Israel-Lebanon newest: Family of 8 killed in Gaza refugee camp strike

An Israeli strike on the central Gaza Strip has killed a family of eight, Palestinian medical officials said.

The strike came as Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants and pushed for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from the north of the territory.

Israel is also waging an air and ground campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when.

The strike in Gaza late Saturday hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing parents and their six children, who ranged in age from eight to 23, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.

It said another seven people were wounded, including two women and a child in critical condition. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies and filmed funeral prayers held at the hospital.

The UK is among 40 nations “strongly” condemning attacks on United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon.

Earlier this week, Israeli troops fired on UN headquarters in southern Lebanon, injuring two peacekeepers for the second time in as many days.

On Saturday, it was reported by the United Nations that another peacekeeper was injured by gunfire in the country’s south.

A joint statement, co-signed by the UK and posted to the X account of the Polish UN mission on Saturday, said attacks on peacekeepers “must stop immediately”.

The statement said: “As the countries contributors to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) we reaffirm our full support for Unifil’s mission and activities, whose principal aim is to bring stabilisation and lasting peace in South Lebanon as well as in the Middle East, in line with relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council.

“We consider Unifil’s role as particularly crucial in light of the escalating situation in the region.

“We therefore strongly condemn recent attacks on the Unifil peacekeepers. Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated.”

The statement continued: “We urge the parties of the conflict to respect Unifil’s presence, which entails the obligation to guarantee the safety and security of its personnel at all times so that they can continue to implement its mandate and continue their work of mediation and support for peace and stability in Lebanon and the entire region.

“We reiterate our commitment to multilateral cooperation with the UN at its core. We call for respect for the international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations as well as the relevant resolutions of the Security Council.”

Hezbollah said on Sunday it was fighting Israeli forces trying to infiltrate Ramya village in southern Lebanon, as a third UN peacekeeper was wounded in Israel’s escalating conflict with the Iran-backed Lebanese group.

Israeli strikes have shook the peacekeepers’ main base in southern Lebanon, prompting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Western countries to condemn the attacks. The UNIFIL force called it a “serious development” and said the security of UN personnel and property must be guaranteed.

France summoned Israel’s ambassador and issued a statement with Italy and Spain calling such attacks “unjustifiable”. US President Joe Biden said he was asking Israel not to hit the UNIFIL forces. Russia said it was “outraged” and demanded Israel refrain from “hostile actions” against peacekeepers.

Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines.

It’s not the first time the national army has found itself watching war at home from the discomfiting position of bystander.

Lebanon’s widely beloved army is one of the few institutions that bridge the country’s sectarian and political divides. Several army commanders have become president, and the current commander, Gen. Joseph Aoun, is widely regarded as one of the front-runners to step in when the deadlocked parliament fills a two-year vacuum and names a president.

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Donald Trump’s family business tried to open a luxury hotel in Jerusalem, Israel, according to a report.

The former president’s company also looked into transforming a developing skyscraper — near the Israel Defense Forces headquarters — in Tel Aviv into another hotel. Once completed, that building will house the most hotel rooms in the country, the outlet noted.

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UN humanitarian officials say aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months and warn that critical lifelines in the territory’s north, where Israel has renewed its military offensive, have been cut off.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq delivered the grim news Friday, saying the main crossings into northern Gaza have been closed and no food or other essential supplies have entered since Oct. 1. More than 400,000 people who remain in the north are under increasing pressure to move south, he said.

“The situation is terrible” across northern Gaza, Haq said, adding that the entire territory faces insecurity.

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Barak Deri, an Israeli Defence Force reservist, has been hailed as a hero in his country and is visiting London this week as part of a mission to win support for Israel’s struggle in the ongoing war on multiple fronts in the Middle East.

The 32-year-old, who was wounded and is likely to be disabled for the rest of his life, arrived in the UK with a simple warning that “Israel’s war is the West’s war” and the demand: “We cannot be quiet, we must send a clear message that another Holocaust is not an option.”

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Hours after an Israeli strike destroyed a three-story building in Beirut, killing at least 10 people, Maggie Sharawi received a telephone call from a person living nearby saying that the attack had killed a cat that had several kittens.

While civil defense members were combing through the rubble for human victims or survivors, Sharawi and other members of Animals Lebanon, an animal protection organization, also rushed to the scene in Beirut’s central Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood Friday.

They began climbing through rubble, twisted metal and collapsed walls to reach the kittens. The animals, just a few days old, were pulled out, put in a plastic carrier and taken away as the rescuers continued searching for other cats whose cries could be heard emerging from under the debris.

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Rwo events took place last weekend in Germany. At a conference in Berlin called The Big Chill, a group of thinkers and activists denounced what they called “anticipatory obedience” in which Germans, including Jews, had been “muted, de-platformed and stigmatised” for criticising Israel’s response to the atrocities of 7 October 2023.

At the same time, in a small town called Zeitz in eastern Germany, 10 “stumbling stones”, small memorial brass plates denoting the homes of Jews taken to be exterminated in concentration camps, were ripped up. “Whoever did this wants to tear the Holocaust out of our memory,” a leading local politician, Götz Ulrich, declared.

The sad fact is both sets of assertions are largely true. And yet, it was a weekend like any other and neither event received particular coverage.

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Israeli airstrikes flattened a residential area and killed at least 22 people including women and children in an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.

In an area where Israel’s military launched a major ground operation last week, one of the strikes late Friday destroyed an entire building, killing at least 20 people and severely damaging several nearby buildings in the center of Jabaliya camp, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.

A different strike killed a mother, father and injured their baby in another part of Jabaliya, medical officials said.

First responders who rushed to the area before the strikes had ceased found a 20-meter (65-foot) deep hole within a house in the area.

At least 20 bodies had been recovered from the area as of Saturday morning, with many others said to be missing under the rubble, emergency service officials said, adding that at least six women and seven children were killed.

Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday said hospitals across Gaza received the bodies of 49 people killed over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 219 wounded. The deaths brought the death tally to 42,175 since the war began on Oct. 7 last year, with 98,339 wounded, according to the ministry.