ambulances to keep away from the world.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medical officers say an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip has killed not less than 20 folks, principally girls and kids.
Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of a close by hospital that acquired the casualties, mentioned the strike late Monday hit a house in the city of Beit Lahiya the place a number of households had been sheltering.
The lifeless included eight girls and 6 kids, based on a record supplied by the Gaza Well being Ministry’s emergency service.
The Israeli navy mentioned it targeted a weapons storage facility from which a militant had operated, and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Israel has been waging a huge offensive in northern Gaza — which was already probably the most remoted and closely destroyed a part of the territory — for practically a month. It ordered the whole evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the close by city of Beit Hanoun, and the city Jabaliya refugee camp, and has allowed virtually no humanitarian assist into the world for over a month.
Tens of 1000’s of individuals have fled to close by Gaza Metropolis in the most recent wave of displacement in the warfare, which started when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officers say Israeli strikes early Tuesday killed 10 folks in the Gaza Strip, together with 4 kids and two girls.
One strike hit a home in the Tufah neighborhood in Gaza Metropolis, killing two kids and their mother and father, based on the Gaza Well being Ministry’s emergency service. Two different kids had been wounded, it mentioned.
Within the central city of Zuweida, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent the place a displaced household was sheltering, killing 4 folks, together with a mom and her two kids, based on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the close by metropolis of Deir al-Balah.
One other strike hit a home in Deir al-Balah, killing two folks, the hospital mentioned.
An Related Press journalist counted the our bodies on the hospital morgue.
The Israeli navy says it solely targets militants and accuses them of hiding amongst civilians. It not often feedback on particular person strikes, which frequently kill girls and kids.
The warfare started when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 folks, principally civilians, and taking one other 250 hostage. Round 100 hostages are nonetheless inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be lifeless.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, based on the Gaza Well being Ministry, which says over half had been girls and kids. It doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
RAMALLAH, West Financial institution — Palestinian officers say Israeli forces have killed 4 folks in the occupied West Bank.
Two had been killed in an airstrike early Tuesday close to the northern metropolis of Jenin, a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence in current years. Two different folks had been fatally shot in the village of Tamoun, based on the Palestinian Well being Ministry.
The Israeli navy mentioned it referred to as in an airstrike on a militant cell close to Jenin. It additionally mentioned it killed two armed militants in an airstrike in the Tamoun space.
Israeli forces have carried out near-daily navy raids in the West Financial institution since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault out of the Gaza Strip triggered the Israel-Hamas warfare. The Well being Ministry says not less than 767 Palestinians have been killed in the West Financial institution since then. Most seem to have been militants killed in battles with Israeli forces, however the lifeless additionally embrace civilian bystanders and people killed during protests.
Israel says the raids are aimed toward dismantling Hamas in the West Financial institution and stopping assaults. Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, capturing and car-ramming assaults in opposition to Israelis because the begin of the warfare.
Israel captured the West Financial institution in the 1967 Mideast warfare, and the Palestinians need it to type the principle a part of their future state.