(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa): Israeli inidscriminate bombings across Gaza has killed at least 65 more Palestinians, bringing the overall death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since 7 October, 2023 to 42,409, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Wednesday.
A ministry statement added that some 99,153 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 65 people and injured 140 others in six massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
Iaraeli forces killed 27 people and injured 185 over the last 24 hours, as Israel presses forward with a heavy and indiscriminate bombing campaign in Lebanon. The ministry says 2,377 people have been killed and 11,109 wounded since the current crisis began.
GAZA
Four Palestinians were killed and six others injured in fresh Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to a medical source.
The source said two people lost their lives and three others were injured when a drone hit a car in Soufa in the southern city of Rafah.
Two civilians were killed red and others were injured after the Israeli occupation forces targeted a vehicle in the central Gaza Strip.
Local sources reported that the occupation forces bombed a vehicle in the village of Al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip, which led to the killing of two people and the injury of others, some of them seriously.
Five Palestinians were killed at dawn on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on Al-Nasr neighborhood, west of Gaza City.
Local sources said that the Israeli airstrikes bombed a house near the Italian Tower in Al-Nasr neighborhood, west of Gaza City, which led to the killing of five citizens and the injury of others.
Palestine’s UN envoy calls Israel’s ongoing assault on northern Gaza the country’s “latest plan to achieve what has been its goal all along”.
“We warned since the early days of Israel’s assault that its goal was forcible displacement of the Palestinian people and annexation of the Palestinian territory. What we are seeing in northern Gaza is exactly that,” Mansour said.
“The so-called Israeli General’s Plan is in motion,” he added.
The “General’s Plan” is a strategy put forward by retired Israeli Major General Giora Eliand that aims to lay siege to the few hundred thousand remaining residents of northern Gaza to essentially empty out and ethnically cleanse this part of the territory.
Israeli media have quoted soldiers who said this strategy in effect is Israel’s latest campaign in northern Gaza.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said that reports published in the New York Times documenting Israel’s use of Palestinians as human shields in Gaza are “incredibly disturbing” but did not suggest the US is considering potential penalties.
“If the facts presented in that report are true, they’re completely unacceptable,” he said.
“I know that the [Israeli army] has announced that they’re investigating the claims in that report. That is entirely appropriate for them to do,” he added.
At least 1,139 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
LEBANON
The Lebanese health ministry has said that Israeli strikes across the country have killed 27 people and injured 185 over the last 24 hours, as Israel presses forward with a heavy and indiscriminate bombing campaign.
The ministry says 2,377 people have been killed and 11,109 wounded since the current round of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel began last year, with the vast majority of those deaths taking place in the last few weeks as Israel expands its attacks into densely civilian packed areas.
At least 12 people were killed and 78 injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanese health authorities said. The strikes targeted major towns, including Baalbek and Nabatieh, as well as several densely populated areas in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that an Israeli strike on the Baalbek-Riyaq highway killed two people and injured nine others. In a separate strike on a residence in the eastern town of Yammouneh, two more people were killed and 15 injured, according to Lebanon’s official news agency.
The Ministry of Health also updated casualty figures from Tuesday’s airstrikes on Qana in southern Lebanon, where three people were killed and 54 injured. Rescue teams are continuing to search the rubble in affected areas.
Israeli air raids pound Beirut’s southern suburbs, hours after the United States said it opposed the scope of attacks on Lebanon’s capital and the Lebanese prime minister said he had received US assurances Israel would stop.
In Nabatieh, five people were killed when municipal buildings were struck by Israeli missiles. Seven additional airstrikes hit Nabatieh al-Tahta, targeting densely populated neighborhoods, with more casualties feared as rescue operations continue.
Israeli forces also resumed air raids on Beirut’s southern suburbs after a six-day pause, claiming to target Hezbollah weapons caches. Across southern Lebanon, Israeli jets struck towns including Hanine, Ayta ash Shab, and Qlaileh, causing extensive damage.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah reported an attack on an Israeli Merkava tank near Ramya, resulting in casualties, and claimed to have launched rockets at artillery positions in northern Israel, including areas near Safed and Yiftach.
At least six people were killed and 43 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on municipal buildings in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said.
A ministry statement said that efforts were underway to search for survivors under the rubble.
The state news agency NNA said at least 10 airstrikes were launched by Israeli warplanes on Nabatieh this morning.
Other strikes were reported in Lower Nabatieh, Khiyam, Adaisseh, and Markaba in southern Lebanon.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned international silence to Israeli attacks against Lebanon.
“All countries of the world are unable to deter a clear aggression against the Lebanese people,” he said.
“Is it still useful to resort to the UN Security Council to demand a cease-fire?” he questioned.
Late on Tuesday, the Israeli army carried out a series of violent airstrikes on several towns and regions in southern and eastern Lebanon, killing at least 23 people and injuring 31 others.
Lebanese group Hezbollah on Wednesday announced cross-border rocket strikes targeting the city of Safed and the illegal settlement of Yiftah, as well as artillery bunkers in other parts of northern Israel.
In a statement, Hezbollah said its fighters struck bunkers in the areas of Dishon and Dalton in the attack that came in response to Israeli aggression on Lebanon.
In another statement, the resistance group said it struck Safed and Yiftah, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Golan Heights, with barrages of rockets.
The Israeli army also released a statement, saying that sirens were activated in Safed and its surrounding areas following a barrage of 50 rockets from Lebanon early Wednesday at midnight.
The Safed municipality claimed that the strikes caused minor damage in a building and that two people were lightly injured, according to the Times of Israel news website.
Other strikes were reported in Lower Nabatieh, Khiyam, Adaisseh, and Markaba in southern Lebanon.
Israeli army reported the launch of dozens of rockets from Lebanon on Wednesday amid increasing escalation with Hezbollah.
A military statement said air-raid sirens sounded in Upper Galilee, Middle Galilee, and Western Galilee after about 30 launches were detected from Lebanon.
The army said some of the projectiles were intercepted, while others landed in open areas.
Haaretz newspaper said early Wednesday that around 60 rockets were fired by Hezbollah into northern Israel since morning.
Hezbollah, for its part, confirmed firing rockets towards several areas in northern Israel, including Safed, Yiftah settlement, and artillery positions in Dalton and Deshon.
The group said its fighters also targeted an Israeli tank with a guided missile in Ramiya town in southern Lebanon, inflicting casualties.
Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem says Israel’s systematic destruction of Lebanese towns near their shared border indicates that it is trying to make the area uninhabitable.
“In the south, we saw pictures of Israel detonating a whole village, the village of Mhaibib, that’s just on the border,” he reported from Beirut. “That gives an indication that there is an attempt to make the border villages unlivable so that people won’t get back there even if there is a settlement or an end to the hostilities between the two sides.”
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has issued a statement saying that an Israeli tank targeted yet another UN position in southern Lebanon earlier today.
The peacekeeping mission said that one of its watchtowers in the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila was struck by an Israeli Merkava tank, destroying two cameras and damaging the tower.
“Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire at a UNIFIL position,” the statement says.
Israel has targeted UNIFIL positions several times in the last week, in an apparent attempt to get the agency to heed its public calls for it to withdraw peacekeeping forces.
Videos surfaced Wednesday showing the Israeli military demolishing a historic neighborhood in the southern Lebanese town of Mhaibib, a site housing a shrine over 2,100 years old.
Mhaibib, located in the Marjaayoun district of Nabatiyeh, is approximately 115 kilometers from Beirut. The town is home to the shrine of Prophet Benjamin, the son of Prophet Jacob, which holds significant religious and historical value, attracting numerous tourists.
The town’s mukhtar (village head), Qassem Ahmed Jaber, expressed uncertainty about the extent of the destruction due to the ongoing Israeli attacks and the evacuation of all residents in the area.
The exact impact on the ancient shrine remains unclear, with no official response from Lebanese authorities at this time.
Earlier in October, the Israeli military warned residents of 26 towns in southern Lebanon, including Mhaibib, to evacuate.
[Photo: Residential buildings destroyed by intense indiscriminate bombings by Israeli airforce in Nabatieh, Lebanon on 16 10, 2024.
Photojournalist: Ahmad Kaddoura/AA]
