Israel kills at least 21 in north Lebanon airstrike; China calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on all parties involved in tension between Israel and Iran on Monday to exercise caution and also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in northern Gaza on Monday, killing at least 10 people queueing for food, according to Palestinian medics, and instructing people to evacuate as they pushed in against Hamas fighters.

Israel kills at least 21 in strike on town in north Lebanon

Israel expanded its targets in its war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 21 people in an airstrike in the north, health officials said, while millions of Israelis took shelter from projectiles fired back across the border.

So far the main focus of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon has been in the south, the Bekaa Valley in the east and the suburbs of Beirut.

The strike in the Christian-majority town of Aitou hit a house that had been rented to displaced families, the town’s mayor Joseph Trad told Reuters. In addition to the deaths, eight people were injured, said the Lebanese health ministry.

Rescue workers at the site of the strike searched through piles of rubble on Monday, where burned vehicles and trees were strewn across the ground.

Israel ordered residents of 25 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River, which flows some 60km north of the Israeli frontier.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting a military base in central Israel where four soldiers were killed on Sunday by a Hezbollah drone strike, said Israel would continue to attack the Iran-backed movement “without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon — including Beirut”.

At the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, couple Jalal Ferhat and Amal Tefayeli and their five children were among those offloading belongings from buses, hoping to leave Lebanon.

“There are strikes in our neighbourhood and destruction, and they [Israeli forces] hit near my house,” said Ferhat (40) from Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon. “I have children, you can’t just stay where you are.”

In central Israel, residents rushed to shelters as sirens sounded. The military said three projectiles that had crossed from Lebanon had been intercepted. No injuries were reported.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah resumed a year ago when the militant group began firing rockets at Israel in support of Palestinian militants Hamas at the start of the Gaza war, and has escalated sharply in recent weeks.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,309 people in Lebanon over the last year, the Lebanese government said in its daily update. The majority have been killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israel says its operations in Lebanon are aimed at securing the return of tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes in northern Israel.

The Israeli military said it had killed Muhammad Kamel Naim, commander of the anti-tank missile unit of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, in a strike in the Nabatieh area of south Lebanon.

Hezbollah did not immediately comment.

China urges caution during Israel-Iran tension, calls for Gaza ceasefire

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on all parties involved in tension between Israel and Iran on Monday to exercise caution and avoid escalating the situation.

In a phone conversation with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Wang also urged Israel to ensure the safety of personnel of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), a foreign ministry statement said.

He also reiterated Beijing’s position on the Gaza conflict, calling for an immediate, complete and permanent ceasefire.

Katz said that during the call he had “clarified that Iran is the primary source for undermining stability in the Middle East” and said that Iran posed a direct threat through its proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

Katz said he had expected that China would express “a balanced and fair position in relation to the war”, citing the economic cooperation ties between the two countries “and the fact that approximately 20,000 workers from China continue to work in Israel during the … war”.

Israel steps up pressure in north Gaza

Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in northern Gaza on Monday, killing at least 10 people queuing for food, according to Palestinian medics, and instructing people to evacuate as they pushed in against Hamas fighters.

Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for around 10 days and the military had encircled the camp and sent tanks into nearby Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns, with the declared aim of stamping out Hamas fighters trying to regroup there.

As the operation has continued, people in Jabalia, home to one of eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, have been caught between Israeli demands to move south — and Hamas calls not to leave because it was too risky to do so.

“We have been hit from the air and the ground, non-stop for a week, they want us to leave, they want to punish us for refusing to leave our homes,” said Marwa (26), who left with her family to a school in Gaza City.

People were afraid they would never be able to return if they head south, she said.

The United Nations human rights office said the Israeli military appeared to be “cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip”.

“The separation of North Gaza raises further concerns that Israel does not intend to allow civilians to return to their homes, and the repeated calls for all Palestinians to leave northern Gaza raise grave concerns of large-scale forced transfer of the civilian population,” it said in a statement.

Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied that there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas.

But the operation has underlined how impossible life has become for Gaza civilians as fighting has shifted between different areas of the enclave.

On Monday, 10 people were killed and 40 wounded by tank shelling, including women and children, said Palestinian medics.

The UN has described dire conditions affecting the civilian population remaining in Jabalia, with more than 50,000 people displaced and water wells, bakeries, medical points and shelters shut down.

The northern part of Gaza, home to well over half the territory's 2.3 million people, was heavily bombed in the first phase of Israel's assault on the territory and hundreds of thousands of residents quit their homes following Israeli evacuation orders.

Around 400,000 people remained, according to UN estimates.

Fears that Israel intends to empty northern areas have been fuelled by a proposal floated by former Israeli generals, which calls for north Gaza to be cleared of civilians and remaining militants to be put under siege until they surrender.

The military has denied such designs.

Israel launched the offensive against Hamas after its 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage to Gaza, by Israeli tallies. More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive so far, according to Gaza's health authorities.

Israel intercepts three projectiles fired from Lebanon

Millions of Israelis rushed to shelters on Monday as sirens sounded across central Israel in response to projectiles fired from Lebanon, said the military.

The military said shortly afterwards that three projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, and that all of them had been intercepted. Israeli fighter jets struck the launcher from which the projectiles were fired, it added.

It said no injuries had been reported.

Israeli tanks deepen their push into the northern Gaza Strip

Israeli forces widened their raid into northern Gaza and tanks reached the north edge of Gaza City, pounding some districts of the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood and forcing many families to leave their homes, residents said.

In the early hours of Monday, an Israeli air strike killed three people and wounded 40 others when it hit some tents of displaced Palestinians inside Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people were sheltering, said medics.

Footage circulated on social media, which Reuters couldn't immediately verify, showed several tents were set ablaze as some Palestinians tried helplessly to put out the fire.

The Israeli military said it struck militants operating from a command centre inside the compound, accusing Hamas of using civilian facilities such as hospitals for military purposes, which Hamas denies.

Residents said Israeli forces had effectively isolated Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya in the far north of the enclave from Gaza City, blocking access between the two areas except upon permission for families willing to heed evacuation orders and leave the three towns.

Nine days into a major Israeli operation in northern Gaza, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said Israeli strikes had killed around 300 Palestinians there. It said Israel's bombardment of civilian houses and displacement shelters was intended to force residents to leave Gaza once and for all, which Israel denies.

Second phase of polio vaccination campaign begins in Gaza 

The World Health Organization said on X on Monday that the second phase of a polio vaccination campaign had started in central Gaza.

Aid groups carried out a first round of vaccinations last month, after a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 poliovirus in August, the first such case in the territory in 25 years. DM

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