Middle East latest: Israeli strikes kill 10 people in Gaza and 2 in the West Bank

Israeli attacks early Tuesday killed 10 people in the Gaza Strip, including four children and two women, Palestinian officials said. In the occupied West BankIsraeli forces killed two people in an airstrike and shot dead a third person.

Despite increasing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, the intensified Israeli attacks on the militant group Hezbollah are expanding outside the border areas of Lebanon. Israel is also fighting one seemingly endless war against Hamas in northern Gaza.

At least 3,000 people have been killed and around 13,500 injured in Lebanon since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in 2023, the Health Ministry said.

Over a year Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They make no distinction between civilians and fighters, but say more than half of the dead were women and children. The war started after that Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing approximately 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapping 250 others.

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Here’s the latest:

Israeli attacks kill 10 people in Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes killed 10 people in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, including four children and two women.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, one attack hit a house in Gaza City’s Tufah neighborhood, killing two children and their parents. Two other children were injured, the report said.

In the central city of Zuweida, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent sheltering a displaced family, killing four people, including a mother and her two children, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah.

Another attack hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing two people, the hospital said.

An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies in the hospital morgue.

The Israeli army says it is only targeting militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. There is rarely any commentary on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 hostage. There are still about 100 hostages in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

The Israeli offensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which says more than half were women and children. No distinction is made between civilians and combatants.

Israeli forces kill three people in the occupied West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have killed three people in the occupied territories West Bank.

Two were killed Tuesday in an airstrike near the northern city of Jenin, a flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. A third person was shot in the village of Tamoun, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The Israeli army said it had carried out an airstrike on a militant cell near Jenin. There was no immediate response to the shooting.

Israeli forces have carried out military strikes in the West Bank almost daily since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack from the Gaza Strip sparked the war between Israel and Hamas. The Health Ministry says at least 767 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then. Most appear to be militants killed in fighting with Israeli forces, but there are also deaths civilian bystanders and people killed during protests.

Israel says the raids are aimed at dismantling Hamas in the West Bank and preventing attacks. Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks on Israelis since the start of the war.

Israel captured the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East war, and Palestinians want it to form the bulk of their future state.