In the face of the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian and Lebanese people amid Israel’s wars in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, Ahram Online provided you with live updates of the most recent developments across the Middle East on Friday, 1 November, as they unfolded.
19:00 The unfolding situation in the northern Gaza Strip is "apocalyptic," United Nations chiefs said in a joint statement, warning that its entire population is at "imminent risk" of death.
They said the entire Middle East region is now on a precipice and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Israel launched an air and ground war in northern Gaza last month, in what has been described by health workers as a "genocide within a genocide."
"The situation unfolding in North Gaza is apocalyptic," said the joint statement from heads of organizations that form the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee.
18:00 A Hamas official said the group received a proposal from mediators Egypt and Qatar for a short-term truce in Gaza and rejected it for not including a lasting ceasefire.
"The proposals do not include a permanent cessation of aggression, nor do they entail the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip or the return of displaced persons," the official, a member of Hamas's political bureau, told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the issue.
17:30 Since the morning, Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 31 people, medical sources told Al Jazeera, noting that 17 of them were killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Israel had intensified its attacks on Nuseirat earlier in the day, targeting the camp with artillery shells and heavy gunfire from naval boats, Quds News Network reported.
The latest death toll comes as Hamas military wing Al-Qassam Brigades announced that they had targeted a house where 21 Israeli soldiers were deployed in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, killing and wounding several of them.
Earlier on Friday, Gaza hospital officials said the death toll from Israeli strikes on the central parts of the territory the day before had reached 25 as more bodies were being recovered from under the rubble.
More than 10,000 people are believed to be buried under the rubble in Gaza, according to United Nations estimates. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA estimates that clearing the Gaza Strip of the rubble will take 15 years.
17:00 Israeli strikes in northeastern Lebanon killed at least 24 people, according to Lebanon's National News Agency, raising the death toll from eight.
The NNA reported four airstrikes in different villages across the country’s northeast, saying rescuers were still searching for survivors in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, under the rubble of a targeted house.
Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region in Baalbek-Hermel region, said that 60,000 people have already fled their homes in the area due to Israeli bombardment.
The official news agency earlier reported that 10 people were killed in strikes targeting the two northeast villages.
16:00 Delegations from the Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah headed to Cairo Friday to discuss an Egyptian proposal aimed at addressing the governance of the Gaza Strip in the coming phase, according to Asharq News.
The talks, which follow a previous meeting two weeks prior, will involve high-level representatives from both factions, including Hamas' deputy chief Khalil Al-Hayya and Fatah’s deputy chief Mahmoud Al-Aloul.
The delegations are expected to engage in a series of meetings on Saturday, with Egyptian mediators facilitating the discussions.
According to Asharq News, the Egyptian proposal suggests forming a gubernatorial body for the Gaza Strip, named the "Community Committee to Support the People of Gaza."
This committee would handle civil affairs, provide and organize the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in the strip, and oversee the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
In addition, it would initiate reconstruction efforts to address damage caused by the brutal Israeli aggression in Gaza.
15:00 Lebanon's health ministry and National News Agency (NNA) reported that 13 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon on Friday.
The NNA said eight people were killed in the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel region when a village home in Amhaz was destroyed, while two other people were killed in the village of Taraya.
The health ministry earlier said an Israeli airstrike on a mountain town overlooking Beirut had killed three people and wounded five.
The ministry gave no further details about the early Friday airstrike on the edge of Qamatiyeh, southeast of Beirut.
An AP journalist who visited the scene said the strike was closer to the nearby village of Ein al-Rummaneh and caused minor damage to a first-floor apartment.
14:00 The WHO said that a second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza would begin on Saturday after Israeli bombing in the area halted the drive.
"Polio vaccination in northern Gaza is ready to resume tomorrow," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X. "We are assured of the necessary humanitarian pause in Gaza City to conduct the campaign," he added.
13:00 The health ministry in Gaza said that at least 43,259 people have been killed in the more-than-year-long Israeli war on the strip.
The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 101,827 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
12:30 The UN's special coordinator for Lebanon said the country's cultural heritage was being endangered by Israeli strikes on the ancient Lebanese cities of Tyre and Baalbek, home to UNESCO-designated Roman ruins.
"Ancient Phoenician cities steeped in history are in deep peril of being left in ruins," Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a social media post, adding that "Lebanon's cultural heritage must not become yet another casualty in this devastating conflict".
The announcement comes as an Israeli strike on Friday targeted the eastern city of Baalbek, following heavy air raids on the area in recent days, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.
Israeli "enemy aircraft launched a raid on the Zahraa neighbourhood in the city of Baalbek," home to ancient Roman ruins designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, NNA said.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes intensfied strikes on Baalbek killing six people, NNA reported, adding that at least six others were killed in raids on Maqna, north of Baalbek.
Baalbek is renowned for its yearly international music festival, which has sent an open letter calling for "rapid action to stop repeated attacks" on the city, also home to one of the world's largest complexes of Roman temples -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
So far the heritage site has not been hit, although it was included in an Israeli explusion order.
Israeli strikes on Thursday also targeted Al-Hawsh near Tyre destroying six buildings, Lebanon's civil defence said, as scores of civilians were forced to flee the Rashidieh camp for Palestinian refugees near Tyre, also covered by the expulsion order.
12:00 Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Israel had rejected all efforts towards a ceasefire after the Israeli military bombed Beirut's southern suburbs for the first time this week on Friday.
At least 10 strikes hit the southern suburbs before dawn after the Israeli military issued expulsion orders, with AFPTV footage showing explosions and clouds of smoke.
"The raids left massive destruction in the targeted areas, as dozens of buildings were levelled to the ground, in addition to the outbreak of fires," Lebanon's National News Agency reported, adding that strikes also targeted Aley, southeast of the capital, and Bint Jbeil in the country's south.
The strikes came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US officials to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon, ahead of Tuesday's US presidential election.
Mikati condemned the "expansion" of Israel's attacks, saying they signalled a refusal to engage in truce efforts.
"The Israeli enemy's renewed expansion... and its renewed targeting of the southern suburbs of Beirut with destructive raids are all indicators that confirm the Israeli enemy's rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire," he said.
11:30 Israel’s air force pounded Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight, destroying dozens of buildings in several neighbourhoods, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
11:15 The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA’s official page condemned Israel’s targeting of its Nur Shams office in the occupied West Bank, stressing that Israel must stop targeting UN facilities and that they must be “protected at all times.”
The agency attached a post by chief Philippe Lazzarini describing the damage inflicted on the office on Thursday
“The office can no longer be used,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini posted on X late Thursday, noting that it served as a vital hub to deliver basic services to more than 14,000 Palestinians in the camp.
Services such as learning for children, health, sanitation & social protection have been disrupted, he stressed, noting that roads, water and electricity networks were also destroyed in the camp.
“Once again, United Nations facilities are being routinely disregarded while they must be protected at all times, including in times of conflict.”
11:00 The World Health Organization said it is deeply concerned about Israeli attacks hitting healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon in its war against Hezbollah.
"We are really, really concerned, deeply concerned, about the rising attacks on health workers and the facilities in Lebanon, and we are again and again and again emphasising that healthcare is not a target; health workers are not a target," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a media briefing in Geneva.
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