Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli airstrike hit guesthouses where journalists were staying in southeast Lebanon, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies Friday. In the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli attack left 38 people dead.
Several journalists have been killed since a near-daily exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border on Oct. 8, 2023. Lebanon’s health ministry says the total toll over the past year is over 2,500 killed and 12,000 wounded. The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, including more than 400,000 children, according to the United Nations children’s agency. Israeli strikes have killed much of Hezbollah’s top leadership since fighting ramped up in September.
41 people killed in 24 hours in Lebanon, health ministry says
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s health ministry said Friday that 41 people were killed and 133 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,634 killed and 12,252 wounded. Lebanon’s crisis response unit recorded 125 airstrikes and incidents of shelling in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon and the Nabatiyeh province.
Several intense airstrikes targeted Khiam village in southern Lebanon, killing four people and wounding four others, Lebanon’s state media said. Some 1,097 centers are sheltering 190,975 people, including 43,712 families, displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the health ministry’s report said. Among these shelters, 929 have reached full capacity. The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, including more than 400,000 children, according to the U.N. Children’s Agency. People are also flowing across the border to Syria. Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 25, Lebanese General Security recorded nearly half a million people crossing into Syria, including 348,237 Syrian and 156,505 Lebanese citizens, the report said.
Group decries Israeli airstrike that killed 3 journalists
JERUSALEM — The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was appalled by the killing of the three journalists by an Israeli strike in Lebanon. The group on Friday called for an independent investigation into why the guesthouse where they were sleeping was targeted.
“CPJ is deeply outraged by yet another deadly Israeli airstrike on journalists, this time hitting a compound hosting 18 members of the press in south Lebanon,” said the organization’s program director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law. This attack must be independently investigated and the perpetrators must be held to account.”
The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike and later said it was looking into it.
2 people in Israel killed in rocket attack from Lebanon
JERUSALEM — Two people in Israel died of their wounds after a rocket attack from Lebanon on Friday, the country’s rescue services said. A 35-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man died after sustaining critical injuries from rocket shrapnel in the predominantly Arab town of Majd Al-Krum in northern Israel, rescue services said. Rocket shrapnel hit the town’s “industrial center,” injuring seven others.
The Israeli military said that militants in Lebanon fired 45 rockets into Israel on Friday, with some escaping interception.
UN human rights chief decries bombing in northern Gaza
GENEVA — The United Nations human rights chief says the Israeli government’s actions in northern Gaza “risk emptying the area of all Palestinians” and argues that “we are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes.” Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, decried “nonstop” bombing in northern Gaza in a statement Friday and said that “the Israeli military has ordered hundreds of thousands to move, with no guarantees of return. But there is no safe way to leave.”
Israel has been carrying out a major offensive in northern Gaza for more than two weeks. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled their homes. The military says it is battling Hamas fighters who regrouped in the north, one of the first targets of the ground offensive at the start of the war.
Türk said that “the Israeli government’s policies and practices in northern Gaza risk emptying the area of all Palestinians. We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.” He said Palestinian armed groups also reportedly continue to operate amongst civilians and put them in harm’s way.
Türk called on world leaders to act, pointing to a duty under the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.
Three more Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military announced Friday that three more soldiers were killed in Gaza. All three died on Wednesday, the military said, without specifying if they were all killed in the same incident or providing any details. In all, 359 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in Gaza since the start of the ground operation, following Hamas militants’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Israel says 3 injured by shrapnel from rocket attack from Lebanon
JERUSALEM — Shrapnel from a rocket attack from Lebanon critically injured three people in Israel Friday, Israeli rescue services said. The three — two 21-year-old men and a 35-year-old woman — were injured in Majd Al-Krum, a predominantly Arab town in the country’s north, rescue services said. It said six others were injured, including an 80-year-old man in serious condition.
Israel’s military said the rocket barrage hit a gym in the town. Militants in Lebanon fired 45 projectiles into Israel Friday, including some that were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses and others that fell in open areas, the military said.
Israeli military confirms its troops operating near north Gaza hospital
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military confirmed Friday that its troops were operating around Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza. The hospital’s director had said the facility was facing a catastrophic situation with bombardment, Israeli troops preventing the entry of crucial aid and patients dying for lack of medical supplies.
In a social media video posted late Thursday, the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said the hospital had been directly shelled by a tank, a claim the Israeli military did not immediately respond to.
“We’re a few hours away from the death of all these people,” he said. “Until when will this continue? Instead of receiving aid, we receive tanks.”
Israel said troops were operating in the area because it had intelligence that militants and militant infrastructure were there and said it had evacuated some patients from the hospital the night before and delivered fuel and supplies to the facility. The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify the claims. The hospital is in the Jabaliya refugee camp in north Gaza, where Israel is staging a renewed offensive against Hamas fighters it says have regrouped there. It has called for the evacuation of all civilians in the north.
In a voice recording obtained by AP from Thursday, Abu Safiya said the hospital has 14 patients in pediatric and neonatal intensive care, and several patients had died due to a lack of supplies and medicine like antibiotics. He said that one doctor at the hospital was killed Wednesday, as a bombing could be heard in the background. His video showed one woman knelt over the yellowed body of a child, who Abu Safiya said had died that morning. Another small child sat alone on a bed, face bloodied and both arms bandaged, crying as flies swarmed around the open wounds on his head.
Jordan’s foreign minister alleges Israel is engaging in ethnic cleansing
LONDON — United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, on Friday in London, where the Arab leader accused Israel of engaging in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
“The only path to save the region from that is for Israel to stop the aggressions on Gaza, on Lebanon, stop unilateral illegal measures of the West Bank that is also pushing this situation,” Safadi said.
“We meet at a very, very critical moment, as you mentioned, the humanitarian situation is really difficult when we look at Northern Gaza, where we do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop,” he said. Safadi is one of many Arab leaders with whom Blinken has met as he took negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza and a post-war plan on a tour of the Middle East. Safadi did not mince words Friday when describing Israel’s role in the conflicts, saying mediators are trying to “get through the nightmare that the region continues to live in.”
Israeli attack kills 38 overnight in Khan Younis
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Israeli military conducted operations overnight into Friday in Khan Younis, killing 38 people and injuring more than a dozen others, health officials said. Palestinians who were killed or injured were taken to the European and Nasser Hospitals. Records from the European hospital obtained by the AP showed at least 15 members of the al-Farra family were killed, including 13 children.
Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal posted a video Friday morning of rescuers recovering the bodies of 9 children from the Al-Farra family in Al Manara neighborhood. The Israeli attack, which included airstrikes and shelling, according to health officials, targeted several residential buildings in neighborhoods east of Khan Younis Governorate. Six members of the Abdeen family were also killed, according to health officials.
Israel has attacked 55 hospitals, Lebanon’s health minister says
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said Friday that Israel has carried out attacks on 55 hospitals — 36 of which were in Gaza. He said that 20 hospitals were hit in the West Bank and three in southern Lebanon. Abiad called for urgent international action to stop Israeli strikes on hospitals. The World Health Organization, meanwhile, said that Gaza has reached a “critical stage” in health care due to a lack of medical supplies.
First U.N. food aid convoy enters Gaza since war broke out
GAZA — A United Nations food aid convoy has entered Gaza for the first time since the war broke out. The U.N. says it delivered 100 trucks with food aid to be distributed to 12,000 families in need. The aid was coordinated by the U.N. and other humanitarian partners, including the World Food Program and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, humanitarian access remains limited, with the U.N. warning that aid is still insufficient to meet the escalating needs of those affected by the conflict.
Thousands of children at risk of malnutrition, UNICEF says
GAZA — The U.N. children’s agency said on Friday that an estimated 500,000 children in Gaza are at risk of malnutrition due to the conflict. UNICEF said in a statement that food insecurity continues to escalate and that it is critical to ensure safe and rapid access to food and other essential services for all children. It added that 1.4 million children in Gaza require humanitarian assistance.
The U.N. agency also warned of the urgent need for mental health and psychosocial support for children traumatized by the conflict.
