Dozens killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, Lebanon; Netanyahu names new defence minister - as it happened

Ahram Online , Tuesday 5 Nov 2024

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have now killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said on Tuesday.

Jabalia
Paramedics carry the body of a person killed during overnight Israeli air strikes in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, outside at Al-Ahli Arab hospital, also known as the Baptist hospital in Gaza City. AFP

 

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 Tuesday, 5 November, as they unfolded.

 

22:20 Israel's newly appointed Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed on Tuesday to defeat Israel's enemies and achieve the goals of the wars with Hamas and Hezbollah.

"We will work together to lead the defence establishment to victory over our enemies and to achieve the goals of the war: the return of all hostages... the destruction of Hamas in Gaza, the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the containment of Iranian aggression and the safe return of the residents of the north and south to their homes," Katz said on X.

21:20 Hundreds of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening to protest against the sacking of defense minister Yoav Gallant, an AFP journalist reported.

Chanting slogans against the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the demonstrators gathered in the commercial hub shortly after Gallant's dismissal was announced.

While an Israeli group campaigning for the release of captives in Gaza urged the country's newly appointed defense minister to "prioritize" a deal to free the captives.

"We expect the incoming defense minister, Israel Katz, to prioritize a hostage deal... to secure the immediate release of all hostages," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

20:18: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over a breakdown in trust during the war on Gaza, his office said.

The two have frequently clashed over Israel's military offensive against Gaza following Hamas offensive on Israel on 7 October last year.

"In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust between the prime minister and the defence minister is required," Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office.

19:45 According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, Israeli jets targeted a house in al-Bourghoulieh, near Tyre, killing one person and wounding two.

The report added that the casualties were a Syrian and two Palestinians.

19:15 Videos shared on X show a protest being held on the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, organised by the families of captives held in Gaza, demanding a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.

The footage shows the protesters near Yitzhak Sadeh Street, holding banners accusing Netanyahu of trying to thwart a prisoner exchange deal.

The video has been verified by Sanad, Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency.

19:00 Around 20 rockets were fired from Lebanon in the latest barrage targeting Nahariya and surrounding communities in the Western Galilee, Israel's Yediot Achronot reported.

Earlier, sirens were heard in several towns near Nahariya, including Gesher HaZiv, Evron, Sa'ar, Kabri and Betzet.

18:45 The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons depot in a Syrian town near the Lebanese border on Tuesday as Syrian state media reported residential buildings were also hit.

The Israeli military said it "conducted an intelligence-based strike on weapons storage facilities used by Hezbollah's munitions unit in the area of Al-Qusayr".

"Hezbollah's munitions unit is responsible for the storage of weapons in Lebanon and has recently expanded its activities into Syria in the area of-Al Qusayr," it added.

Syria's official SANA news agency said: "An Israeli aggression targeted the industrial zone in Al-Qusayr.

"The Israeli aggression also targeted some residential buildings surrounding the industrial zone," it added.

It did not report any casualties.

18:00 Hezbollah says it has hit the Meron base with a missile barrage.

The Lebanese group also said its fighters “targeted a vital objective in the southern occupied territories, marking the sixth such operation today, using drones”.

15:50 The World Health Organization said a large-scale medical evacuation was planned from Gaza this week, with more than 100 seriously ill and injured patients due to leave the war-ravaged territory.

The WHO said that alongside its partners it would evacuate as many as 113 patients on Wednesday, with most going to the United Arab Emirates and some heading to Romania for specialised care.

If it goes ahead, it would be the largest evacuation from Gaza since October 2023, according to data from the UN health agency.

Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories, said he was hopeful the evacuation would go ahead. 

He said efforts were currently under way to bring patients from various hospitals across the Gaza Strip to the Gaza European Hospital near Khan Yunis in the south.

They will be transported to the Kerem Shalom crossing early Wednesday and then flown on to the UAE and Romania, Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva, via video link from Gaza.

Those on the list figure among up to 14,000 people currently waiting in Gaza to be evacuated out of the territory for medical reasons.

Around half of them have sustained trauma injuries in the war and the others are suffering from serious illnesses such as cancer, he said.

15:25 In a daily update, the health ministry in Gaza said that at least 43,391 people have been killed.

The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which added that approximately 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip, since the Israeli war erupted on 7 October. 

14:30 The Israeli occupation army and the Shin Bet, an Israeli security agency, announced that they have arrested 60 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) resistance group in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli media reported.

According to the statement, PFLP local district heads and ground-level resistance fighters were detained, along with university students active in the group.

The number of people detained by Israel in the last 13 months since the 7 October war on Gaza amounted to over 11,600.

13:30 Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said on Tuesday, as the Israeli army issued further evacuation orders for the besieged Palestinian territory. 

Reuters reports that an airstrike damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza and killed at least 20 people late on Monday, citing Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media.

Palestinian health officials said six people had also been killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah, while four other people were killed in the central Gazan town of Al-Zawayda around midnight. At least two children were among those reported dead.

Israeli planes have dropped leaflets over Beit Lahiya in the far north of the territory ordering residents who have not yet left their homes and shelters housing displaced families to leave the town.

UN agencies have said that almost all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the Israeli war on Gaza.

Al Jazeera, citing Gaza’s civil defence, reports that Israeli forces continue to disrupt humanitarian and medical services in northern Gaza for the 14th day in a row.

13:15 The Palestinian Ministry of Education said the number of students killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the aggression reached more than 11,808, while those injured were 18,596. 

Meanwhile, 115 students were killed and 603 others were injured in the West Bank, it added.

Additionally, it said 561 teachers and administrators were killed and 3,729 injured in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Besides, more than 148 were detained in the West Bank, it revealed.

The ministry also pointed out that 341 governmental schools, universities with their buildings, and 65 others affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were bombed and vandalized in the Gaza Strip. As a result, 138 of them were severely damaged, while 77 were destroyed.

The education ministry confirmed that 788,000 students in the Gaza Strip have been deprived of attending their schools and universities since the beginning of the aggression, and most students suffer from psychological trauma and face difficult health conditions.

It clarified that the repeated occupation raids on the Jenin and Tulkarm governorates have caused terror among students of their schools.

12:30 Action For Humanity (AFH), a UK-based charity operating in Gaza, published a research paper into the difficulties on the ground for people when they receive evacuation orders from the Israeli military, titled "Erased in Plain Sight."

It found that 24 percent of people it spoke to in Gaza have been displaced ten times or more over the past year and that 15 percent of respondents said they were unable to evacuate due to a disability or caregiving responsibility when they received orders from the Israeli army.

Charles Lawley, director of communications and advocacy at the AFH, told The Guardian that “this report shows that Gaza is being erased in plain sight. The so-called evacuation orders – and I hesitate to call them that, as that is the language used by the Israeli military and implies it is doing the people of Gaza a favour by giving them a warning before bombing their homes – inflict terrors, are ambiguous and difficult to comply with, on the occasions they are given.”

“This pattern of relentless military force, characterized by aerial bombardment and ground incursions, forcible transfers, deprivation of necessities, and the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, roads, and other civilian infrastructure, systematically creates life-threatening conditions that align with acts of extermination and genocide,” Lawley said.

11:30 Gaza civil defence agency said that at least 13 people, including some living in tents for displaced Palestinians, were killed in Israeli air strikes overnight.

Four people were killed when an Israeli missile hit the home of the Shurafa family in eastern Gaza City, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Three people were killed and several wounded when a tent housing Palestinians displaced by the war was hit by an Israeli missile in the east of Khan Yunis city, Bassal said.

Another tent housing displaced people in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza was also hit by an Israeli air strike overnight, killing at least four people, he added.

Two other people were killed in separate incidents, Bassal said.

11:15 The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a coalition of armed groups, claimed responsibility for a drone attack against a "vital target" in southern Israel.

The group said its fighters had carried out a "drone attack on a vital target in the south" of Israel, claiming it was the sixth such attack on Tuesday alone. The Israeli military said earlier it had intercepted a drone approaching from the east.

10:50 Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the Israeli army “is booby-trapping and destroying entire neighbourhoods in cities and towns.”

It added that more than 37 towns have been wiped out along with their homes, and over 40,000 housing units have been destroyed.

The report suggested that Israeli forces are clearing an area 3km deep that runs from Naqoura on the coast to Khiam in the east.

10:15 The National News Agency in Lebanon reported fighting in the south of the country, near Halta, Kfarchouba, and Chebaa, all of which are close to the Blue Line separating Israel and Lebanon.

In its report, the agency said: “Some heights are witnessing movements of the enemy [Israeli] infantry forces and vehicles … these movements are being targeted by [Hezbollah] rocket salvos, while the forested areas remain exposed to artillery shelling and airstrikes from time to time.”

On Monday, the Israeli military said it was “conducting limited, localised, targeted raids based on precise intelligence in thicketed terrain along the border fence in southern Lebanon, where the Hezbollah terrorist organisation has established itself.”

The death toll in Lebanon has reached over 3,000, according to the Lebanese authorities.

10:05 Palestinian media sources in Lebanon reported that Hezbollah says it has targeted Israeli forces in the north of the country at Dovev, which is close to the UN-drawn Blue Line that separates Lebanon and Israel.

Earlier, the Israeli military reported warning sirens in the Upper Galilee area.

10:00 Israeli media reported that the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed to have launched three drones overnight aimed at Haifa, The Guardian said. 

9:50 The Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli drones are intensively flying over Beirut and the southern suburbs at a low altitude.

9:45 The Israeli military said it intercepted a drone approaching from the east over southern Israel in the Dead Sea area.

"A UAV that crossed into Israeli territory from the east was intercepted by the Israeli air force," the military said in a statement, without specifying the drone's origin.

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