Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip (AP) – A Hezbollah drone attack on a military base in central Israel killed four soldiers and seriously wounded seven others, the military said. Ground invasion of Lebanon Almost two weeks ago.
Lebanon-based Hezbollah called the attack near the town of Binyamin an act of revenge. Israeli attack on Beirut 22 people were killed on Thursday. It then targeted Israel’s elite Golani Brigade and launched dozens of missiles to engage Israeli air defense systems during attacks by “squadrons” of drones.
Israel’s National Rescue Service said 61 people were injured in the attack. With Israel’s advanced air defense systems, it is rare for many people to be injured by drones or missiles. Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily this year War in Gaza Began, fighting escalated.
Israel began its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this month with the aim of weakening Hezbollah and pushing the militant group over the border to allow thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes.
Inside Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on a school Sunday night killed at least 20 people, including children, two local hospitals said. The school in Nusirat sheltered many Palestinians displaced by the war.
Meanwhile, explosions outside the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Bala early Monday killed three people and wounded around 50, the hospital said. Tents caught fire, and residents of a central Gaza community rushed the injured to hospital.
Hezbollah’s deadly strike on Israel came on the same day as the US announcement A new air defense system should be sent to Israel To help strengthen defenses against missiles, along with the troops needed to operate it. An Israeli military spokesman declined to provide a timeline.
Israel is now at war with Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza Lebanon – both Iran-backed militant groups – and It is expected to attack Iran in response to a missile attack earlier this month. Iran has said it will retaliate against any attack by Israel.
Netanyahu at the U.N. He calls the peacekeeping force a ‘human shield’ for Hezbollah
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said Israeli tanks forced their way into a level gate early Sunday morning and destroyed the main gate. They then shot the smoke near the peacekeepers, causing skin irritation. UNIFIL called the incident “another flagrant violation of international law”.
International criticism is mounting after Israeli forces continued to fire UN peacekeeping force Since the start of ground operations in Lebanon. Five peacekeepers were wounded in attacks on their positions, most of which were blamed on Israeli forces.
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said Sunday’s incident was “deeply concerning” and that attacks against peacekeepers could constitute a war crime.
Israel’s military says Hezbollah is operating in close proximity to peacekeepers, without evidence.
A UN tank trying to evacuate wounded soldiers came under fire on Sunday. A smokescreen was used to cover it up, they said.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said Israel would continue to try to maintain contact with UNIFIL and the UN. He also stressed that any incident involving forces would be investigated at the “highest level”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday to heed Israel’s warnings to pull out UNIFIL, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah.
“We regret the injury to UNIFIL players and we are doing everything we can to prevent this injury. But the simplest and most obvious way to ensure this is to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video address to the UN secretary-general. Banned from entering Israel.
Israel has long accused the United Nations of bias against it, and relations have further deteriorated since the war in Gaza began.
The Israeli offensive in Lebanon destroyed the Ottoman-era market
A day after Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes, Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel. The conflict escalated in September with Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and several of his senior commanders.
Israel launched a ground operation earlier this month. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since September, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, which did not say how many were by Hezbollah fighters. Rocket attacks on Israel have killed at least 58 people, nearly half of them soldiers.
Israeli airstrikes destroyed an Ottoman-era market in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh overnight, killing at least one person and injuring four others.
“All our livelihoods have been disrupted,” said Ahmad Faqih, whose shop was destroyed. Rescuers searched the buildings as Israeli drones buzzed overhead.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets.
Separately, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon, after a second strike left four paramedics in shock and damaged two ambulances.
The Red Cross said the operation was coordinated with UN peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side.
Bodies rot in the streets of northern Gaza
Israel has been attacking what it says are militant targets in Gaza on a daily basis. The military says it is trying to avoid harming civilians and blames the deaths on Hamas and other armed groups operating in densely populated areas.
In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces are attacking Jabalia, where the military says militants have regrouped. In the past year, Israeli forces have returned to the refugee camps that have been built several times. The war surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948and other areas.
Israel has ordered the complete evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the opening weeks of the war.
Palestinians fear that Israel will think Northern permanent settlement Establish military bases or Jewish settlements there.
The United Nations reported that no food had entered northern Gaza since October 1.
The military confirmed that hospitals were included in the evacuation orders, but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers.
Fares Abu Hamza, an official at Gaza’s health ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of “most martyrs” had not been collected from the streets and under the rubble.
“We couldn’t reach them,” he said, adding that the dogs were eating some leftovers.
The war began When Hamas-led militants attacked a year ago, about 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and about 250 were kidnapped. About 100 hostages are still held in GazaA third are believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and its ground occupation of Gaza have killed 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. leaving much of the territory in ruins. The ministry did not distinguish between combatants or civilians, but said more than half of the deaths were women and children.
Israel claims to have killed more than 17,000 fighters, without any evidence.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Karim Sehayeb and Abby Sewell in Beirut, Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wafa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Utah contributed to this report.
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Learn more about AP’s war coverage https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
