The Israeli military on Saturday renewed its orders for Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and shelters as troops press on a weeklong offensive against militants.
Most of the fighting in the past week was centred in and around Jabaliya that was pounded by Israeli war jets and artillery. Residents said they have been trapped inside their homes and shelters.
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In Lebanon, authorities said Friday that 60 people were killed and 168 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah to 2,229 dead and 10,380 wounded.
Israel has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border, after a year of exchanges of fire. Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hamas’ ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities.
The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
It’s been a full year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Here is the latest:
US military hits Islamic State camps in Syria with airstrikes
BEIRUT – The US military said it conducted a series of airstrikes against multiple camps in Syria belonging to the Islamic State group.
The US Central Command said the strikes on Friday will disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organize and conduct attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, and civilians throughout the region and beyond.
It said battle damage assessments were underway and did not include civilian casualties.
There are some 900 US forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory.
Speaker of Iran’s parliament visits Beirut
BEIRUT The speaker of Iran’s parliament on Saturday toured the scene of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut that killed and wounded dozens, vowing that Tehran would keep supporting Lebanese and Palestinians in fighting against Israel.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf visited the bombed area after holding talks with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who said that Lebanon’s priority now was working toward a cease-fire.
His office said that Lebanon’s government still abides by a 2006 UN Security Council Resolution approved at the end of a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah and was prepared to boost Lebanese army presence along the country’s border with Israel.
We will keep standing with the Lebanese people during these difficult circumstances and also with the Palestinian people, Qalibaf said during the tour, during which he was escorted by several Hezbollah officials.
Qalibaf added that Iran will aid the Lebanese people and we hope that they will be victorious.
It was the second recent visit by an Iranian official to Beirut after the foreign minister visited earlier this month. Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah that has suffered major setbacks in recent weeks, including the killing of it leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah started attacking Israeli army posts in October last year in solidarity with the militant Hamas group in Gaza. Since September 23, Israel has intensified its airstrikes and forced the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese.
Last week, Israel began a ground invasion of Lebanon, leading to clashes along the border with Hezbollah fighters.
No food has entered northern Gaza since October 1, UN says
CAIRO The United Nations food agency said on Saturday that no food aid had entered northern Gaza since October 1.
The World Food Programme said that the primary border crossing into the war-ravaged area had been closed for about two weeks, warning that Israel’s ongoing ground operation has a disastrous impact on food security for thousands of Palestinians families there.
The north is basically cut off and we’re not able to operate there, said Antoine Renard, the WFP country director of Palestinian territories.
Concerns of a hunger crisis have risen in Gaza roughly a month after the UN’s independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a starvation campaign against Palestinians.
Israel has denied such allegations and insisted that it has allowed food and other aid into Gaza in significant quantities.
Israel has not halted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip. As evidence, humanitarian aid coordinated by COGAT and international organizations will continue to enter the northern Gaza Strip in the coming day as well, COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing aid distribution, said in a statement on Wednesday.
EU concerns over Israeli legislation that would ban UNRWA
JERUSALEM The European Union said Saturday it was deeply concerned about draft Israeli legislation that would ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel and likely scale back aid distribution across war-ravaged Gaza.
Earlier this week, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved a pair of bills this week that would ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and end all contact between the government and the UN agency. The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
If adopted, (the bill) would have disastrous consequences, preventing the UN agency from continuing to provide its services and protection to Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and Gaza, the EU said in an online statement.
Israel has alleged that some of UNRWA’s thousands of staff members participated in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
The UN has since fired more than a dozen staffers after internal investigations found they may have taken part in the attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel.
The UN agency has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to Palestinian civilians during the 12 month conflict in Gaza.
Concern about the Israeli bill was echoed by UNRWA’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, on Wednesday, who said all humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank could disintegrate if the bill was implemented.
When UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949, it was meant to provide health care, education and welfare services to about 7,00,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 conflict with Israel.
Israeli military renews evacuation orders for northern Gaza
CAIRO The Israeli military on Saturday renewed orders for Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and shelters amid a week of intense fighting with militants there.
Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, told people that the area includes parts of Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood and other parts in and around Jabaliya, the urban refugee camp.
In a post on X, Adraee asked people living there to head south to Muwasi, a packed area in southern Gaza designed by the military as a humanitarian zone.
Most of past week fighting centred in and around Jabaliya with Israeli war jets and artillery pounding the area. People there said they have been trapped inside their homes and shelters. The military also ordered the three main hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate patients and medical staff.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
