World News | West Asia Latest: Rockets Fired from Lebanon Kill 7 People in Northern Israel
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. A series of rocket barrages from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Thursday, killing a total of seven people, including four foreign workers. The attacks marked the deadliest strikes to hit Israel since its military invaded southern Lebanon earlier this month.
Jerusalem, Oct 31 (AP) A series of rocket barrages from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Thursday, killing a total of seven people, including four foreign workers. The attacks marked the deadliest strikes to hit Israel since its military invaded southern Lebanon earlier this month.
The Israeli military warned people to evacuate from more areas of southern Lebanon as airstrikes across the country killed at least eight. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October. Some 1.2 million people have been displaced since Israel's escalation, according to government estimates.
Also Read | Diwali 2024: Donald Trump Sends Deepavali Greetings, Condemns Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh.
Lebanon's Heath Ministry said more than 2,800 people have been killed and 12,900 wounded since Octoober 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel, drawing retaliation. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October.
The developments come as mediators are ramping up efforts to halt the wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, circulating new proposals to wind down the regional conflict.
The death toll from more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has passed 43,000, Palestinian officials reported Monday, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
Here's the latest:
UNRWA office heavily damaged in West Bank during Israeli raid
NUR SHAMS REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — The offices of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees were heavily damaged during an Israeli raid in a West Bank refugee camp on Thursday. The official Palestinian news agency alleged Israeli military bulldozers had partially demolished the building.
Associated Press video of the scene showed the outer cement wall of the UNRWA office had been destroyed, with large piles of sand and dirt dug up in the yard. The main office building had minor damage and an adjacent temporary hall was flattened, covered with dirt, its corrugated roof knocked over.
The Israeli military denied it damaged the building in the Nur Shams refugee camp. It said militants had planted explosives nearby and set them off to attack Israeli troops and that the blast “likely caused damage to the building.”
Israeli fire hits northern Gaza hospital, wounding staff and destroying critical supplies, says WHO chief
JERUSALEM — The director of the World Health Organization said Thursday that Israeli fire again hit one of the only hospitals still partially-functional in Gaza's north, wounding staff and destroying much-needed supplies that agency had delivered to the embattled facility.
Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus condemned the hit to Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, which he said occurred Thursday morning. He said it damaged a storeroom with supplies WHO had brought to the hospital during “complex missions,” as well as the hospital's desalination station and water tanks on the roof. The hospital was raided last week by Israeli troops.
“The hospital has been barely functioning since the most recent raid,” he said. “The latest attack is putting patients' lives at great risk.”
The hospital's director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said in a recorded video statement posted to social media Thursday that heavy Israeli gunfire targeted the facility beginning at 1 a.m. Thursday night, striking the surgical ward and the storage facility — holding supplies delivered days earlier by WHO — and setting a fire that damaged the hospital's dialysis department. The fire injured four staff members as they worked to extinguish it.
The Israeli military said it was “unaware” of a strike on Kamal Adwan Hospital but would review the allegation. In recent days, it has said it assisted WHO humanitarian missions bringing supplies and evacuating patients from the hospital.
UNICEF calls for immediate cease-fire and says at least one child was killed each day this month in Lebanon
BEIRUT — The U.N. children's agency is calling for an immediate cease-fire, saying that at least one child has been killed in Lebanon each day this month and at least 10 have been wounded.
“The ongoing war in Lebanon is upending children's lives, and in many cases, inflicting severe physical wounds and deep emotional scars,” UNICEF said in a statement Thursday.
Lebanon's health ministry says 166 children have been killed and at least 1,168 children have been wounded since the conflict began last year.
“This devastating tally grows by the day,” UNICEF said.
Another rocket barrage from Lebanon kills 2 in northern Israel, raising day's toll there to 7
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel's rescue service said projectiles fired from Lebanon killed two more people in northern Israel on Thursday, just hours after the deadliest rocket barrage to hit the country since the Israeli military's invasion of southern Lebanon killed five.
Magen David Adom, Israel's main emergency medical organization, said its medics confirmed the deaths of a 30-year-old man and 60-year-old woman in a suburb of the northern city of Haifa. They also treated two other people who suffered mild injuries and were hospitalized.
The Israeli military said that roughly 25 rockets crossed into Israel from Lebanon as part of the volley that struck an olive grove where people had gathered for the harvest.
Rocket from Lebanon fired toward Israel hits Irish peacekeepers' base but no one is injured
LONDON — Ireland's military says a base for Irish peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon was hit by a rocket fired towards Israel. No one was injured.
Lt. Gen. Sean Clancy, chief of staff of Ireland's defense forces, said the Katyusha rocket landed in an unoccupied area of Camp Shamrock on Wednesday, causing “minimal damage.”
He said the rocket was travelling towards Israel, and it was unclear whether it fell or was taken down by Israel's Iron Dome defense system.
About 350 Irish soldiers are currently deployed as peacekeepers with the United Nations mission Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris described the incident as “extremely serious” and said not enough was being done to protect peacekeeping troops amid the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
“I really reiterate my call in relation to the need for people to respect international law and respect the specific protections that are provided to peacekeepers in relation to that,” he said.
Israeli military says it struck Hezbollah weapons depots and bases in Syria
JERUSALEM -- Israel's military said Thursday that it struck Hezbollah weapons depots and bases in Syria.
According to a military statement, the air force hit targets near Qusair, a city in western Syria along the border with Lebanon. The military claims Hezbollah recently began storing weapons along the Syrian-Lebanese border in an attempt to smuggle arms into Lebanon.
Since the start of Israel's ground invasion into Lebanon, the military has struck border crossings between Lebanon and Syria multiple times, claiming they served as arms-smuggling routes. The strikes, humanitarian groups say, intensified an already severe humanitarian crisis by blocking key routes for supplies and impeding access for those fleeing to safety.
Thousands of Lebanese flock to a Christian area in the Bekaa Valley
DEIR AL-AHMAR, Lebanon — Thousands of Lebanese have flocked to a Christian area in the eastern Bekaa Valley after Israel warned civilians to leave the city of Baalbek and surrounding areas ahead of airstrikes this week.
Jean Fakhry, head of the Union of Municipalities of the area of Deir al-Ahmar, described a “massive human influx” in the wake of the warning, with the road turning "into a parking lot.”
"This is the first time we've witnessed such a major disaster,” Fakhry said.
About 12,000 displaced people are now staying in the area — about 2,500 of them in shelters and the rest hosted in private homes, he said.
Authorities in northern Israel say 5 killed by projectiles fired from Lebanon
JERUSALEM — Projectiles fired from Lebanon into northern Israel killed five people on Thursday, including four foreign workers, authorities said. It was the deadliest such attack since Israeli troops invaded Lebanon earlier this month to battle the Hezbollah militant group.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel for more than a year, drawing retaliatory strikes. Sixty-eight people have been killed in rocket attacks in northern Israel since the conflict began last year.
The Metula regional council reported the attack. The nationalities of the workers were not immediately known.
Israeli police arrest a couple accused of spying for Iran
JERUSALEM — Israeli police said Thursday they have arrested a couple accused of spying on Israeli intelligence sites and collecting information on an Israeli academic on behalf of Iran.
Israeli security services say they have uncovered several Iranian spy networks in recent months. The two archenemies have waged a long-running shadow war that has burst into the open since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. They exchanged fire directly for the first time in April and then again this month.
In a statement released Thursday, the police and the Shin Bet internal security agency said that the man arrested, Rafael Guliev, from the central city of Lod, had surveilled Israel's Mossad spy headquarters for the Iranians and collected information on an academic working at the Institute for National Security Studies, a prominent Israeli think tank. It did not identify the scholar.
Officials in West Bank say 3 people were killed in Israeli raid
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials said an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people.
The military said its forces were targeting militants in the area of the Nur Shams refugee camp, which has seen repeated battles in recent months. The military said it eliminated a Hamas militant in the area who was involved in planning attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday that two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike and third by Israeli gunfire.
Israel said its forces were still in the area.
At least 763 Palestinians, including over 165 children, have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there, according to the Health Ministry. (AP)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)