Hezbollah targets HQ of Israeli military in Tel Aviv as Israel continues its mad bombardment of Lebanon, Gaza - as it happened

Ahram Online , Wednesday 13 Nov 2024

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 Wednesday, 13 November, as they unfolded.

Beit Lahia
Palestinians and medics tend injured men at Kamal Adwan Hospital after Israeli strikes in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip. AFP

 

23:00 The International Development Committee at the UK Parliament heard evidence from Professor Nizam Mamode, a retired NHS transplant surgeon who recently returned from a period working at Nasser hospital in Gaza.

Also giving evidence were representatives from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNWRA) and other aid groups.

41 minutes of the most graphic eyewitness testimony of the 13-month-old Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, that killed and wounded more than 150,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and is starving 2.4 million Palestinians in the strip.

Here are excerts from Professor Mamode testimony:

"Drones would come down and pick off civilians, children, we have description after description, this was day after day after day."

"Operating on children on who say they were laying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down, hovered over me and shot me."

"That's clearly a deliberate act. A persisted act. A persistent targeting of civilians, day after day."

"A hospital like Guys & St Thomas where I used to work would get one or two mass casualty events a year, we had one or two a day."

"60% of the people we treated were women and children."

Watch the testimony

 

 

22:30 Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has told the UN General Assembly that UNRWA finds itself at a “critical” juncture.

“The risk of the agency’s collapse threatens the lives and futures of individuals and communities, the stability of the region, and the integrity of our multilateral system,” he said as he addressed the UN body. 

“The State of Israel is working to unilaterally shift the long-established parameters for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

In addition to attacks that killed at least 243 UNRWA personnel, the agency has also been “subjected to a fierce, global disinformation campaign," Lazzarini continued, referring to Israel’s claims that it had been infiltrated by Hamas.

“UNRWA cannot address allegations for which it has no evidence,” he said.

22:00 Syrian state media said that Israel had carried out an air raid on Wednesday in a region near the border with Lebanon.

A leading monitor said that 15 people had been killed in the strikes although there was no immediate confirmation from Syrian authorities.

The Sana news agency said that "the Israeli aggression" on the Homs region had been met with a barrage of anti-aircraft fire.

Citing a military source, Sana said that the Israeli planes had targeted bridges along the Orontes river and roads around the Syria-Lebanon border, causing "significant damage."

21:30 Lebanon's Hezbollah said Wednesday that it had fired ballistic missiles at the Israeli army's headquarters as it claimed a series of attacks against high profile Israeli targets.

The Lebanese resistance group said in a statement that it had targeted the site, which houses both the defence ministry and the headquarters of the Israeli military, with Qader-2 missiles.

Hezbollah had already announced earlier in the day that it had targeted the same site with explosive drones.

21:00 Four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a group of civilians near the entrance to the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, Al-Qahera news reported.

The Israeli airstrikes against civilians in Gaza

20:45 The Israeli army confirmed that six soldiers were killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, marking the deadliest day for Israeli forces since the onset of ground operations on 30 September. 

With these latest fatalities, the total number of Israeli troops killed in the conflict has risen to 47, according to the military's statement.

20:20 Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said the caretaker government was awaiting concrete ceasefire proposals and had not been informed officially of any new ideas.

“What is on the table is only [United Nations] Resolution 1701 and its provisions, which must be implemented and adhered to by both sides, not by the Lebanese side alone,” Berri, who helped negotiate the 2006 truce, said.

Hezbollah has entrusted Speaker Berri, the founder and leader of the Shia Amal Movement, to negotiate on behalf of the armed resistance.

Berri's statements come as the Lebanese establishment and Hezbollah reject reports of ceasfire proposals, attributed to White House envoy Amos Hochstein on behalf of Tel Aviv that violate the countrys sovereignty and territorial integrity.

20:00 Israeli Iron Dome attempted to intercept rockets fired from Lebanon over Tel Aviv and several surrounding Israeli settlements in Galilee.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that a heavy barrage of rockets was fired from Lebanon at Israel.

Following sirens that sounded in a number of areas in central Israel, approximately five projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon, the military said in a statement.

 

 

19:40 Hezbollah stated its drones have targeted the Kirya military complex in Tel Aviv for the first time since the start of the war.

The Israeli defense ministry complex comprises a major Israeli army base, Camp Rabin, and the headquarters of the chief of staff HQ. 

In a statement, the Lebanese group said it conducted an "aerial attack with a squadron of exploding drones" on the site housing Israel's main defence institutions in the commercial hub.

Hezbollah added that it had fired a salvo of rockets at Glilot military base, the headquarters of Israeli military intelligence, in the suburbs of Tel Aviv.

The Lebanese resistance group also announced striking the Israeli IWI arms production factory in Ramat HaSharon in the Tel Aviv suburbs, Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen TV reported.

The operation used a barrage of high-end rockets which hit their target accurately, the group said.

19:30 Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 3,365 and injured 14,344 since 8 October 7 2023, the Lebanese health ministry said on Wednesday.

It said 78 people were killed and 122 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday.

19:00 British doctor James Smith testified during an interview with Al Jazeera about the crimes he witnessed in Gaza.

He pointed to the brutal violations by the Israeli occupation against the healthcare sector, emphasizing that these were deliberate and clear attacks targeting hospitals.

 

 

18:30 Ajith Sunghay, director of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, has told Al Jazeera hat “the situation is catastrophic in northern Gaza”.

“Demands to allow aid into northern Gaza have either been rejected or obstructed by Israel,” he was quoted as saying.

18:00 The Lebanese Ministry of Health has revised the number of victims killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Douha Aaramoun in Mount Lebanon earlier today to eight civilians, including women and children, with dozens injured.

17:00 Hamas has called on pro-Palestinian movements to organize worldwide protest rallies in condemnation of the Israeli ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

Hamas called on grassroots movements and supporters to hold demonstrations this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, particularly in front of Israeli embassies in global capitals. 

The group urged pro-Palestinian movements to denounce the role of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany in supporting Israeli war crimes.


Protesters hold a Palestinian flag during a demonstration organised by the Gaza Solidarity Platform, against Germany's military support for Israel, in front of the German consulate in Istanbul. AFP

 

15:47 Israeli strikes killed at least 22 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip as Israeli occupation forces deepened their incursion into Beit Hanoun town in the north, forcing most remaining residents to leave, Reuters reported.

Residents said Israeli forces besieged shelters housing displaced families and the remaining population, which some estimated at a few thousand, ordering them to head south through a checkpoint separating two towns and a refugee camp in the north from Gaza City.

Men were held for questioning, while women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, residents and Palestinian medics said, Reuters added.

“The scenes of the 1948 catastrophe are being repeated. Israel is repeating its massacres, displacement and destruction,” Saed, 48, a resident of Beit Lahiya, who arrived in Gaza City on Wednesday.

“North Gaza is being turned into a large buffer zone; Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing under the sight and hearing of the impotent world,” he told Reuters via a chat app.


Palestinians carry the body of a man killed in an Israeli strike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip. AFP

 

15:04 Iran's top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, said that communication channels with the United States were still open.

​"We have differences with the Americans, which are sometimes very fundamental and central and may not be resolved, but we must manage them to reduce their costs and decrease the tensions," Abbas Araghchi said on the sidelines of a weekly cabinet meeting.

Oman has long mediated between Iran and the United States, which cut ties after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The country's president echoed the remarks by the Iranian top diplomat on Tuesday.

"Regarding America, whether we like it or not, we will eventually face this country in the regional and international arena, and it is better to manage this issue ourselves," Masoud Pezeshkian said.

14:39 About 20 rockets were fired from Lebanon towards the Galilee region, the Israeli army said.

Most of the rockets have been intercepted, it claimed, but some falls have been detected, according to the Israeli army.

It said that the rocket alerts were activated in Israel's Upper Galilee and Western Galilee areas.  


People take cover as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from Lebanon in Kiryat Yam, northern Israel. AP

 

14:32 Minister of Foreign Affairs Badr Abdelatty stressed Egypt's primary focus on achieving a ceasefire in Lebanon and halting the Israeli aggression.

In a press conference in Beirut, he discussed during a meeting with the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Lebanon's internal displacement crisis under the Israeli attacks. He emphasized the need to maintain the country's stability.

Abdelatty also pointed out the importance of electing a consensual president to resolve Lebanon's presidential vacancy without external interference.

"We reject making the election of a president a condition for a ceasefire," he added.

He also highlighted the critical role of the Lebanese Army in preserving the state's integrity and reaffirmed Egypt's full backing of Lebanese institutions.

14:14 Another two children have been killed and ten others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting displaced families' tents west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

 

 

13:29 Israel killed at least 43,712 people and wounded another 103,258 people in more than 13 months of war on Gaza.

The toll includes 47 deaths in the previous 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said.

13:21 Hezbollah resistance group says its fighters launched rockets at a group of Israeli soldiers east of the Maroun Al-Ras village in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate.  

The attack was carried out at 05:00am (02:00 GMT), Hezbollah said in a statement on Telegram.  

13:10 An Israeli strike on a home in Jabalia, northern Gaza, killed three siblings aged six and under, the Palestinian medics announced.

They were among at least six people killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday in Gaza.

Gaza’s emergency service says the three children were killed in a strike on a home near a clinic in the urban Jabalia refugee camp, where Israel has been waging a brutal attack and a complete siege for over a month.

In the central city of Deir Al-Balah, a strike hit a tent on the western side of the city, killing at least two people, including a 15-year-old boy, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Another strike on a tent in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp killed a man, the hospital said. An Associated Press journalist counted the three bodies at the hospital.

12:25 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel to end the war in Gaza. 

Speaking to reporters after meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels, he said, "Israel, by the standards it set itself, has accomplished the goals it set for itself."

"So this should be a time to end the war," he added

Blinken also called for "real and extended pauses" to allow for the delivery of aid to its population.

"We need to see real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, any combat so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it."

12:09 After 13 months of the war, aid groups accuse the Israeli occupation army of hindering and even blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Almost the entire population of around 2.3 million Palestinians is relying on international aid for survival, and food security experts and rights groups caution that famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza.

“It’s really frustrating because, by almost every objective metric, all agencies say that the humanitarian situation has gotten worse in that time frame that the U.S. has specified,” Aseel Baidoun, a senior manager of the aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians, said. “Even though we have provided all the evidence that there is a risk of famine ... still the U.S. miraculously finds Israel not violating the humanitarian aid law.”

Aid into Gaza is typically measured regarding truckloads of food and supplies entering the territory. The US has demanded 350 trucks daily.

Israeli government figures show roughly 57 trucks a day entering on average in October and 75 a day in November. The U.N. counts trucks differently and says it has only received 39 trucks daily since the beginning of October.

In northern Gaza, where the Israeli army has been carrying out a major offensive over the past month, the figures were even lower. The UN says that no aid entered the northernmost areas of Gaza – Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – in October.

“There can be aid sitting at the border ready to come in. But if we are not provided a safe passage to go and collect it, it’s not possible for us to have it. And it will not reach the people who need it,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA has been the leading agency procuring and distributing aid in Gaza, and a feud between Israel and the agency led Israel to take steps toward banning it last month. 

In October, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that Israeli authorities rejected roughly 43% of all humanitarian movement requests and impeded a further 16 percent.

Israeli authorities have also prohibited some vehicles and goods from entering the enclave, aid groups say, often without explanation.

On Tuesday, the World Food Program said vehicles filled with supplies were denied access to Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya. The day before, the UN agency said it received approval from the army to deliver supplies to Beit Hanoun only to be stopped by troops en route in Jabaliya and ordered to offload the stockpile there.


12:05 The Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance group released a video of a man identifying himself as an Israeli held in Gaza.

In the video, the man identifying himself as Sasha Trupanov spoke about Israel's war on Lebanon and called on the Israelis to increase pressure on the government to secure the release of people held in captivity in the Palestinian territories.

11:44 Two Palestinians were injured after being severely beaten by Israeli occupation forces during a raid on the village of Burqa, located northwest of Nablus, in the West Bank.

Head of the Burqa Village Council Ziad Abu Omar told WAFA that a large number of Israeli troops stormed the village, sealing its entrances. This led to confrontations, during which the occupation forces fired sound and gas bombs.

Abu Omar added that the Israeli forces turned a house in the centre of the village into a military post, raising Israeli flags on it.

They also raided dozens of homes, conducting searches and damaging belongings.


Israeli soldiers stand at the Deir Sharaf checkpoint west of Nablus in the occupied West Bank after a man was killed at the site. AFP

11:42 Egypt's Minister of Foreign Affairs Badr Abdelatty arrived in Beirut to deliver a new shipment of humanitarian aid as part of Egypt’s airlift initiative and arrange the repatriation of Egyptian citizens, read a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Israel has been bombing Beirut’s southern suburbs this morning.

Abdelatty was giving remarks to reporters on the tarmac at Beirut Rafic Hariri Airport, which is located near the targeted areas, when the first strikes hit.

“Egypt is providing aid to Lebanon with all it can, and this is the fourth shipment. It is a duty and responsibility,” he said from the airport.

“We reject making the election of the president a condition for the ceasefire, and we reject any external impositions in the Lebanese presidential file,” he added.

His visit follows a meeting between President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday on the sidelines of the Extraordinary Arab and Islamic Summit in Riyadh. 

Abdelatty
Lebanon’s Minister of Environment and Coordinator of the Government Emergency Committee, Nasser Yassin (third from left), receiving Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigration, Badr Abdelatty (third from right), upon his arrival at Beirut Airport. Photos courtesy of Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

11:30 The Israeli occupation army is expanding its infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, opening new routes and building wide roads across the region, according to satellite images and sources cited by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The report indicates that the army is constructing large settlements and infrastructure designed for a prolonged presence in Gaza, systematically demolishing standing buildings to make way for the new developments.

"The work is progressing at full speed. What was a dirt embankment with the rubble of destroyed buildings a few months ago is now a very active construction site. Wide roads are being built, cellular antennas are going up, water, sewage and electricity networks are going in, and of course, there are the buildings, some portable and others less so," it added.

"The development momentum is in full swing, and the goal – whether it is talked about openly or not – is clear: building the infrastructure for the military's prolonged stay in the field, at least in the first stage."

A senior Israeli army commander told the paper that the sites that the Israeli army is building in the Gaza Strip will not be just for a month or two. It won't withdraw before 2026.  

11:00 The US administration believes that there are still ways and initiatives to reach an agreement between Hamas and Israel, saying that Qatar and Egypt are intensely involved in the matter, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.

Egypt, along with the US and Qatar, has been mediating indirect talks between Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire in the yearlong Israeli war on Gaza.

However, the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, has refused on multiple occasions to sign on to various ceasefire proposals compiled by the mediators, opting to forge ahead with its 13-month-old genocidal campaign in the strip.

Credit: Planet Labs PBC / September 26, 2024

 

10:48 11 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across the northern, central, and southern Gaza Strip, WAFA news agency reported.

Five citizens were killed in a strike targeting a group of people near the gate of Kamal Adwan Hospital, while four others were killed in shelling on a home in the Beit Lahia Project area in northern Gaza.

Additionally, another citizen was killed in a drone strike in the southern city of Rafah.

At the same time, a 10-year-old girl succumbed to injuries sustained two days before in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where her parents were killed and her brother severely injured due to an airstrike on a tent sheltering them.

The Israeli occupation army has continued its assault on the Gaza Strip by land, sea, and air, killing 43,665 people, the majority of whom are women and children, and injuring 103,076 others in a preliminary toll.

Thousands of victims remain trapped under rubble and in the streets, with rescue and civil defence teams unable to reach them.

10:31 Russia has asked Israel to avoid launching aerial strikes as part of its war in Lebanon near one of Moscow's bases in Syria, a top official said Wednesday.

Syrian state media in mid-October said that Israel had struck the port city of Latakia.

Latakia, particularly its airport, is close to Hmeimim, which hosts a Russian air base.

"Israel actually carried out an air strike near Hmeimim," Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy in the Near East, told the RIA Novosti press agency.

"Our military has, of course, notified Israeli authorities that such acts that put Russian military lives in danger over there are unacceptable," he added.

"That is why we hope that this incident in October will not be repeated."

10:09 A top UN official, Joyce Msuya, interim chief of the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA), said: “We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes” in Gaza.

Speaking to the Security Council, Msuya described civilians driven from their homes and “forced to witness their family members killed, burned and buried alive” in Gaza, which she called “a wasteland of rubble.”

“What distinction was made, and what precautions were taken, if more than 70 percent of civilian housing is either damaged or destroyed?” Msuya said.

“The daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits,” she added.

Msuya’s comments come amid deadly Israeli attacks and siege in northern Gaza that she described as an “intensified, extreme, and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year.”

The Security Council meeting that Msuya addressed was focused on a recent UN-backed report that warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine.”

Israel has routinely blocked the aid from entering the territory, and international anti-poverty charity Oxfam over the weekend accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war.”


Palestinians displaced from shelters in Beit Hanoun get their belongings from a van that drove them to Jabalia. In contrast, others ride bicycles loaded with necessities on the main Salaheddine road in the northern Gaza Strip. AFP

10:05 Hamas condemned the United States for complicity in the war of genocide in the Gaza Strip after Washington said Israel was not violating US law on the level of aid entering the territory.

The Palestinian group condemned Washington's claims that Israel is taking measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza and said in a statement that it was a "confirmation of the full partnership of President Joe Biden's administration in the brutal war of genocide against our people."

09:56 Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health says that the Israeli raid on Dawhet Aramoun has killed six people.

The ministry said on X that body parts are being removed from the scene, and their identities are being verified, in addition to 15 others being wounded.

Earlier, Lebanese media reported that eight people were killed in the Israeli attack south of Beirut.

 

 

09:13 The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for a second drone strike on Israel, this time targeting a “vital target in the north of the occupied territories.”

The Israeli army reported intercepting an unmanned aircraft that crossed into Israeli airspace in the early morning hours, triggering alerts in the western Galilee area.

Earlier, the Iraqi armed group announced it had launched drones towards a “target in the middle of the occupied territories.” 

09:10 Eight people have been killed, and several others have been wounded in an Israeli raid on a residential building in Dawhet Aramoun, south of Beirut, Lebanese National News Agency reported.  

The building sustained significant damage that included several floors where fires broke out.  

Residents evacuated and took to the streets for fear of more raids.

The search is ongoing for missing people under the rubble, the report said.  

09:00 Eight international aid groups said Tuesday that Israel has failed to meet US demands for greater humanitarian access to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where hunger experts say the north may already be experiencing famine.

However, the Biden administration said it will not limit weapons transfers to Israel because the US claims its key ally has made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

In October, Washington told Israel to boost aid to Gaza within 30 days, or else it could trigger American laws requiring it to scale back military support as Israel wages war against Gaza and Lebanon. 

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