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, 15 November, as they unfolded.
18:50 At least 12 civilians were killed and several others injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments across the Gaza Strip, pushing the total death toll from Israel’s ongoing genocidal war to more than 43,700, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
According to Wafa, the deadliest of the attacks targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern Gaza Strip, where seven civilians were killed. The strike, which hit the tent near the Osman Bin Affan Mosque south of Khan Younis, left numerous others wounded, Wafa added.
Afterwards, local sources told Wafa that two bodies and several injured were transferred to the Red Cross Field Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis for treatment.
The attack was part of a broader escalation of violence, with additional Israeli strikes killing five other Palestinians across Gaza on the same day, Wafa reported.
Mourners pray over the bodies of victims of an Israeli strike, during a funeral at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. AFP
Among the casualties, one civilian was killed and another injured in an Israeli shelling near the Palestine Red Crescent Society's headquarters in the Khirbat al-Adas area, north of Rafah. In a separate incident, an 18-year-old woman was killed in an Israeli bombing of a house in northeast Rafah. Two more civilians were injured when Israeli forces targeted a gathering in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood.
In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli air raids hit the town of Jabalia, while artillery strikes targeted Beit Lahiya, killing two Palestinians in both locations.
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has so far killed more than 43,764 people and injured 103,490 others, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.
Palestinians walk past a destroyed building at the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip during the night. AFP
17:45 Following his meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said he "hopes for a swift solution to the suffering of the Lebanese people."
Larijani, asked by reporters about US mediation in the conflict, said Tehran "was not seeking to disturb anything."
"We are looking for solutions," he said, accusing Israel of stalling on reaching a solution.
"We support the Lebanese nation under any circumstances," Larijani added. Later, he said: "We support the resistance under any circumstances," referring to Hezbollah, which is financed and armed by Iran.
Senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Larijani delivers a statement after meeting with Lebanon’s parliament speaker in Beirut. AFP
Larijani was asked about the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last major Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, as a potential solution.
"Anything that the Lebanese authorities and resistance could accept, we are for," he said.
Resolution 1701 said the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be the only armed forces deployed in the south, where Hezbollah currently holds great sway.
Since 2006, that resolution has helped keep the border region largely calm until October 2023, when Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel in stated support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
The low-intensity clashes continued for nearly a year before escalating into full-blown war in late September.
16:00 The health ministry in Gaza said that at least 43,764 people have been killed in more than 13 months of the Israeli war on Gaza.
The toll includes 28 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 103,490 people have also been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
15:45 Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim said his group is "ready for a ceasefire" in Gaza and urged US President-elect Donald Trump to pressure Israel to end its war on the Palestinian territory.
"Hamas is ready to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip if a ceasefire proposal is presented and on the condition that it is respected" by Israel, Naim told AFP.
"We call on the US administration and Trump to pressure the Israeli government to end the aggression."
"Hamas informed the mediators that it is in favour of any proposal submitted to it that would lead to a definitive ceasefire and military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, allowing the return of displaced people, a serious deal for a prisoner exchange, the entry of humanitarian aid and reconstruction," he added.
Naim's comments come after Qatar said Saturday that it had suspended its role as a key mediator for a Gaza ceasefire and captive release deal until Hamas and Israel show "seriousness" in talks.
15:20 Syrian state-run media said Israel struck the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus, the second such attack in as many days to hit the neighbourhood home to embassies, security headquarters and United Nations offices.
"Israeli aggression targets Mazzeh area in Damascus," the official SANA news agency said, after reporting a deadly Israeli strike on the district a day earlier.
Thursday's strike on Mazzeh killed 13 people, while an attack on the outskirts of Damascus killed 10 Palestinian fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
15:00 The UN Security Council’s 10 elected members circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza.
The draft resolution, which was sent to the council’s five permanent members Thursday, reiterates the council’s demand “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” held in Gaza.
The draft, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, also demands immediate access for Gaza’s civilian population to humanitarian aid and services essential for their survival.
It “underscores” that the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA “remains the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza.”
The draft resolution would also express the council’s “deep alarm over the ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza including the lack of adequate healthcare services and the state of food insecurity creating a risk of famine notably in the north.”
14:00 Rescue teams were searching through rubble for missing people near the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon where an Israeli strike hit a civil defense center the night before, killing at least 13.
All those killed in the strike on the town of Douris near Baalbek were employees and volunteers of the emergency services agency, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense. Some other remains were also recovered and will require DNA testing, it said in a statement.
The General Directorate of Civil Defense expressed “deep regret over this direct attack on its members." Staffers “will continue to respond to relief calls and continue with its humanitarian mission, no matter how great the challenges and sacrifices are," it said.
Rafik Shehada, head of the union of municipalities in the Baalbek region, described the strike as “barbaric” and said that rescue teams were still searching for missing people who had been inside the center at the time and were presumed dead.
Human Rights Watch in a report issued in late October said that it had documented three incidents that it described as “apparent war crimes” in which Israeli forces struck medica “medical personnel, transports, and facilities.” At that time, it said that Israeli strikes had killed at least 163 health and rescue workers across Lebanon and damaged 158 ambulances and 55 hospitals since October 2023.
13:15 Supreme leader’s advisor Ali Larijani meets the Lebanese PM in Beirut, according to the Lebanese news agency (NNA).
The two sides discussed the regional situation and Lebanon's current affairs.
Larijani arrived at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport early on Friday to engage in discussions with senior Lebanese officials.
13:00 The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group released a new clip of Israeli captive Sasha Trupanov, held in Gaza since October 2023, after releasing a first video earlier this week.
Trupanov, identified by his relatives in the first video released on Monday, appealed to Aryeh Deri, leader of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas, a member of Israel's governing coalition, to help free him and the other captives held in Gaza.
"My fear for my life is daily. The military efforts to release me that Netanyahu is selling you is what will end up leading to my death," Trufanov said.
"I am really afraid of the moment the army might get to me, or blow up the place I am located," he added, noting that many captives held in Gaza have been killed by the military.
12:00 A building in Beirut's southern suburbs collapsed as two Israeli strikes hit the Dahiyeh on Friday.
A series of images from the strike captures a falling projectile slamming into the lower floors of the building, which erupts in a huge fireball, causing the structure to collapse.
Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported a "heavy raid carried out by aircraft of the Israeli enemy" in the Ghobeiri area, near Horsh Beirut, the capital's largest park.
It said the raid had been preceded by two missile strikes on the same target by an Israeli drone.
Later in the morning, a second strike hit the Bourj al-Barajneh area of the southern suburbs, an AFP journalist reported.
NNA said two missiles had been fired by an "enemy aircraft".
NNA also reported pre-dawn strikes on the southern city of Nabatieh.
The Israeli military said its air force had hit more than 120 targets across Lebanon on Thursday.
Lebanese authorities say that more than 3,380 people have been killed since October last year, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire.
More than 1.2 million have been displaced by Israel's indiscriminate bombing, some of them internally and others into neighbouring Syria.
The escalation has cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.
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