Israel is bombarding Gaza and Lebanon

By WAFAA SHURAFA and JULIA FRANKEL

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli army launched deadly waves air strikes across Lebanon and Gaza, killing at least 24 people in northeastern Lebanon on Friday, the country’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Palestinians have meanwhile recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli attacks on central Gaza that began on Thursday, hospital officials said.

It was another day of bloodshed, both in Lebanon, where Israel this week stepped up airstrikes against Hezbollah in the northeast, and in Gaza, where Israel said it had attacked Hamas infrastructure near the Nuseirat refugee camp. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Despite increasing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, Israeli attacks on the militant Hezbollah group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s periphery.

Israeli attacks that initially targeted smaller border villages in southern Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah holds sway, have expanded in recent weeks to larger urban centers where the group – which is also a major political party and social services provider – has many followers. .

The intensified attacks on and around the northeastern city of Baalbek This week, the attacks have driven about 60,000 people to flee their homes, according to Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker who represents the region.

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Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, November 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

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The Lebanese state’s National News Agency reported four airstrikes in several villages in the northeast, which until last month had largely been spared the worst of the Israeli bombardments. The agency said rescuers were still searching for survivors in the Bekaa Valley town of Younine, under the rubble of a targeted building believed to have housed 20 people.

Further attacks in the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel region killed eight people in the village of Amhaz and another two in the village of Taraya.

The Israeli military has said its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure as the group continues to fire rockets, drones and rockets into Israel. Rockets fired from Lebanon killed seven people in northern Israel on Thursday, including four Thai workers.

Israeli planes also fired upon Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh was hit overnight and early FridayDozens of buildings in several neighborhoods were destroyed, according to the country’s news agency. The Israeli military said the strikes hit Hezbollah weapons production sites and command centers.

There was no word from Lebanese officials about any casualties resulting from the strikes in Dahiyeh.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 injured since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel almost daily, prompting retaliation.

The latest violence comes against the backdrop of the Biden administration’s renewed diplomatic approach push days before the US elections to reach a temporary ceasefire between Israel, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

In Gaza, officials at al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza said they continued to receive bodies after a barrage of Israeli airstrikes on the Nuseirat camp that killed 21, including an 18-month-old child and his 10-year-old sister .

Israeli strikes also hit a motorcycle in Zuwaida and a house in Deir al-Balah, killing four more people, hospital officials said, bringing the total death toll in Gaza to 25 as of Friday. Within the past 24 hours, the Gaza-based Health Ministry reported that 55 people had been killed and another 196 injured in the battered enclave.

The Israeli military did not comment on the attacks outside the Nuseirat camp. It said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was investigating.

Israel The blistering offensive on the Gaza Strip has cost the lives of more than 43,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, say health officials in Gaza who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. They say more than half of the dead are women and children.

Israel began bombing Gaza after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year, when the terrorists killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages into Gaza.

Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Bassem Mroue in Beirut, David Rising in Bangkok and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this story.

Originally published: November 1, 2024 at 11:34 AM EDT