Summary of the day so far
It’s 9.30pm in Tel Aviv, Gaza and Beirut. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Senior US officials have held talks in Israel aimed at brokering a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Two senior US envoys, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to talk about a ceasefire proposal for Lebanon. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said negotiators made “good progress” toward a deal. “We’re hopeful that we will see things transition in Lebanon in a not too distant future,” US defense secretary Lloyd Austin said.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, who had expressed optimism of a speedy settlement “in hours or days” earlier on Thursday, said that Israel’s “ongoing escalation” in his country “does not inspire optimism”. Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister “made it clear that the main point is not this or that agreement on paper but Israel’s ability and determination to enforce the agreement and thwart any threat to its security from Lebanon, in a manner that will return our residents securely to their homes”.
Thursday marked a day when more civilians in both Israel and Lebanon were killed since October 2023. The Lebanese health ministry said that Israeli attacks had killed 45 people in the previous 24 hours, amid bombing in the north-east Bekaa valley and infantry battles in the south. In one Bekaa village, eight people were killed from the same family. In northern Israel, seven people were killed by rocket fire from Lebanon, including four Thai agricultural workers.
The Israeli army’s evacuation call for several areas of south Lebanon on Thursday included a Palestinian refugee camp. Among the areas listed was Rashidieh camp, which houses thousands of Palestinian refugees. Israel issued its second evacuation order for the city of Baalbek and two surrounding villages in the Bekaa valley on Thursday afternoon, carrying out a series of airstrikes on the village of Durous a few hours later. The evacuation orders had prompted a mass exodus of residents from the city, which is home to a Unesco world heritage site.
Israeli attacks killed at least one child in Lebanon each day and injured 10 others, the UN children’s agency (Unicef) said. Citing the Lebanese health ministry, Unicef said 166 children have been killed since October 2023, while at least 1,168 have been injured. It awrned that the war in Lebanon is “inflicting severe physical wounds and deep emotional scars” on many of the country’s children. Six Lebanese health workers were killed and four wounded in Israeli strikes across south Lebanon on Thursday, the health ministry said in a statement.
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 43,204 Palestinians and injured 101,641 since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The toll includes 41 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry.
Palestinian authorities said three people had been killed in an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday. The Israeli army said it was targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, and had killed a Hamas militant who was involved in planning attacks.
Israeli strikes killed five civilians on Syria’s Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based war monitor said the strikes targeted Qusayr, a town where Hezbollah operate. One strike targeted “a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr”, killing five civilians, the Observatory said.
A senior Hamas official said the group rejects any proposal for a temporary halt to more than a year of fighting in Gaza and insists on a lasting ceasefire. Mediators seeking to broker a Gaza ceasefire are expected to propose a truce of “less than a month” to Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Wednesday.
The UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state due to its continuing “genocide” against the Palestinians, the divisive special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has said. The comments on Thursday came a day after she published her latest report alleging that Israel was not just committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza, but a genocide.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres warned Israel could carry out the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza if the international community does not make a determined stand to prevent it. “The intention might be for the Palestinians to leave Gaza, for others to occupy it,” Guterres told the Guardian. “But there has been – and I pay tribute to the courage and the resilience of the Palestinian people and to the determination of the Arab world – [an effort] to avoid the ethnic cleansing becoming a reality.”
A Palestinian student who was stripped of her UK student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the Home Office’s decision.
Israeli intelligence suggests that Iran is preparing to attack Israel from Iraqi territory in the coming days, according to an Axios report.
The attack may take place before the US presidential election on 5 November, the outlet said, citing two Israeli sources.
The attack is expected to be carried out from Iraq using a large number of drones and ballistic missiles, the sources said.
As we reported earlier, two senior US officials, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday.
The meetings were described as “substantive and constructive and focused on a number of issues in depth, including Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, and securing the release of hostages,” a US official told the Times of Israel. The official said:
There was a particular focus on efforts to secure a ceasefire deal in Lebanon that allows people on both sides of the Blue Line to return safely to their homes as well as new initiatives to secure the release of hostages, which Hamas must do without delay.
Blinken says 'good progress' made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said negotiators have made “good progress” toward a deal that would bring a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Washington was “working very hard” on concluding arrangements on a deal that would include Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the border region with Israel, Blinken said on Thursday, AFP reported. Blinken said:
Based on my recent trip to the region, and the work that’s ongoing right now, we have made good progress on those understandings.
“We still have more work to do,” he said, calling for a “diplomatic resolution, including through a ceasefire.”
Blinken also called for the “effective implementation” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which would calls for the disarmament of non-state groups in Lebanon and a full Israeli withdrawal from the country.
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, speaking alongside Blinken, said there was an “opportunity” in Lebanon. Austin said:
We’re hopeful that we will see things transition in Lebanon in a not too distant future.
The UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state due to its continuing “genocide” against the Palestinians, the divisive special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has said.
Francesca Albanese was speaking to a UN committee on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in New York the day after she published her latest report alleging that Israel was not just committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza, but a genocide.
“It is time to consider suspending the credentials of Israel as a member state of the UN,” she said.
I understand the sensitivity because none of you have clean hands when it comes to human rights.
She added that no other country had defied so many UN resolutions for so long. In her report, Albanese claimed:
Israel has pursued a pattern of conduct ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction’.
She is a divisive UN rapporteur, and was prevented from holding a briefing at the US Congress this week. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, described her in a tweet as unfit for office, adding:
The United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a UN-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.
Read the full story here: UN should consider suspending Israel over ‘genocide’ against Palestinians, says special rapporteur
At least one child killed and 10 injured each day in Lebanon, says Unicef
Israeli attacks killed 45 people in Lebanon in the past 24 hours, according to the latest update from the Lebanese health ministry on Thursday.
It brings the total death toll in Lebanon from Israeli attacks to 2,865 since October 2023, it said.
Separately, the UN children’s agency (Unicef) warned that the war in Lebanon is “inflicting severe physical wounds and deep emotional scars” on many of the country’s children.
Citing the Lebanese health ministry, Unicef said 166 children have been killed since October 2023, while at least 1,168 have been injured. It said:
Since October 4th of this year, at least one child has been killed and 10 injured daily. Thousands more children who have survived the many months of constant bombings physically unscathed, are now acutely distressed by the violence and chaos around them.
The agency said its teams have met children “gripped by overwhelming fear and increased anxiety” who are “haunted by nightmares, headaches, and loss of appetite”.
“War tears apart the safe and nurturing environments children need,” it said, adding that children who are “forced to endure prolonged periods of traumatic stress” will face “severe health and psychological risks” that can last a lifetime.
The European Union condemned “any attempt to abrogate the 1967 agreement between Israel and UNRWA or to otherwise attempt to obstruct its capacity to operate its mandate”.
The comments followed Israel’s decision to adopt two controversial bills banning the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating inside occupied Israeli territory.
“If implemented, the laws will have far-reaching consequences, stopping all UNRWA’s operations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, de facto preventing UNRWA’s vital operations in Gaza hampering UNRWA’s provision of health, education and social services in the West Bank and revoking UNRWA’s diplomatic privileges and immunities in Israel,” said a EU statement.
“As long as there is no sustainable solution to the conflict, the mandate of UNRWA will remain vital.”
Five civilians reported killed in Israeli airstrikes in Syria on border with Lebanon
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five civilians were killed Thursday in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon, where Israel said it hit Hezbollah weapons depots.
The Britain-based war monitor said the strikes targeted Qusayr, a town where Hezbollah operate. One strike targeted “a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr”, killing five civilians, the Observatory said.
The other strikes targeted warehouses and bridges according to the war monitor. The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said “weapons depots and headquarters used by” Hezbollah were hit in the Qusayr region. Adraee said the strikes sought to thwart attempts to “transfer weapons from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.
Updated
A chief medical official at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has described catastrophic conditions at the facility.
“The hospital has no medical teams – doctors, surgeons, orthopaedics. More than 33 people, between doctors and nurses, have also been arrested,” Eid Sabbah, the director of nursing at the hospital, told Al Jazeera.
The IDF has destroyed oxygen and electricity stations, the hospital’s main water pump and ambulances, Sabbah said.
“The things that we have are things that can’t keep people alive,” he said.
Over a hundred wounded patients are still in dire need inside the facility, but only three doctors remain on site, including junior doctors who aren’t qualified to operate.
Five days ago, a delegation from the World Health Organization brought a small amount of fuel for the generators to operate and some medical supplies, but “immediately after the delegation left the hospital on the same night, the Israeli army stormed the hospital, destroyed a lot of things inside, destroyed the medical supplies that we had received,” he said.
Updated
The Times of Israeli is reporting that the Israeli man killed alongside four foreign nationals by a Hezbollah rocket near Metula today was a 47-year-old called Omer Weinstein and he was a father of four.
Updated
Netanyahu says Israeli freedom is more important than ceasefire agreements in Lebanon
“The agreements, the papers, the proposals, the numbers [UN Security Council Resolution] 1509, 1701 — all these have their place, but they are not the main thing,” he says, hours after meeting and making a similar point to top White House Middle East aides.
“The main thing is our ability and our determination to enforce security, to thwart attacks against us and to act against the arming of our enemies as much as is necessary despite all the pressures and constraints — that is the main thing.”
Turning to address Iran, the prime minister says: “The brash words of the leaders of the regime in Iran cannot cover up the fact that Israel has greater freedom of action in Iran today than ever before. We can reach anywhere in Iran as needed.”
Netanyahu adds that the fight against the Iranian axis is guided by the “total victory concept,” but he stopped short of predicting when the war would end.
In regards to the remaining hostages kept in Gaza by Hamas, the prime minister says that over half have returned home and they are working on securing safety for the rest, but says these negotiations will be kept behind the scenes.
Updated
Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.
The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.
An 18-month conflict has driven hunger in Sudan by disrupting food systems, causing displacement, and blocking access for humanitarian support. Weather extremes, such as floods, have also played a role in worsening food insecurity…
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein and US Middle East adviser Brett McGurk that any ceasefire deal with Lebanon’s Hezbollah would have to guarantee Israeli security.
“The prime minister specified that the main issue is not paperwork for this or that deal, but Israel’s determination and capacity to ensure the deal’s application and to prevent any threat to its security from Lebanon,” Netanyahu’s office said after the meeting in Jerusalem.
Lebanon state media says Israel strikes near Baalbek after evacuation call
Lebanese official media reported Israeli strikes near Baalbek on Thursday, after Israel issued evacuation warnings for the main eastern city for the second day in a row.
“Enemy aircraft launched four strikes on the village of Douris and the surroundings of the city of Baalbek,” the National News Agency said.
Updated
On 1 July 2024, the European hospital in Gaza evacuated all patients and staff. On that day I should have been shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues. I should have been tending gravely injured patients. I should have been helping them to flee. On ventilators, hooked up to IV fluids, on gurneys, in and out of consciousness and clinging to life, they had done nothing to deserve their situation, and they deserved my help.
Instead, I watched from my home in Texas and read messages from the other medics, as an overcrowded hospital transformed into a ghost town. With anguish, I witnessed the tragedy unfold from afar.
A week earlier, I had been in Jordan with the rest of my team, preparing to cross into Gaza for our humanitarian mission. However, less than 48 hours before we attempted the Rafah border crossing, the Israeli military refused my entry “due to Palestinian roots”…
Summary of the day so far
It has just gone 5pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut. Here is a summary of the latest developments:
Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told Agence France-Press (AFP) that the group rejected the idea of a short-term pause in the fighting mooted by US and Qatari mediators. Mediators had hoped that a short pause would create a window to bring in humanitarian aid to Gaza’s desperate civilian population and to negotiate a permanent ceasefire. “The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one,” he said.
Senior US officials were to meet their Israeli counterparts on Thursday to discuss a possible deal to end the conflict in Lebanon and secure Israel’s northern border from Hezbollah attacks. On Wednesday, Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati expressed optimism about a ceasefire in “the coming hours or days” and Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem said the group would accept a truce under certain conditions.
A rocket barrage fired by Hezbollah at Israel’s north has killed five people, including an Israeli farmer and four Thai labourers. The incident occurred near the frontline near the border community of Metula, whose citizens largely evacuated close to a year ago and which sits in a closed military zone.
Six Lebanese health workers were killed and four injured in Israeli strikes across south Lebanon on Thursday, the health ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli army’s evacuation call for several areas of south Lebanon on Thursday, included a Palestinian refugee camp. It warned it was poised to hit Hezbollah targets in those areas. Among the areas listed was Rashidieh camp, which houses thousands of Palestinian refugees.
A Lebanese security source said one person was killed on Thursday by an Israeli strike on a road where a Hezbollah van carrying munitions was hit the previous day. The drone strike hit the Araya-Kahhale road which links the capital Beirut to Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley, the source told AFP, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. It targeted a Mercedes vehicle, killing the driver, the source said, without identifying the victim.
Also on Thursday, an Israeli drone strike hit a motorbike near the coastal town of Naqura, the official National News Agency (NNA) reported. Another motorbike was hit in the eastern Bekaa valley, it added.
The United Nations children’s agency said the Israel-Hezbollah war has seen one child die a day in Lebanon over the past month. “Since October 4 of this year, at least one child has been killed and 10 injured daily,” Unicef said, adding that “the ongoing war in Lebanon is upending children’s lives”.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the war effort depends on the economy ahead of Israel’s 2025 state budget. He said: “We cannot have a strong army if we have no way to finance it. Therefore, security depends on the economy, but the economy also depends on security. If there is an ability to damage our cities, our industry, then obviously our economic capacity would be affected.”
The UN secretary general, António Guterres has warned Israel could carry out the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza if the international community does not make a determined stand to prevent it. Guterres made his appeal at a time of mounting civilian casualties from the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza. A strike on Tuesday in Beit Lahiya district killed at least 93 people, in what the UN said was just one of at least seven “mass casualty incidents” across Gaza in the past week.
A surge in hostilities in the Gaza Strip has raised concerns that the “worst case scenario” of famine will materialise, UN food agencies warned on Thursday. A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme estimated that 41% of the population, or 876,000 people, will face “emergency” levels of hunger from November until the end of April.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon, where Israel said it hit Hezbollah weapons depots. One strike targeted “a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr”, killing three and injuring five others, the Syrian Observatory said. The other strikes targeted warehouses near the Lebanese border and a bridge south of Qusayr, it added.
Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said “weapons depots and headquarters used by” Hezbollah were hit in the Qusayr region. Adraee said the strikes sought to thwart attempts to “transfer weapons from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.
Only two doctors are still serving at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza after raids by Israeli forces and the detention of medical staff, aid groups say. Mahmoud Shalabi, deputy director of programmes for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said there were only two doctors and 70 nurses working in a hospital that would usually have 500 medical staff. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it had confirmed its employee, orthopaedic surgeon, Mohammed Obeid, was detained during a military operation on 26 October.
US state department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, according to three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter.
Israeli police said on Thursday they had arrested an Israeli couple on suspicion of spying for Iran, barely a week after two groups allegedly working for Tehran were detained. “The thwarting of Iran’s efforts to recruit Israelis continues,” said a statement from the police and Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet.
The Irish peace-keeping force’s base in Lebanon has been hit by a rocket, suspected to have been fired by Hezbollah. Nobody was injured, the chief of staff of the Irish Defence Force said on Thursday after a briefing with the foreign minister, Micheál Martin. Lt Gen Sean Clancy said it had struck an unoccupied part of Camp Shamrock, 7km from the Israeli border.
Three Palestinians were killed in Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem overnight, the health ministry and an official said on Thursday. The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry reported “two martyrs in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem due to the occupation’s shelling”. The ministry on Wednesday evening reported another death in the area, saying “a martyr shot by the occupation arrived at Thabet Thabet Tulkarem government hospital”. The Israeli military said its soldiers had “been operating as part of a counter-terrorism operation in the area of Nur Shams” along with police and the Shin Bet security agency. On Thursday, army said in a statement that it had “eliminated the terrorist Hussam Mallah”, whom it identified as an important member of Hamas in the area.
At least 43,204 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, and 101,641 injured, since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The toll includes 41 deaths in the previous 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, under pressure from US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, will sign a waiver to extend cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks for another month after the cabinet agreed, his spokesperson said on Thursday.
Israel’s military said on Thursday it shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday. Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms. However, Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
A Palestinian student who was stripped of her student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the UK Home Office’s decision. Dana Abu Qamar, 20, came to the attention of authorities after statements made at a university demonstration on Gaza’s historical resistance to Israel’s “oppressive regime” and a subsequent interview with Sky News.
Updated
Rocket fired from Lebanon kills two in Israel
Israeli emergency services said a rocket launched from Lebanon killed two people in an olive grove in northern Israel on Thursday, bringing the day’s toll to seven dead, reports Agence France-Presse.
Medics “treated and attempted resuscitation on a 30-year-old male and a 60-year-old female, who were then pronounced dead. A 71-year-old male with mild shrapnel injuries to his limbs was evacuated,” the Magen David Adom first responders said in a statement.
Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, under pressure from US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, will sign a waiver to extend cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks for another month after the cabinet agreed, his spokesperson said on Thursday, reports Reuters.
Smotrich in June extended a waiver that allows cooperation between Israel’s banking system and Palestinian banks in the West Bank, but only for four months until the end of October.
The waiver allows Israeli banks to process shekel payments for services and salaries tied to the Palestinian Authority without the risk of being charged with money laundering and funding terrorism. Without it, Palestinian banks would be cut off from the Israeli financial system.
War monitor says three people killed in Israel strike on Syria weapons depots
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon, where Israel said it hit Hezbollah weapons depots.
The UK-based war monitor said three strikes targeted the town of Qusayr and surrounding areas. One strike targeted “a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr”, killing three and injuring five others, the Syrian Observatory said.
The other strikes targeted warehouses near the Lebanese border and a bridge south of Qusayr, according to the war monitor.
Agence France-Presse reports that the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said “weapons depots and headquarters used by” Hezbollah were hit in the Qusayr region. Adraee said the strikes sought to thwart attempts to “transfer weapons from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.
The state news agency, Sana, reported Israeli strikes on Qusayr’s industrial zone and some residential neighbourhoods, saying they caused material damage.
Updated
The Irish peace-keeping force’s base in Lebanon has been hit by a rocket, suspected to have been fired by Hezbollah.
Nobody was injured, the chief of staff of the Irish Defence Force said on Thursday after a briefing with the foreign minister, Micheál Martin.
Lt Gen Sean Clancy said it had struck an unoccupied part of Camp Shamrock, 7km from the Israeli border.
The assessment was that the rocket, which was Russian made, “was travelling from north to south into Israel”.
There have been about 30 attacks on UN peacekeeping force bases in the blue buffer zone between Lebanon and Israel of which 20 have been attributed to the Israel Defense Forces, Unifil spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said yesterday.
At least 43,204 Palestinians killed in Israeli offensive since 7 October 2023, says health ministry
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 43,204 Palestinians and injured 101,641 since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday.
The toll includes 41 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Updated
Only two doctors are still serving at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza after raids by Israeli forces and the detention of medical staff, aid groups say.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it has confirmed its employee, orthopaedic surgeon, Mohammed Obeid, was detained during a military operation on 26 October.
MSF said:
Dr Obeid has been working tirelessly since the beginning of the war, offering his support as a doctor to multiple hospitals in Gaza. His work has saved countless lives.
We call for the safety and the protection of our colleague, and for all medical staff in Gaza who work under impossible conditions and are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
The hospital is struggling to deal with an influx of casualties after recent Israeli operations in the Beit Lahia area of Gaza, including a strike on a block of flats that killed 93 people on Tuesday.
Mahmoud Shalabi, deputy director of programmes for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said there were only two doctors and 70 nurses working in a hospital that would usually have 500 medical staff.
“That place is the only place right now that is still barely functioning with very minimum resources,” said Shalabi. He added:
Every now and then the United Nations go and manage to evacuate around 20 patients every, like, three days, and they bring them to Gaza City … [but] there is no space to host those patients coming from the north or from any new massacre that is happening in Gaza City.”
The Palestinian ministry of health said Kamal Adwan hospital had been subject to “repeated attacks” by Israel, including a strike on Thursday that hit the hospital’s third floor, which they said damaged medical stocks.
Palestinian officials say three killed by Israeli army in occupied West Bank
Three Palestinians were killed in Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem overnight, the health ministry and an official said on Thursday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry reported “two martyrs in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem due to the occupation’s shelling”.
Rami Alyan of the camp’s popular service committee told AFP the Israeli army raided Nur Shams camp in the northern West Bank city at 2am, local time.
“The occupation forces are still conducting bulldozing operations in the streets of the camp, and there are injuries,” he said. The two killed were a 16-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man, he added.
According to AFP, the Israeli military said its soldiers had “been operating as part of a counter-terrorism operation in the area of Nur Shams” along with police and the Shin Bet security agency. The air force “struck an armed terrorist cell that fired at the forces” during the operation, the statement added.
The Palestinian health ministry on Wednesday evening reported another death in the area, saying “a martyr shot by the occupation arrived at Thabet Thabet Tulkarem government hospital”.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said a 30-year-old man, Hossam Mallah, was killed in Tulkarem camp, the city’s other refugee camp, by “a special force that infiltrated the camp with a taxi and van”.
The army said in its Thursday statement that it had “eliminated the terrorist Hussam Mallah”, whom it identified as an important member of Hamas in the area “who was involved in the planning of terrorist attacks within an immediate time frame”.
From a few points on the periphery between Israel and Gaza, it is possible to see the bombed-out ruins of the besieged Palestinian territory; every so often, the boom and thud of airstrikes and artillery fire send plumes of grey and white smoke into the wide autumn sky.
For most onlookers, the scene is apocalyptic - but for rightwing Israelis who want to resettle the strip, it’s a promising new horizon. Once dismissed as the pipe dream of fringe extremists, the idea is gaining momentum thanks to Israel’s military success in Gaza, and political support from Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition.
Last week, near Be’eri, a border kibbutz devastated by the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, the pro-settlement organisation Nachala held a “Preparing to Resettle Gaza” conference, laying out its vision for the strip’s future. The event was given a green light by the Israeli military despite the fact the area is still technically a closed military zone. Several hundred people showed up, including government ministers and Knesset members…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war effort depends on the economy ahead of Israel’s 2025 state budget.
“We cannot have a strong army if we have no way to finance it. Therefore, security depends on the economy, but the economy also depends on security. If there is an ability to damage our cities, our industry, then obviously our economic capacity would be affected.”
Netanyahu claims the Israeli economy has been “surprisingly resilient” during the last year of war. The prime minister did caution that there would be cuts elsewhere.
“If you give to one place, you unfortunately have to take from another place,” he says. “There are ways to do this.”
Hezbollah rocket attack kills five in northern Israel
Our correspondent Peter Beaumont has more detail on the attack which killed five people in northern Israel (see post at 11.31GMT).
A rocket barrage fired by Hezbollah at Israel’s north has killed five people, including an Israeli farmer and four Thai labourers. The incident occurred near the front line near the border community of Metula, whose citizens largely evacuated close to a year ago and which sits in a closed military zone.
Despite large scale evacuations of northern Israel some agricultural activity has continued in rural areas despite the rocket fire.
The deaths come as Hezbollah has shifted back to concentrating most (although not all) of its fire in a 7-10 kilometre area closest to the border.
Updated
Six Lebanese health workers were killed and four wounded in Israeli strikes across south Lebanon on Thursday, the health ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, The United Nations children’s agency says the Israel-Hezbollah war has seen one child die a day in Lebanon over the past month.
“Since October 4 of this year, at least one child has been killed and 10 injured daily,” UNICEF said, adding that “the ongoing war in Lebanon is upending children’s lives.”
Updated
Diplomatic efforts are also under way to agree a short halt to fighting in Gaza.
But on Thursday, senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told Agence France-Press (AFP) that the group rejected the idea of a short-term pause in the fighting mooted by US and Qatari mediators.
Mediators had hoped that a short pause would create a window to bring in humanitarian aid to Gaza’s desperate civilian population and to negotiate a permanent ceasefire, but Hamas rejected this, reports AFP.
“The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one,” Nunu said.
Any deal to stabilise Israel’s front with Lebanon is likely to come first, ahead of any ceasefire for Gaza, reports AFP.
Last week, Israel’s chief of general staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi said:
In the north, there’s a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion.”
In his first speech since taking over, Qassem said Hezbollah could continue to resist Israeli air and ground attacks in Lebanon for months, but he also opened the door to a negotiated truce if presented with an Israeli offer.
“If the Israelis decide that they want to stop the aggression, we say we accept, but under the conditions that we see as appropriate and suitable,” he said.
Senior US officials were to meet their Israeli counterparts on Thursday to discuss a possible deal to end the conflict in Lebanon and secure Israel’s northern border from Hezbollah attacks.
The US visit came as Hamas rejected separate truce plans proposed for the fighting in Gaza (see 10.32am GMT), where Israeli strikes continued overnight, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Less than a week before the US presidential election, Washington’s envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk were expected in Israel. Israeli forces continued their fierce ground and air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati expressed optimism about a ceasefire in “the coming hours or days” and Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem said the group would accept a truce under certain conditions.
According to Israeli media reports citing government sources, the plan brokered by the US team would see Hezbollah forces retreat about 20 miles (30 kilometres) from the border, north of the Litani river, reports AFP.
Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and the Lebanese army would then take charge of the border, alongside UN peacekeepers. Lebanon would be responsible for preventing Hezbollah from rearming itself with imported weapons, and Israel would retain its rights under international law to act in self-defence.
Five people were killed, including four foreign workers and one Israeli farmer, in a Hezbollah attack on Israel’s northern town of Metula on Thursday, reports Reuters, citing Israel’s Channel 12.
Surge in Gaza Strip hostilities raises concerns 'worst case scenario' of famine will materialise, warn UN food agencies
UN food agencies warned on Thursday of deadly hunger levels in 16 “hunger hotspots” in coming months, with the Palestinian territories, Sudan and South Sudan, Mali and Haiti of most concern, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Conflict is driving most of the acute food insecurity in all those areas analysed by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme. Extreme weather was a major factor in other regions, while economic inequality and high debt in many developing countries are hurting governments’ capacity to react, according to the joint report covering forecasts for November 2024 to May 2025.
Humanitarian action was urgently needed to prevent starvation and death in the Palestinian territories, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali, said the report, based on research by experts from the two Rome-based United Nations agencies, reports AFP.
“Without immediate humanitarian efforts and concerted international action to address severe access constraints and advocate for the de-escalation of conflict and insecurity, further starvation and loss of life are likely” in those spots, it found.
Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, along with Nigeria, Chad, Mozambique and Myanmar, are of “very high concern”, it said. In all those countries, conflict was either a major driver of hunger, or a contributor.
A surge in hostilities in the Gaza Strip has raised concerns that the “worst case scenario” of famine will materialise, said the report.
According to AFP, it estimated that 41% of the population, or 876,000 people, will face “emergency” levels of hunger from November until the end of April. Nearly 16%, or 345,000 people, will experience the most serious “catastrophic” levels. As of mid-October, 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced, it said.
Conflict forces people to flee their homes, “disrupting livelihoods and income, limiting market access, and resulting in price fluctuations and erratic food production and consumption,” the report said.
With its focus on the most severe and worsening countries, the UN agencies said the report did not “represent all countries/territories experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity”.
The agencies said 2024 marked the second consecutive year of declining funding for humanitarian assistance, while 12 appeals faced funding shortfalls of more than 75%, including for Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria and Myanmar.
Updated
A Palestinian student who was stripped of her student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the UK Home Office’s decision.
The Home Office failed to demonstrate that the presence of Dana Abu Qamar, 20, was “not conducive to public good” after the law student’s visa was revoked in December 2023, according to a tribunal ruling.
She came to the attention of authorities after statements made at a university demonstration on Gaza’s historical resistance to Israel’s “oppressive regime” and a subsequent interview with Sky News.
The dual Jordanian-Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin said:
For 16 years Gaza has been under blockade, and for the first time they are actively resisting, they are not on the defence, and this is truly a once in a lifetime experience.”
She also said:
And everyone is, we are both in fear, but also in fear of what, how Israel will retaliate and how we’ve seen it retaliate overnight, and the missiles that it’s launched and the attacks, but also we are full of pride. We are really, really full of joy of what happened.”
Abu Qamar, who led the Friends of Palestine society at the University of Manchester, said she was misinterpreted and that she was seeking to support Palestinian resistance to occupation and does not condone the use of violence against civilians, nor has she expressed support for Hamas.
The tribunal said the Home Office decision was a “disproportionate interference with her protected right to free speech” under the European convention on human rights. It found that her statements could not be taken as support for Hamas or the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October.
Syrian state media said Israeli strikes hit the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border on Thursday, the latest in a series of raids in the area, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“An Israeli aggression targeted the Qusayr area in the southern Homs countryside,” causing “material damage to the industrial city and some residential neighbourhoods,” the state news agency, Sana, said.
Hamas official says group rejects short-term Gaza truce
A senior Hamas official said on Thursday that the group rejects any proposal for a temporary halt to more than a year of fighting in Gaza and insists on a lasting ceasefire, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one,” Taher al-Nunu, a senior leader of the group, told AFP.
Mediators seeking to broker a Gaza ceasefire are expected to propose a truce of “less than a month” to Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Wednesday.
Meetings between the Mossad head David Barnea, CIA director Bill Burns and Qatar’s prime minister in Doha, which concluded on Monday, discussed proposing a “short-term” truce of “less than a month”, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity because of the talks’ sensitivity.
The proposal involves exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and increasing aid to Gaza, the source added.
“US officials believe that if a short-term deal can be reached, it could lead to a more permanent agreement,” the source told AFP.
Nunu said the group had not received any proposal so far, adding if it gets such a plan, it would respond. However, he reiterated the demands the group has been insisting on for months: “a permanent ceasefire, withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from Gaza, the return of displaced people, sufficient humanitarian aid to Gaza and a serious prisoner exchange deal”.
Israeli military says it downed drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel
Israel’s military said on Thursday it shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Palestinian armed group Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms. However, Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
Earlier in October, the Israeli military also said it foiled a weapon smuggling attempt from Egypt after downing a drone carrying guns and bullets, reports Reuters.
Israel issues evacuation order for Lebanon's Baalbek city for second day in a row
Israel’s military issued an evacuation order for residents in Lebanon’s Baalbek city and surrounding areas on Thursday, for the second day in a row, reports Reuters.
Updated
A Lebanese security source said one person was killed on Thursday by an Israeli strike on a road where a Hezbollah van carrying munitions was hit the previous day, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The drone strike hit the Araya-Kahhale road which links the capital Beirut to Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley, the source told AFP, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
It targeted a Mercedes vehicle, killing the driver, the source said, without identifying the victim.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said a “hostile drone” targeted the car on the key road that passes through the town of Araya.
On Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit a Hezbollah van carrying munitions on the same highway, according to the security source, who said the attack killed the driver.
The same day, municipal authorities in Araya and Kahhale called on the Lebanese army to “intervene immediately” to stop the road being used to transport weapons or fighters, reports AFP.
Also on Thursday, an Israeli drone strike hit a motorbike near the coastal town of Naqura, NNA said. Another motorbike was hit in the eastern Bekaa valley, it added.
Reuters reports that the Israeli military said on Thursday it had shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday.
No other information was provided. We will update the blog as more details come in.
Israeli police said on Thursday they had arrested an Israeli couple on suspicion of spying for Iran, barely a week after two groups allegedly working for Tehran were detained, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“The thwarting of Iran’s efforts to recruit Israelis continues,” said a statement from the police and Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet.
The two Israelis, a couple from the central city of Lod, had been involved in gathering intelligence on “national infrastructures, security sites and tracking a female academic,” the statement alleged:
Rafael and Lala Goliev … residents of Lod, were arrested after they carried out tasks on behalf of an Iranian cell that recruits Israelis from the Caucasus countries in Israel.”
According to AFP, Israeli police charged that the couple were recruited by Elshan (Elhan) Agayev, an Azerbaijani national acting on behalf of Iranian officials. It was unclear if Agayev is based in Israel.
They alleged that the Golievs carried out surveillance of sensitive Israeli sites, including the headquarters of Israel’s the Mossad spy agency, and collected intelligence on an academic working at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
As AFP reports, Thursday’s announcement comes little more than a week after Israeli security services said they had uncovered two other suspected spy rings.
Israel orders evacuations in southern Lebanon, including refugee camp
The Israeli army’s evacuation call for several areas of south Lebanon on Thursday, includes a Palestinian refugee camp, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
It warned it was poised to hit Hezbollah targets in those areas.
“Hezbollah’s terrorist activities force the IDF (army) to act forcefully against it in these areas, and we do not intend to harm you,” the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X.
Among the areas listed was Rashidieh camp, which houses thousands of Palestinian refugees.
Updated
Al-Haush, Borgholiyeh and Ansar are among the areas in southern Lebanon ordered to evacuate, reports Al Jazeera.
It cites the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee, as ordering residents of 10 towns and villages, mostly near Tyre and Nabatieh, to evacuate. He said the army would soon “forcefully act” against these areas.
“You are prohibited from heading south. Any movement south could be dangerous to your life,” he wrote in a post on X.
The Israeli army has issued evacuation calls for several southern Lebanese villages, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
More details soon …
A Lebanese family planning for a daughter’s wedding were killed in an Israeli strike on their home, reports the Associated Press (AP).
According to a report by the AP, the Gharibs’ apartment in the al-Housh district of the Tyre neighbourhood was directly hit by an Israeli airstrike on 23 September.
Reda Gharib, who lives in Senegal told the AP that his family in Tyre received a call from the Israeli military to evacuate or risk their lives. His aunts decided to leave for Beirut but his father, mother and three sisters remained. Gharib’s father, Ahmed, a retired Lebanese army officer, his mother, Hanan, and his three sisters were all killed in the strike.
“The whole apartment was gone. It is back to bare bones. As if there was nothing there,” said Gharib, speaking to the AP from the Senegalese capital, Dakar, where he has been living since 2020.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah site hiding rocket launchers and missiles.
Gharib told the AP his family had no connection to Hezbollah. The direct hit gutted their apartment, while those above and below suffered only damage, suggesting a specific part of the building was targeted. Gharib said it was his family’s home.
The strike was one of more than 1,600 Israel said it carried out on 23 September, the first day of an intensified bombardment of Lebanon it has waged for the past month. More than 500 people were killed that day, a casualty figure not observed in Gaza on a single day until the second week, said Emily Tripp, director of London-based Airwars, a conflict monitoring group.
Gharib told the AP that his sister Maya was engaged and planned to marry on 12 October but as tensions with Israel grew in September, Gharib’s plans to come home for the wedding were uncertain. She told him she would put it off until he could get there.
After the strike, her fiance, also an army officer, found her body and those of the rest of her family in a hospital morgue in Tyre. “She was not destined to have her wedding. We paraded her as a bride to paradise instead,” Gharib said.
US identified 500 cases where its weapons harmed Gaza civilians but hasn’t taken action
US state department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, according to three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter.
The incidents – some of which may have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources – have been recorded since 7 October 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the state department’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.
State department officials gathered the incidents from public and non-public sources, including media reporting, civil society groups and foreign government contacts.
The mechanism, which was established in August 2023 to be applied to all countries that receive US arms, has three stages: incident analysis, policy impact assessment and coordinated department action.
None of the Gaza cases had yet reached the third stage of action, said a former US official familiar with the matter. Options, the former official said, could range from working with Israel’s government to help mitigate harm, to suspending existing arms export licenses or withholding future approvals.
The Washington Post first reported the nearly 500 incidents on Wednesday.
World must act to prevent ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Gaza, António Guterres warns
The UN secretary general, António Guterres has warned Israel could carry out the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza if the international community does not make a determined stand to prevent it.
Guterres made his appeal at a time of mounting civilian casualties from the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza. A strike on Tuesday in Beit Lahiya district killed at least 93 people, in what the UN said was just one of at least seven “mass casualty incidents” across Gaza in the past week.
At the same time, aid deliveries to Gaza are reported to have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, leading to growing allegations that Israel’s true intention is to drive the remaining Palestinian population out of at least part of Gaza.
The UN secretary general, speaking on the sidelines of the COP16 biodiversity conference in Colombia, suggested that the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza had been prevented until now by its people’s refusal to succumb to the intense pressure to flee their homes and by Arab resolve not to accept mass population transfers.
“The intention might be for the Palestinians to leave Gaza, for others to occupy it,” Guterres told the Guardian. “But there has been – and I pay tribute to the courage and the resilience of the Palestinian people and to the determination of the Arab world – [an effort] to avoid the ethnic cleansing becoming a reality.”
“We will do everything possible to help them remain there and to avoid ethnic cleansing that might occur if there is not strong determination from the international community,” he added.
You can read the full report by Patrick Greenfield in Cali, Malak A Tantesh in Gaza and Julian Borger in Jerusalem here:
Updated
Israeli military kills three Palestinians in West Bank, health ministry says
Israeli strikes on the West Bank’s Nur Shams refugee camp on Thursday killed two Palestinians including a child, Reuters reports, citing the Palestinian health ministry.
One Palestinian was shot and killed by the Israeli army overnight in West Bank’s refugee camp of Tulkarm, the health ministry added.
The Israeli army said on Thursday it was conducting an operation targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in Nur Shams.
Official Palestinian news agency Wafa said a large number of Israeli vehicles and heavy bulldozers stormed the city and headed towards the Nur Shams refugee camp.
According to Reuters, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, al-Quds Brigades, said in a statement they detonated a highly explosive bomb in a military bulldozer to thwart the Israeli army’s raid.
Opening summary
Lebanon’s prime minister has expressed hope that a ceasefire deal with Israel could be reached within days, after Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem said the militant group could agree to a possible truce under certain parameters.
In his first public comments a day after being named to replace former longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, Qassem said however that Israel had yet to agree to any proposal that could be discussed, and that the Iran-backed group will keep fighting until it is offered terms it deems acceptable.
“If the Israelis decide to stop the aggression, we say that we accept, but according to the conditions that we see as suitable,” Qassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a pre-recorded televised address. “We will not beg for a ceasefire.”
It came as Israel’s security cabinet met to discuss a possible truce, but also as Israel expanded their bombardment of the group’s bastions, attacking the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, and said it had killed another senior Hezbollah commander.
Lebanese caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said he had previously not believed a deal would be possible until after Tuesday’s US presidential election. But he said he became cautiously optimistic after speaking on Wednesday with the Biden administration’s Middle East envoy Amos Hochstein, who was due to travel to Israel on Thursday.
“Hochstein, during his call with me, suggested to me that we could reach an agreement before the end of the month and before November 5th,” Mikati told Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television.
Israel’s public broadcaster Kan published what it said was a draft agreement providing for an initial 60-day truce. The document, which the broadcaster said was a leaked proposal written by Washington, said Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within the first week of the 60-day ceasefire. It largely aligned with details reported earlier by Reuters.
Although negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah have made significant progress in the last 24 hours, the Biden administration has not reached a final agreement with either Israel or Lebanon, Axios reported citing two US officials with direct knowledge of the matter.
The draft published by Kan was dated Saturday. When asked to comment, White House national security spokesperson Sean Savett said:
There are many reports and drafts circulating. They do not reflect the current state of negotiations.”
In other developments:
The Israeli army launched heavy airstrikes on the eastern city of Baalbek, famed for its Roman temples, and nearby villages. Tens of thousands of Lebanese, including many who sought shelter in Baalbek from other areas, fled after an Israeli evacuation warning. Lebanon’s health ministry said 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes on two towns in the Baalbek area on Wednesday. After the airstrikes, the Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah fuel reservoirs in the Bekaa valley region.
In his first remarks as leader, Nassim Qassem said the series of blows dealt to the group in recent weeks had “hurt” Hezbollah, but asserted that the group had been able to reorganise its ranks swiftly after Nasrallah’s death. “Hezbollah’s capabilities are still available and compatible with a long war,” he said.
Qassem said he would stick to the war strategy laid out by his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel last month after full-scale fighting broke out. “My work programme is a continuation of the work programme of our leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” Qassem said, pledging to press on with “the war plan that he [Nasrallah] developed with the leadership” of the Iran-backed group.
Donald Trump promised that he will bring “peace” to the Middle East, with the US Republican nominee for president making the pronouncement in a letter just six days before the US election for the White House on 5 November. “During my administration, we had peace in the Middle East, and we will have peace again very soon!” he said in his letter to Lebanese Americans.
At least 30 people were killed as Israel pummeled Gaza with new bombardments, Palestinian medics said. Eight of today’s victims were killed in northern Gaza. The area Israel hit is near to where medics said at least 93 people had been killed or reported missing on Tuesday in an Israeli strike Washington called “horrifying”.
The UN security council “strongly warned against any attempts to dismantle or diminish” the operations and mandate of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, after Israel passed a law banning its operations. In a statement adopted by consensus, the 15-member body expressed grave concern over the legislation adopted by the Israeli parliament on Monday.
The Israeli army said it had killed the deputy head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, Mustafa Ahmad Shahadi, in a strike in the Nabatieh area of south Lebanon. “In an intelligence-directed strike, the Israeli air force struck and eliminated Mustafa Ahmad Shahadi, deputy commander of Hezbollah’s Radwan forces, in the area of Nabatieh,” the army said in a statement.
At least 43,163 Palestinians have been killed and 101,510 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said. The ministry said on Wednesday that 102 Palestinians had been killed and 287 injured in the past 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it had launched drones at an Israeli base in the port city of Haifa. Hezbollah fighters “launched an air attack at 7.45am (0545 GMT) … with a squadron of attack drones” on a “base in southern Haifa”, the group said in a statement.
