Israel hits Gaza and Lebanon with deadly attacks

Israeli army attacks killed at least 20 people in Gaza on Sunday, civil defense officials said, while a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut international airport was also hit.

Israel has been fighting on two fronts since September, stepping up attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon after nearly a year of cross-border clashes alongside the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In the latest violence in Gaza, the Civil Protection Service said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 20 people, including four women and three children.

A year after the Gaza war was sparked by the Hamas attacks on southern Hamas on October 7, Israel vowed to stop Islamist militants from regrouping in the northern Palestinian territory and launched a major attack on them.

The deadliest attack on Sunday killed 10 people in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where another attack on a house claimed the life of a woman, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

An Israeli drone strike killed five people in the southern city of Rafah, Bassal said, and another attack killed three women and a child in the Nuseirat camp.

The Hamas-led Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday that the total death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,799.

The majority of those killed were civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations consider reliable.

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

– Rescuers in Lebanon mourned –

Gaza’s civil defense said 24 people were killed in attacks on Saturday.

On Israel’s second front in the north, AFPTV footage showed several attacks hitting Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut shortly after the Israeli army warned people to evacuate.

Columns of smoke were seen rising over the southern outskirts of the capital, home to Lebanon’s only international airport.

Further south, Israeli airstrikes and shelling hit the flashpoint city of Khiam, the Lebanese State News Agency reported.

The bombing came after the Israeli army late Saturday reported a “heavy rocket barrage” on Haifa and said a synagogue was hit, wounding two civilians.

Israel has escalated its bombing of Lebanon since September 23 and has since sent ground troops, after nearly a year of limited, cross-border firefights started by Hezbollah militants in support of the Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.

The military said on Saturday that Hezbollah has already “paid a heavy price” but vowed to keep fighting until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the north can return home.

Israeli forces also shelled the southern part of Lebanon along the Litani River, the NNA said on Sunday.

The news agency had previously reported attacks on the southern city of Tyre, including in a district near ancient ruins that are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Israeli military said late Saturday that it had struck Hezbollah sites in the area.

In eastern Lebanon, the Health Ministry said an Israeli attack in the Beqaa Valley killed six people, including three children.

Hezbollah said it fired a guided missile that set fire to an Israeli tank in the southwestern Lebanese village of Chamaa.

Late on Saturday, Hezbollah said it had attacked five military bases, including the Stella Maris naval base.

Funerals were held in eastern Lebanon on Thursday for fourteen civil defense workers killed in an Israeli attack.

“They were not involved in any (armed) party… they were just waiting to answer calls for help,” said Ali al-Zein, a relative of one of the dead.

– Famine warning in Gaza –

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most of the victims since September.

Israel announced the death of a soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing the death toll in the battle against Hezbollah to 48.

A UN-backed study on November 9 warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza, amid increased hostilities and a near halt to food aid.

Israel this week pushed back against a Human Rights Watch report claiming that the mass displacement of Gazans amounts to a “crime against humanity,” as well as findings by a U.N. special committee pointing to war practices “that are consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.

A State Department spokesperson dismissed the HRW report as “completely false,” while the United States – Israel’s main military supplier – said accusations of genocide are “certainly unfounded.”

In Israel, police said they had arrested three suspects after flares were shot near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the central city of Caesarea, south of Haifa, while he was away.

The incident comes about a month after a drone attacked the same home, as Hezbollah claimed.

Protesters in Tel Aviv on Saturday renewed demands that the government reach an agreement on the release of dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.

The protest came a week after mediator Qatar suspended its role until Hamas and Israel showed “seriousness” in talks on a ceasefire and the release of hostages.

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