Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Majdal Zoun village, in this view from the southern city of Tyre, south Lebanon on Thursday (October 24, 2024).
| Photo Credit: AP

“An Israeli airstrike on a compound housing journalists in southeast Lebanon has killed three media staffers,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said on Friday (October 25, 2024).

Local news station Al Jadeed aired footage from the scene – a collection of chalets rented by various media outlets – showing collapsed buildings and cars marked PRESS covered in dust and rubble. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike.

The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers – camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida – were among the journalists killed early Friday (October 25, 2024). Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was also killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.

Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s well-known correspondent in south Lebanon, was seen in a video filming himself with a cellphone saying that the camera operator who had been working with him for months was killed. Mr. Shoeib said the Israeli military knew that the area that was struck housed journalists of different media organisations.

“We were reporting the news and showing the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes,” Mr. Shoeib added in the video aired on Al-Manar TV.

The Hasbaya region has been spared much of the violence along the border, and many of the journalists now staying there have moved from the nearby town of Marjayoun, which has been subjected to sporadic strikes in recent weeks. Earlier in the week, a strike hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Several journalists have been killed since exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border in early October last year.

In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.

Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

The Israeli campaign has since expanded to Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion Oct. 1, after trading fire with the Hezbollah militant group for much of the past year.

Lebanese health officials reported another day of intense airstrikes and shelling Thursday (October 24, 2024), which they said killed 19 people over 24 hours and raised the overall Lebanese death toll to 2,593 since October 2023.

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 19 people overnight, including a woman and her six children, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the region on Sunday (August 18, 2024) to try to seal a cease-fire deal after months of contentious negotiations.

The U.S. and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar appeared to be closing in on a deal after two days of talks in Doha, with American and Israeli officials expressing cautious optimism. But Hamas has signaled resistance to what it says are new demands by Israel, and the long-running talks have repeatedly stalled.

The evolving proposal calls for a three-phase process in which Hamas would release all hostages abducted during its October 7 attack, which triggered the deadliest war ever fought between Israelis and Palestinians. In exchange, Israel would withdraw its forces from Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners.

The mediators hope to end a war that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.3 million residents and caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Experts have warned of famine and the outbreak of diseases like polio.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted around 250. Of those, some 110 are still believed to be inside Gaza, with Israeli authorities saying around a third are deceased. More than 100 hostages were released in November during a weeklong cease-fire.

The latest Israeli bombardment included a strike early Sunday (August 18, 2024) on a home in the central town of Deir al-Balah that killed a woman and her six children, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Mohammed Awad Khatab, the children’s grandfather, said his daughter, a school teacher, was with her husband and their six children when their house was struck. He said the children ranged in age from 18 months to 15 years, and that four of them were quadruplets. He said the father was hospitalized after the strike.

“The six children have become body parts. They were placed in a single bag,” he told reporters outside the hospital. “What did they do? Did they kill any of the Jews?… Will this provide security to Israel?”

A strike in the northern town of Jabaliya hit two apartments in a residential building, killing two men, a woman and her daughter, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another strike in central Gaza killed four people, according to the Awda Hospital. Late Saturday (August 17, 2024), a strike near the southern city of Khan Younis killed four people from the same family, including two women, according to Nasser Hospital.

Hamas has cast doubt on whether an agreement is near, saying the latest proposal diverged significantly from a previous iteration they had accepted in principle. Hamas has rejected Israel’s demands for a lasting military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border and a line bisecting Gaza where Israeli forces would search Palestinians returning to their homes. Israel says both are needed to prevent militants from rearming and returning to the north.

Israel showed flexibility on retreating from the border corridor, and a meeting between Egyptian and Israeli military officials was scheduled for next week to agree on a withdrawal mechanism, according to two Egyptian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private negotiations.

Palestinian children sit next to the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, April 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 18 people, including 14 children, health officials said on April 21, as the United States was on track to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to its close ally.

Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive to the city on the border with Egypt despite international calls for restraint, including from the U.S.

The House of Representatives approved a $26 billion aid package on Saturday that includes around $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

Also read | Israel, a two-state solution, some recent perceptions

The first strike killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant and the doctors managed to save the baby, the hospital said.

The second strike killed 13 children and two women, all from the same family, according to hospital records. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction across the territory. Around 80% of the population have fled their homes to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave, which experts say is on the brink of famine.

The conflict, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the U.S. against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran traded fire directly earlier this month, raising fears of all-out war between the longtime foes.

Tensions have also spiked in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli troops killed two Palestinians who the military says attacked a checkpoint with a knife and a gun near the southern West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the two killed were 18 and 19 years old, from the same family. No Israeli forces were wounded, the army said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service meanwhile said it has recovered a total of 14 bodies from an Israeli raid in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp in the West Bank that began late Thursday. Those killed include three militants from the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy. The military says it killed 10 militants in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Nine Israeli soldiers and officers were wounded.

In a separate incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was wounded in an explosion Sunday, the Magen David Adom rescue service said. A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag that had been planted in a field. When he kicks it, it appears to trigger an explosive device.

At least 469 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have been killed during Israeli military arrest raids, which often trigger gunbattles, or in violent protests.

The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Hamas and other militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for new elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned.

The war has killed at least 34,049 Palestinians and wounded another 76,901, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count but says at least two-thirds have been children and women. It also says the real toll is likely higher as many bodies are stuck beneath the rubble left by airstrikes or are in areas that are unreachable for medics.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militants fight in dense, residential neighborhoods, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The military says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.

An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza’s southernmost city killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said on April 20, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group Hamas has led to a dramatic escalation of tensions in an already volatile Middle East.

Also read | Israel, a two-state solution, some recent perceptions

The strike late Friday hit a residential building in the western Tel Sultan neighborhood of the city of Rafah, according to Gaza’s civil defense. The bodies of the six children, two women and a man were taken to Rafah’s Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital, the hospital’s records showed.

At the hospital, relatives cried and hugged the bodies of the children, wrapped in white shrouds, as others comforted them.

The fatalities included Abdel-Fattah Sobhi Radwan, his wife Najlaa Ahmed Aweidah and their three children, his brother-in-law Ahmed Barhoum said. Barhoum also lost his wife, Rawan Radwan, and their 5-year-old daughter Alaa.

“This is a world devoid of all human values and morals,” Barhoum told The Associated Press Saturday morning, crying as he cradled and gently rocked the body of Alaa in his arms. “They bombed a house full of displaced people, women and children. There were no martyrs but women and children.”

No victims were registered from a second overnight strike in the city.

Rafah, which lies on the border with Egypt, currently hosts more than half of Gaza’s total population of about 2.3 million people, the vast majority of whom have been displaced by fighting further north in the territory.

Despite calls for restraint from the international community, including Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States, the Israeli government has insisted for months that it intends to push a ground offensive into the city, where it says many of the remaining Hamas militants are holed up.

Such a ground operation has not materialized so far, but the Israeli military has repeatedly carried out airstrikes on and around the city.

The war was sparked by an unprecedented raid into southern Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on Oct. 7 that left about 1,200 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians, and saw about 250 people kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Israel says about 130 hostages remain in Gaza, although more than 30 have been confirmed to now be dead, either killed on Oct. 7 or having died in captivity.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday the bodies of 37 people killed by Israeli strikes were brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 68 wounded, it said. The latest figures bring the overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war to at least 34,049, and the number of wounded to 76,901, the ministry said. Although the Hamas-run health authorities do not differentiate between combatants and civilians in their count, they say at least two thirds have been children and women.

The war has sent regional tensions spiraling, leading to a dramatic eruption of violence between Israel and its archenemy Iran that threatened to escalate into a full-blown war.

On Friday, both Iran and Israel played down an apparent Israeli airstrike near a major air base and nuclear site in central Iran, indicating the two sides were pulling back from what could have become an all-out conflict. Over the past several weeks, an alleged Israeli strike killed two Iranian generals at an Iranian consulate in Syria and was followed by an unprecedented Iranian missile barrage on Israel.

Israel has also faced off with the Hezbollah militant group, an Iranian proxy operating from Lebanon, with the two sides there frequently trading rocket and drone attacks across the Lebanese-Israeli border. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have also joined the fray, launching strikes against merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Tension has also been high in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli military raid Friday in the Nur Shams refugee camp killed at least four Palestinians, including three militants, according to the Israeli military, Palestinian health officials and a militant group.

Palestinian health authorities said one of those killed was a 15-year-old boy shot dead by Israeli fire. The Islamic Jihad militant group confirmed the deaths of three members, including one who it said was a local military commander. The Israeli military said four Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded in the operation.

Saraya al-Quds, the military arm of Islamic Jihad, said its fighters had engaged in heavy gun battles Saturday morning with Israeli forces in the town of Tulkarem, adjacent to Nur Shams. No further details were immediately available. Residents in Tulkarem went went on a general strike Saturday to protest the attack on Nur Shams, with shops, restaurants and government offices all closed.

The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, has a limited foothold in many of the territory’s northern towns and cities, including Tulkarem and Jenin. Militant groups, including Islamic Jihad, are active in both cities, often clashing with Israeli soldiers during army raids.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, more than 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials say. Israel stages frequent raids into towns and cities in the volatile territory. The dead have included militants, but also stone-throwers and bystanders. Some have also been killed in attacks by Israeli settlers.

Some of Latin America’s largest countries came out on Wednesday to condemn Israel’s attacks on a densely populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, widening the diplomatic rift between the region and the Middle Eastern country.

Argentina, home to Latin America’s largest Jewish community, Peru and Mexico lambasted the Israeli attacks, which the Gaza government in the Hamas-controlled territory said had killed nearly 200 people.

The criticisms come a day after Bolivia cut diplomatic ties with Israel over its bombardment and siege of Gaza and mounting civilian casualties, while Colombia and Chile recalled their ambassadors to the country.

-Reuters