19:30 The Lebanese health ministry revised the death toll in the Israeli bombing of the country since October 2023 to 3,117 and the wounded to 13,888.
The report comes as Israeli warplanes continued to bomb various towns in south Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley on Friday.
On the other side, Hezbollah continued targeting Israeli military bases with missiles and rockets in Galilee throughout the day.
18:45 A "strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas" of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday.
The warning comes as the Israeli army intensifies an eight-week-old deadly airstrike campaign on residential buildings coupled with the blockade on all food, water, and medicine on tens of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza.
"Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have an influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation," the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.
17:30 The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) on Friday reiterated its condemnation of Israel’s war on Gaza after new data confirmed that nearly 70 percent of the verified deaths in the first six months were women and children.
In the six-month update on the human rights situation in Gaza, the OHCHR confirmed that, of the 8,119 fatalities it has verified out of more than 34,500 reported deaths, a staggering 70 percent were women and children.
The OHCHR warned that this trend reflects a broader pattern of Israeli violence, with entire families bearing the brunt of airstrikes and artillery in crowded residential areas.
"Many of these deaths occurred in strikes on residential buildings, a key feature of this escalation, where civilians—especially women and children—have borne the brunt," the OHCHR said, underlining that the use of weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas has been a significant factor in the high civilian death toll.
The horrific reality for people of #Gaza & #Israel since 7 October 2023 is detailed in @UNHumanRights report.
Close to 70% of those killed in Gaza are children & women.
Unprecedented violations of IHL give rise to concerns of atrocity crimes. The violence must stop immediately.
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) November 8, 2024
16:00 Lebanese state media said the Israeli army on Friday detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages that Israeli airstrikes have battered for seven weeks.
Hezbollah says it is engaged in fighting Israeli forces in the area, more than a month into an Israeli ground invasion in south Lebanon.
"Since this morning, the Israeli enemy's army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area to destroy residential homes there," the official National News Agency said.
Israeli forces also conducted a raid in the nearby town of Bint Jbeil, NNA said, after Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli troops in the flashpoint border region.
Hezbollah said on Thursday it had "ambushed" Israeli ground forces attempting to infiltrate Yaroun.
Mourners and rescuers surround coffins, clad in Lebanese flags and the green flags of the Amal movement, of people killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a building a day earlier in the town of Barja during their funeral procession in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on November 7, 2024. AFP
15:00 Clashes erupted late Thursday evening in Amsterdam after Israeli soccer fans reportedly ripped Palestinian flags from residential buildings and celebrated the genocide in the Gaza Strip with anti-Arab chants.
Dutch police arrested dozens after clashes erupted between Israeli soccer fans and locals who were reportedly angered by the Israelis tearing of Palestinian flags and their genocidal chants against Arabs.
Violence flared in Amsterdam after the Europa League football match between Maccabi Tel-Aviv and home team Ajax, which won 5-0.
Five people have been hospitalised and 62 arrested as a result of clashes that erupted in Amsterdam overnight following a football match, police said on Friday.
"Several reports about last night's events in Amsterdam are circulating on social media," Amsterdam police said in a post on X.
"So far, it is known that five people have been taken to the hospital and 62 individuals have been arrested."
"The police have launched a major investigation into multiple violent incidents," it said.
On Friday, Tel Aviv sent a plane to bring home football fans from Amsterdam after clashes in the Dutch city.
Various Dutch politicians rushed to describe the clashes as an "anti-semitic" attack on Jews.
Prime Minister Dick Schoof, whose government continues to supply Israel with spare parts for F-35 jetfighters that have been bombing the Gaza Strip and Lebanon despite lawsuits by rights organisations against such sales, said on X that he followed reports of the violence "with horror."
"Completely unacceptable antisemitic attacks on Israelis. I am in close contact with everyone involved," he added, saying that he had spoken to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and "emphasised that the perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted. It is now quiet in the capital."
Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema described "antisemitic hit-and-run squads."
"This is a very dark moment for the city, for which I am deeply ashamed," Halsema said at a news conference.
However, it was not immediately clear when and where violence erupted after the match.
There were also incidents involving fans ahead of the match.
In the stadium, before the match started, Maccabe Tel Aviv fans jeered and refused to observe a moment of Silence for the victims of the recent deadly floods in Spain in an apparent jibe at the government in Madrid, which has been outspoken in condemning the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza.
Dutch broadcaster NOS also reported that a Palestinian flag was ripped off a building in the centre of the city, and riot police blocked pro-Palestinian supporters trying to march toward the Johan Cruyff Arena stadium where the match was being played, according to AP.
The violence erupted between Israeli fans and pro-Palestinian fans despite a ban on a pro-Palestinian demonstration near the soccer stadium imposed by Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema.
Some footage also showed Israeli supporters pulling down Palestinian flags on residential buildings in the city, chanting racist, genocidal, anti-Palestinian slogans before Thursday evening's match.
Other videos showed angry locals shouting anti-Israeli slurs and clashing with the Maccabi Tel-Aviv.
Quds News Network posted a timeline with videos of the clashes that occurred.
Ahram Online could not independently verify the videos or the timeline.
Other videos on social media showed riot police intervening in clashes.
14:00 The UN condemned on Friday the staggering number of civilians killed by Israel in its war on Gaza, saying women and children comprised nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
The United Nations rights office said it had verified 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war, finding "close to 70 percent to be children and women."
A woman rests with her children as displaced as displaced Palestinians flee Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip through the main Salah al-Din road on the outskirts of Gaza City. AFP
The death toll in the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip currently nears 44,000, and the number of wounded is over 103,000.
Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble of thousands of residential buildings and homes levelled by Israeli airstrikes.
13:00 Twenty-seven civilians, including children and women, were killed, and several others were injured before midnight on Thursday in a new massacre committed by the Israeli occupation in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, according to WAFA.
WAFA correspondent said that 27 citizens were killed and several others were wounded in an Israeli bombing targeting a house of the al-Mubhouh family near the Abu Hussein School in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Several victims and injured civilians remain trapped under the rubble as ambulance and rescue crews attempt to save them.
Palestinians approach a home with a ladder to evacuate victims after it was hit in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. AFP
A civilian was also killed, and others were injured in an Israeli air raid targeting Al-Manshiya Street in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israeli airstrikes killed more than 80 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them in the northern part of the strip, on Thursday.
12:00 Hezbollah launched its second attack against Israeli military bases in the last 24 hours, "achieving accurate hits," according to Al-Mayadeen Network.
"The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah continues to carry out qualitative operations against the army bases of the Israeli occupation in northern occupied Palestine and deep inside the occupation entity," the Hezbollah-affiliated TV station reported.
The Stella Maris naval base, located northwest of Haifa, and, in an earlier attack, the Ramat David airbase southeast of Haifa, were targeted in a "qualitative missile salvo," the group said in two separate statements.
According to Al Jazeera, video footage showed that a fire had broken out at the targeted naval site.
The Israeli army announced on Friday that a soldier who was injured in battles with Hezbollah in south Lebanon has succumbed to his injuries.
Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes continued striking the towns of Khiyam and Al-Mansoury in southern Lebanon and also struck Hosh Sayed Ali in Beqaa Valley on Friday morning.
Thursday 7 November
22:45 Israeli occupation forces have detained at least 18 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since last night, the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said in a joint statement.
According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, the detentions occurred in Hebron, Ramallah, Qalqilya, and Tubas.
It is estimated that at least 11,600 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 2023.
Human rights groups and international organisations have verified widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the West Bank.
They have described abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages, as well as beatings, intimidation, and harassment.
The Israeli army has killed more than 700 Palestinians in raids and cold-blooded assassinations across various villages, towns, and refugee camps in the occupied territories since the start of its genocidal war on Gaza.
22:30 Israeli attacks on Lebanon killed at least 53 people and injured 161 during the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 3,103 deaths and 13,856 injuries since October 2023, the Lebanese health ministry has said in an update.
22:15 Donald Trump will as president give Benjamin Netanyahu a “blank check” in the Middle East, possibly opening the way for an all-out war between Israel and Iran, the former CIA director and US defense secretary Leon Panetta predicted.
“With regards to the Middle East, I think he’s going to give Netanyahu a blank check,” Panetta said of Trump, who won the presidential election this week and will retake office in January.
“‘Whatever you do, whatever you want to do, whoever you want to go after, you have my blessing.’ I mean, he said that [before the election].”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters: “We will continue to pursue an end to the war in Gaza, an end to the war in Lebanon, a surge of humanitarian assistance (to Gaza), and that is our duty to pursue those policies right up until noon on January 20 when the president-elect takes office."
The US has backed the Israeli wars in Gaza and Lebanon with $18 billion in military aid since October 2023.
21:30 Hezbollah believes it will make little difference who is in the White House regarding a ceasefire, spokesperson Ibrahim al-Moussawi told the Reuters news agency.
“It might be a change in the party in power, but when it comes to Israel, they have more or less the same policy,” Moussawi said. “We want to see actions; we want to see decisions taken.”
Moussawi acknowledged the heavy toll of Israeli attacks that have blown apart thousands of buildings, mainly in Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim-dominated south and east and the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut. But he said the group’s military capabilities remained strong.
“Our hearts are broken—we are losing very dear lives. This feeling that [Israel] cannot be punished or brought to international justice is a result of US support, which renders them immune to accountability,” he said.
“America is a full partner in what’s happening because they can exercise influence to stop this destruction.”
20:30 Ireland intends to join South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice before the end of the year, its foreign minister said on Thursday.
Michael Martin's comments came as the Irish parliament passed a non-binding motion agreeing that "genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza."
South Africa in December brought a case before the ICJ, arguing that the war in Gaza breached the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, an accusation Israel has denied.
Several nations have contributed to the proceedings, including Spain, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Turkey, Chile, and Libya.
Ireland had said it would file a submission to the court once South Africa had submitted a document supporting its claims, which it did on Monday.
"The government's decision to intervene in the South African case was based on detailed and rigorous legal analysis," Martin told lawmakers in the Irish parliament, the Dail.
"Ireland is a strong supporter of the court's work and is deeply committed to international law and accountability."
19:30 Israeli airstrikes continued on residential buildings and homes in Beqaa Valley and south Lebanon on Thursday, killing and injuring more civilians.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli bombardment has killed 3,102 and wounded 13,819 citizens since 8 October 2023.
18:30 UNIFIL issued a statement decrying the most recent Israeli attack on the peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, which injured five of its troops.
"This afternoon, a UNIFIL convoy bringing newly arrived peacekeepers to south Lebanon was passing Saida when a drone strike occurred nearby.
"We remind all actors of their obligation to avoid actions putting peacekeepers or civilians in danger. Differences should be resolved at the negotiating table, not through violence."
The bombing has damaged infrastructure in south Lebanon, making some roads impassable. Our peacekeepers from various contingents are clearing rubble, repairing roads between villages, and restoring safe passage for peacekeepers. UNIFIL X account
17:50 The leader of Yemen's Houthi rebels criticised Donald Trump for supporting Israel on Thursday, saying the US president-elect would fail to end the Middle East conflict in his second term.
Abdul Malik al-Houthi, whose group is aligned with Iran, said that a series of normalisation deals between Arab countries and Israel brokered by Trump's administration during his first term did not help bring the conflict closer to an end.
"Trump failed in the project of... 'the deal of the century' despite all his arrogance, haughtiness, recklessness, and tyranny, and he will fail this time as well," Houthi said in his weekly speech.
In his speech on Thursday, the Yemeni rebel leader charged that US presidents "compete over who will provide more services to the Israeli enemy."
"Trump himself had a previous presidential term and was keen to provide achievements for the Israelis," Houthi said.
17:30 At least 43,469 Palestinian people have been killed, mostly women and children, and 102,561 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Of those, 78 Palestinians were killed and 214 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
It said thousands of other dead people are lost in the rubble of the territory.
16:45 Lebanon’s National News Agency reported earlier that “an enemy drone targeted a car in Araya” in Lebanon, adding that the airstrike left the route blocked to vehicular traffic. The highway links Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, to the Syrian capital of Damascus through the Lebanese mountains.
15:57 At least 12 Palestinians have been killed and many others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, medics reported.
The attack struck the Al-Shati elementary boys school, located in the Al-Shati refugee camp, one of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) operated the school, providing basic life-supporting aid to families displaced by the ongoing war.
15:00 Lebanon's Ministry of Health has said three people were killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a car at the main entrance to the southern city of Sidon.
"The Israeli enemy's raid on a car in Sidon resulted in the deaths of three people and the injury of three others," the ministry said in a statement.
14:45 UN peacekeepers in Lebanon were wounded on Thursday in an Israeli strike near their vehicle at the entrance to the southern city of Sidon, the official National News Agency (NNA) said.
"Enemy aircraft targeted a car in Sidon near the army checkpoint," NNA said, adding that vehicles from the UNIFIL peacekeeping force were in the "same lane" during the raid, which led to injuries among its members who were receiving treatment at the scene.
14:34 Lebanon’s transport minister said the country’s only international airport was operating normally after Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut, including one in an area near the hub.
Minister Ali Hamie told AFP that planes were taking off and landing without issue.
The overnight strike in Beirut caused “minor damage” to some buildings but “not inside the terminal building,” an airport official told AFP.
The official said the strike had affected a maintenance building belonging to a subsidiary of Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s national carrier. Middle East Airlines is practically the only airline still operating flights, although aid deliveries have been made using the airport.
Men walk through the rubble at the site of an Israeli airstrike targeting the Ouzai neighbourhood near Beirut International Airport in the city’s southern suburbs. AFP
14:09 The UN launched an appeal for life-saving support for Gaza's population.
"Over 2 million people urgently need life-saving support, with only 6% of pre-war aid currently reaching Gaza," it said.
"UNRWA’s ability to provide aid has been drastically hit. This is not due to a lack of available aid but rather access restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities, which prevent UNRWA from distributing supplies," the UN office in Geneva said.
"Support from the international community is vital to sustain critical UNRWA operations," it added.
According to the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly half the population lacks a minimum of 15 litres of water per person per day for drinking, cooking, and hygiene.
A UN report released in late October revealed that the economic development in Gaza and the West Bank has been set back by almost 70 years (equivalent to June 1955 levels).
14:00 Marking 40 days since the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stressed that the resistance against Israeli aggression remains strong.
"These acts of jihad, which are continuing with strength and power in Lebanon, Gaza, and Palestine today, will definitely lead to the victory of the Resistance Front. This is what we understand from the overall events and what God has promised," Iranian state TV reported the leader as saying Thursday.
“God willing, the world will see a day when they will defeat the Zionist regime,” he added.
Khamenei emphasized that the assassinations of Nasrallah, both Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, and Iranian senior commanders Safieddine and Nilforoushan have brought honour to the Resistance Front and increased its power and ability.
13:40 A spokesperson for the US Republican Party said in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 that she believed that President-elect Donald Trump wanted the wars in the Middle East to end with “a decisive victory” for Israel.
Asked about comments that Trump made this week: “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars,” Elizabeth Pipko said: "I would say Trump expects Israel to end it by winning it, one hundred percent; that’s how he always talks about ending wars."
"Donald Trump always says he wants fewer innocent people to die—that is his stance whether we’re talking about the war in Gaza, whether we’re talking about Russia in Ukraine or anywhere else," she added.
Donald Trump’s campaign messaging on foreign policy has been mixed, promising to end US involvement in “forever war” but also suggesting he would give Israel stronger backing than the Biden/Harris administration has done.
12:00 Iran said the US presidential election result is a chance for a new administration to “review the wrong approaches of the past.”
"We have had very bitter experiences with the policies and approaches of different US governments in the past," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, according to the state news agency IRNA.
"Elections are an opportunity to review the wrong approaches of the past. What is important for Iran will be how we evaluate the actions of the US government,” he added.
During his first term as president, Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, which had ended 12 years of deadlock over Tehran’s nuclear program.
11:20 The EU is "appalled" by Israel's Thursday air strikes in eastern and southern Lebanon, which killed tens of people, the bloc's foreign policy chief said.
Josep Borrell expressed concern over Thursday's Israeli airstrikes, stressing that the respect of international humanitarian law is "not negotiable."
"We call once again for an immediate ceasefire & symmetrical implementation of UNSCR (UN Security Council Resolution) 1701," he wrote on X.
10:39 Lebanese state media said an Israeli drone strike targeted a car on a key road linking the capital, Beirut, with the Bekaa Plain and eastern neighbour Syria.
"An enemy drone targeted a car in Araya," the National News Agency said, adding that the road had been cut off by the strike that came after two cars were targets on the same route last week.
Lebanese soldiers stand guard as a crane removes the wreckage of a vehicle at the site of an Israeli drone attack in Aaraiya, east of Beirut. AFP
10:37 A Palestinian man was killed after being shot by Israeli occupation forces in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank.
The Red Crescent Society reported that its crews transferred 22-year-old Harith Awfi from the camp to Martyr Thabet Hospital.
Eyewitnesses inside the camp stated that Awfi was shot while in one of the camp's courtyards by a sniper positioned in a nearby house. The bullet struck him in the heart.
Thursday morning, an Israeli drone bombed sites in the camp twice, injuring five people with shrapnel, including a woman and her disabled son.
Palestinian men stand above debris and destruction on a road in the Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank in the aftermath of an Israeli army raid. AFP
10:16 At least 22 civilians were killed and others were injured in Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip, the WAFA news agency reported.
Medical sources reported that three citizens were killed and others were injured in the strikes in the Nuwairi area, west of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Another five were killed in the Israeli airstrike on the Tabat Zare area east of Rafah city by an occupation drone.
Meanwhile, six Palestinians were killed by an Israeli artillery shelling that targeted citizens near the Abu Sharkh roundabout, west of Jabalia camp, WAFA added.
The occupation's vehicles also fired their shells and gunfire at citizens' homes in Jabalia camp and the areas of Al-Saftawi, Al-Tawam, and Al-Sudaniya, northwest of Gaza.
Three others were killed after an Israeli drone targeted the market street in the Beit Lahia project, bringing to eight the number of Palestinians killed in the era since dawn Thursday.
10:04 Al Jazeera news network said the Israeli army has extended the order shutting down its bureau in the West Bank.
Walid Al-Omari, the network’s bureau chief, said Israeli troops raided the office in Ramallah again early Thursday and posted a notice extending the closure for an additional 45 days.
Israel had previously raided the office and shut it down on 22 September. Earlier this year, Tel Aviv took the rare step of barring the Qatar-based network from operating in Israel.
Al-Jazeera has provided nearly 24-hour coverage from inside Gaza since the start of the Israeli war. Several of its correspondents have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces.
09:49 Israel’s parliament passed a law early Thursday that would allow it to deport family members of Palestinians resisting the occupation, including the country’s citizens, to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip or other locations.
The law, championed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party members and extremist allies, passed with a 61-41 vote.
It would apply to Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of occupied East Jerusalem who knew about their family members' operations beforehand or who “expressed support or identification with them.”
They would be deported, either to the Gaza Strip or another location, for a period of seven to 20 years.
It was unclear if it would apply in the occupied West Bank, where Israel already has a longstanding policy of demolishing the family homes of resistance fighters.
09:37 The Israeli Ministry of Defence said it had signed a $5.2 billion deal to acquire 25 F-15 IA fighter jets—an advanced variant of the F-15 EX—from Boeing.
The deal includes an option for 25 additional aircraft.
Funded by US military aid approved by the US administration and Congress earlier this year, the jets will be delivered in batches of four to six annually starting in 2031.
09:13 Lebanon's Ministry of Health said Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed 40 people, with rescuers continuing to comb the rubble for survivors.
"The series of Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek" killed "40 people and injured 53," the ministry said in a statement.
09:05 The Israeli occupation army has expanded its month-old ground attack in northern Gaza to a town that has been heavily bombed since the earliest days of the deadly war on the Palestinian territory.
The army said in a statement Thursday that “troops started to operate” in the Beit Lahia area.
The town in the northwestern corner of Gaza was among the first targets of the ground invasion launched over a year ago. Israeli forces have encircled the northern third of the territory since then.
Israel launched another major offensive in nearby Jabalia, a decades-old urban refugee camp, in early October.
It has sharply restricted the amount of aid entering northern Gaza and ordered a complete evacuation. Tens of thousands have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest mass displacement of the war.
09:00 Several extensive Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early Thursday, including one on a site adjacent to Lebanon’s only international airport.
The Israeli army had earlier issued an evacuation notice for the site. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Beirut’s airport has not been directly targeted during the Israeli war on the country, and national airline Middle East Airlines has continued to operate commercial flights.
Smoke and fire rise from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. AP
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