The Israeli military said on Tuesday it attacked the Lebanese capital of Beirut, targeting the militant commander allegedly behind a rocket attack that hit a soccer field and killed 12 youths. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had He promised strong retaliation against Hezbollah. for Saturday’s rocket attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, although Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the attack.
Meanwhile, tensions remained high in Israel as soldiers were due to appear before a military court on Tuesday over what a defense lawyer said were allegations of sexual abuse of a Palestinian at a facility where Israel has held prisoners. from Gaza during the war.
Hardline nationalists in Netanyahu’s government and others have protested. A Associated Press investigation has exposed the appalling conditions at Sde Teiman, where most of the thousands of detainees in Gaza are held. Israeli authorities have generally denied abuses in Palestinian detention centers.
More bodies and more destruction were found after Israeli forces withdrew from parts of Khan Younis in Gaza. the territory Ministry of Health says more than 39,300 people have been killed since then Hamas attack on October 7 against Israel unleashed the war. Some diseases run rampant in appalling conditions in overcrowded tent camps housing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The sanitation system collapsed, leaving wastewater pools.
Here’s the latest:
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it carried out a strike in Beirut against the militant commander allegedly behind the deaths of 12 children and teenagers in a rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights over the weekend.
Israel has blamed the rocket attack on the militant group Hezbollah, which has denied any involvement in the attack.
A Hezbollah official and the group’s television station said an Israeli airstrike hit the Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut on Tuesday night, causing damage.
The airstrike in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik damaged several buildings, but it was not immediately clear whether any Hezbollah officials were targeted, the Hezbollah official said on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.
A senior United Nations official on Tuesday called for the reopening of land crossings into the Gaza Strip and the lifting of crippling restrictions on aid delivery to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
Corinne Fleischer, regional director of the World Food Programme, said her agency cannot provide food rations in the strip because it does not have enough food inside Gaza.
“Right now the biggest challenge is that we don’t have enough crossing points to bring food,” he told The Associated Press in Cairo. “We need road access. We need the Rafah (crossing) to open again. We need Kerem Shalom to work better. “We need law and order.”
The Rafah crossing, which had been the main entry point for humanitarian aid, was closed in early May after the Israeli army took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing as part of its ground attack on the city of Rafah, in the southern tip of Gaza.
Fleisher’s comments came a month after the leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises warned that Gaza remains in “high risk” of famine after the Israeli offensive in Rafah caused displacement and the interruption of aid operations in the south.
He spoke after returning Monday from a seven-day trip to Gaza, where he witnessed massive destruction, including homes, health centers and food processing plants that had been razed.
WFP has expanded its operations, providing 420,000 meals each day and supporting 13 bakeries across the strip.
But there is an urgent need to bring in food, Fleischer said.
“We are not where we should be to sustain it and expand it,” he said.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip – Hundreds of Palestinians have returned to the eastern districts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza after Israeli troops withdrew from the area following a weeks-long offensive. They are searching for destroyed houses and looking for a place to stay.
Families with few possessions straggled along the dirt roads. A school was destroyed. Another building was recognizable as a mosque only by its preserved dome. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 22 people.
Residents fled in early July after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders ahead of an attack it said targeted Hamas militants launching attacks. The army said it killed dozens of Hamas militants and destroyed tunnels.
Rizq Abu Rouk returned to find his family’s tent destroyed along with the few possessions they took from their original home. “We have collapsed, physically and mentally. It is enough,” he stated. “If the decision of war or peace were in our hands, we would choose peace forever.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli authorities say a man has died after a rocket launched from Lebanon hit a kibbutz in the country’s north. The death comes days after 12 Druze children and teenagers were killed when a rocket launched from Lebanon hit a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israel blamed Hezbollah for the attack, but the militant group denied involvement.
Israeli emergency medical service Magen David Adom says the man died after suffering shrapnel wounds.
The Israeli military says about 10 projectiles crossed into Israel from Lebanon, most of them intercepted. Hezbollah said it attacked an army barracks in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes near the southern Lebanon village of Jibsheet, which wounded several people.
The attacks threaten to push Israel and Hezbollah toward all-out war after months of low-level cross-border fighting that began shortly after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. Fighting has killed more than 500 people, including 90 civilians, in Lebanon. . On the Israeli side, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have died.
Hospital officials say emergency workers in Gaza recovered the bodies of 22 Palestinians found in the eastern parts of the city of Khan Younis after Israeli troops withdrew from the area following a weeks-long offensive.
It is not clear when they were killed. Workers have often found bodies in the rubble or in the streets after Israeli offensives. Seven more people were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis on Monday night and early Tuesday, according to officials at Nasser Hospital, where the bodies were taken.
In central Gaza, Israeli bombing of the Bureij refugee camp killed at least nine people, according to hospital authorities. Seven of the dead were killed in an airstrike on a residential building, Awda hospital said. As residents were carrying the bodies, Israeli forces opened fire on the vehicle near the Salahuddin road, killing two, he said.
The Israeli military says it completed its operational activity in the Khan Younis area and was conducting targeted raids in central Gaza.
JERUSALEM – Nine Israeli soldiers are due to appear before a military court for an initial hearing Tuesday on what a defense lawyer says are allegations of sexual abuse of a Palestinian in a Dark facility where Israel has held prisoners of Gaza during the war.
The investigation into the soldiers stoked tensions between the military command and hardline nationalists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, who advocate for even harsher treatment in Israel’s conduct of the 10-month war in Gaza.
The arrest of the soldiers on Monday caused supporters protests demanding his release, including members of parliament and at least two government ministers. Several hundred stormed the southern Israeli facility, known as Sde Teiman, and then the military base where the soldiers were being held.
Defense lawyer Nati Rom, who represents three of the soldiers, did not elaborate on the nature of the alleged sexual abuse and said they were innocent. The military has only said it was investigating allegations of “substantial abuse.”
JERUSALEM – A United Nations Development Program report says there has been a collapse in the solid waste collection system in Gaza during the war.
The report found that Gaza’s two main landfills are inaccessible due to fighting, while the number of waste collection vehicles has decreased from 251 before the war to 51.
Chitose Noguchi, UNDP deputy special representative, said most of the destruction of Gaza’s garbage system is due to Israeli bombing, but Israeli evacuation orders and security restrictions have also hampered the ability of municipal workers. to access landfills. The UNDP collects about 680 tons of garbage in Gaza each day, Noguchi said, but it has nowhere to go. Garbage trucks cannot leave the strip.
Noguchi said the accumulation of garbage has caused outbreaks of communicable diseases throughout the Strip.
The report also found that there is only one operational vehicle left to transfer medical waste in Gaza. The medical disinfection machines distributed within hospitals by the UN are almost all non-functional.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its agency in charge of humanitarian efforts in Gaza has said it is working to improve waste collection processes and considering plans to allow more garbage trucks into Gaza.
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