By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA): Israeli indiscriminate strikes on Lebanon kill 28 and injured several people over past 24 hours.
The latest announcement by Lebanon’s government brings the death toll to 2,574 killed since October last year.
Meanwhile in Gaza Israeli forces killed 74 Palestinians and injured 130.
LEBANON
The Lebanese Red Cross said Wednesday that one of its medics was injured and two ambulances were damaged in an Israeli airstrike in Tyre in southern Lebanon.
The organization said it dispatched three ambulances to the town of Umm al-Tut following an Israeli attack to provide medical assistance there.
The ambulances, however, were hit by an Israeli airstrike as they reached the entrance of the town, injuring a medic and damaging two vehicles, it added.
This marks the second Israeli attack on Red Cross personnel in Lebanon in less than 24 hours.
At least ten people were killed in a new wave of Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to Lebanese media.
Israeli warplane struck the border town of Maaraken, leaving three people dead, the state news agency NNA reported.
The strike came shortly after the Israeli army issues immediate evacuation orders for residents in several areas in the town.
Two more people lost their lives in another airstrike in Maifadoun town in Nabatieh district.
Five people were also killed when Israeli fighter jets launched several airstrikes in Srebbine town in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon.
Israeli artillery shelling were also reported in several southern towns, including Ramieh, Aita al-Shaab and Al-Qouzah.
The Israeli army detected the launch of 25 rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel on Wednesday in a matter of two minutes.
Hezbollah said Wednesday that it launched rocket attacks against 20 gatherings of Israeli soldiers in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, as well as strikes on Nahariya and three military bases near Haifa and on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
The group said in statements that it fired rocket salvos at seven gatherings of Israeli soldiers in the settlements of Misgav Am and Margaliot in northern Israel, as well as at military positions in Marj and Misgav Am, between Al-Samaqa and Ruwaisat Al-Alam, and near the Ruwaisat Al-Alam position.
It also said it targeted 13 Israeli forces’ positions in southern Lebanon, including near the towns of Odaisseh, Houla, Ramyah, Rab El Thalathine and Taybeh, as well as areas between Odaisseh and Rab El Thalathine, and between Blat Heights and Marwahin.
Other strikes occurred near the intersection of Rab El Thalathine, Odaisseh, and Markaba, including three soldier gatherings between Odaisseh and Rab El Thalathine.
A military statement said air-raid sirens sounded in Haifa Bay, Acre, and the settlements of Kiryat Shmona and Metula in northern Israel.
The Israeli army said the rocket barrage was fired in just two minutes, with most of the projectiles intercepted while others fell in open areas.
No injuries or damage were reported.
The army said its air defenses also intercepted four combat drones, without mentioning from where they were fired.
Hezbollah, for its part, confirmed that it had fired a barrage of rockets toward the Glilot base of the Israeli army’s military intelligence unit 8200 near Tel Aviv in central Israel.
The Israeli army said that it intercepted two long-range rockets fired from Lebanon towards Tel Aviv.
Israel has mounted a huge air campaign in Lebanon since last month against what it claims are Hezbollah targets in an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and the group since the start of Israel’s brutal offensive on Gaza.
GAZA
At least 74 more Palestinians were killed in relentless indiscriminate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 42,792, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Wednesday.
A ministry statement added that some 100,412 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“The Israeli occupation has committed six massacres of families in the last 24 hours, resulting in 74 deaths and 130 injuries,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
Two Palestinian medics were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, a local health official said.
Doctor Mohammad Ghanem and Mohammad Salman, a nurse, were killed in the attack that occurred near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia city, Director-General of Gaza’s Health Ministry Munir al-Borsh told Anadolu Agency.
“The Israeli army continues to besiege hospitals in northern Gaza, kills and forcibly vacates people from shelters,” he told Anadolu.
More than 770 Palestinians have been killed and 1,000 wounded after 19 days of Israeli military attacks and siege on Jabalia, in northern Gaza, the territory’s government media office says.
It said in a statement that more than 200 civilians, including women, have been “kidnapped”, and dozens more remain missing amid communications issues.
We express our fear that they may have been executed in the field, as has been done on many previous occasions,” it added.
More than 100,000 wounded and sick people in the northern parts of Gaza are in “urgent need” of assistance, which remains elusive due to the Israeli military’s destruction of the health system and four hospitals in the area, according to the office.
At least 22 more Israeli soldiers were injured in clashes in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon in the last 24 hours, the military said on Wednesday.
According to military figures released by the army, at least 752 soldiers have been killed and 5,056 others injured since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel has permitted only four out of 66 planned humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza during the first 20 days of October, with no food aid allowed for 14 days, the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said.
OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke detailed a severe deterioration in humanitarian access, revealing that Israeli authorities rejected 28 requests and blocked seven others for coordinated aid movements to Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya regions in northern Gaza.
“For the first two weeks of October, 85% of the movements (aid attempts) were denied,” Laerke told Anadolu in a written response, highlighting the increasingly dire situation in northern Gaza.
A number of civilians were killed and others were injured on Wednesday in Israeli airstrikes targeting different areas in the Gaza Strip.
Medical sources reported that two civilians were killed after they were targeted by an Israeli drone near in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Strip.
Two civilians were also killed and at least four others were injured in an Israeli drone shelling of a group of civilians in Khirbet al-Adas, north of the southern Strip city of Rafah.
Three civilians were killed and dozens of others were injured after the Israeli army shelled the Zahra school, which shelters displaced people in eastern Gaza City.
The Israeli artillery also targeted areas northwest of al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the middle of the Strip.
Two civilians were also killed and at least four others were injured in an Israeli drone shelling of a group of civilians in Khirbet al-Adas, north of the southern Strip city of Rafah.
Three civilians were killed and dozens of others were injured after the occupation shelled the Zahra school, which shelters displaced people in eastern Gaza City.
The Israeli artillery also targeted areas northwest of al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the middle of the Strip.
The armed wing of Hamas has released a video showing an Israeli Merkava tank being destroyed after running over a planted explosive device in the Tall az-Zaatar neighbourhood east of Jabalia in northern Gaza.
The Qassam Brigades also announced its fighters used 114mm “Rajum” rockets to hit an Israeli command-and-control site along the Netzarim Corridor, the Israeli-established and -controlled strip of land that splits northern and southern Gaza.
Earlier, the group reported a D9 military bulldozer had struck a landmine in as-Saftawi in northern Gaza and another bulldozer was targeted with an antiarmour shell and an explosive device in the al-Faluja neighbourhood of Jabalia.
An Israeli airstrike targeting a house in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City, Wednesday evening killed four Palestinian civilians and injured others, according to medical sources.
They said that Israeli fighter jets pounded a house in the neighbourhood, killing four civilians and injuring others.
WEST BANK
A group of illegal Israeli settlers attacked and injured a Palestinian child and set fire to olive trees in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that settlers from the Havat Maon outpost in the Masafer Yatta area of Hebron abducted 15-year-old Salama Kaid Makhamra and took him into the settlement.
According to WAFA, the settlers severely beat the child before abandoning him near the village of Maghayir al-‘Abid in Masafer Yatta.
Palestinian medical teams transported him to Yatta Government Hospital to treat the injuries and bruises he sustained all over his body.
In the northern West Bank, the agency reported that settlers set fire to olive trees owned by Palestinian residents of the village of Yasouf, located in Salfit Governorate.
Dozens of olive trees were destroyed in the attack.
[Photo: Palestinians of Beit Lahia & Jabalia areas in north of Gaza Strip, are force by Israeli army to Gaza City with their belongings on 23 10, 2024. Photojournalist: Mahmoud Isleem/ AA]
