Middle East latest: Israeli strikes kill 30 people overnight in Gaza
Israeli strikes killed at least 30 people overnight in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials. Strikes early Tuesday killed 10 people in the Gaza Strip, including four children and two women, and a strike late Monday on the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed at least 20 people, including eight women and six children.
Israel has been waging a massive offensive in northern Gaza — which was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory — for nearly a month.
Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s border areas. Israel is also fighting a seemingly endless war against Hamas in northern Gaza.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, at least 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,500 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports.
More than a year of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children. The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
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Here’s the latest:
The Lebanese Red Cross will try again to remove bodies from a strike site
BEIRUT — The Lebanese Red Cross will send another convoy Tuesday to Wata al-Khiam in southern Lebanon to search for and remove the bodies of 15 people killed in an Israeli airstrike, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.
Paramedics accessed the site of the strike two days prior and removed five other bodies, but needed to return with larger vehicles to remove the rubble. The NNA said the deployment is in coordination with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, which is the usual procedure.
The Red Cross did not immediately comment on the news, but expressed concern in recent weeks over several instances where Israel has struck in or close to areas where they have deployed paramedics to search for wounded people and casualties.
The Israeli military said it issued warnings to the residents there in late October to evacuate ahead of strikes on Hezbollah militant targets, and told ambulances to avoid the area.
Israeli airstrike kills 20 people in northern Gaza, Palestinians officials say
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip has killed at least 20 people, mostly women and children.
Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of a nearby hospital that received the casualties, said the strike late Monday hit a home in the town of Beit Lahiya where multiple families were sheltering.
The dead included eight women and six children, according to a list provided by the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel has been waging a massive offensive in northern Gaza — which was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory — for nearly a month. It ordered the complete evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the nearby town of Beit Hanoun, and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, and has allowed almost no humanitarian aid into the area for over a month.
Tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement in the war, which began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli strikes kill 10 in Gaza
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes early Tuesday killed 10 people in the Gaza Strip, including four children and two women.
One strike hit a house in the Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City, killing two children and their parents, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service. Two other children were wounded, it said.
In the central town of Zuweida, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent where a displaced family was sheltering, killing four people, including a mother and her two children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah.
Another strike hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing two people, the hospital said.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital morgue.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. It rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 hostage. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which says over half were women and children. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israeli forces kill 3 people in the occupied West Bank
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have killed three people in the occupied West Bank.
Two were killed in an airstrike early Tuesday near the northern city of Jenin, a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. A third person was shot in the village of Tamoun, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said it called in an airstrike on a militant cell near Jenin. There was no immediate comment on the shooting.
Israeli forces have carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the Israel-Hamas war. The Health Ministry says at least 767 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then. Most appear to have been militants killed in battles with Israeli forces, but the dead also include 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 against Israelis since the start of the war.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
By The Associated Press
