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 provides you with live updates of the most recent developments across the Middle East on Tuesday, 19 November, as they unfold.
21:15 The Lebanese army says three soldiers have been killed in an Israeli attack in the south.
“The Israeli enemy targeted an army position in the town of Sarafand in the south, killing three soldiers,” the army said in a statement.
The Health Ministry said the attack also wounded eight people, including “citizens who were nearby”.
20:40 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a captive held in Gaza.
"Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave" Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
"We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage."
"Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead -- we will pursue you and we will catch up with you," he said.
"We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won't give up. We will continue until we've found them all, alive or dead."
20:25 Hezbollah said that since the beginning of the Israeli ground operation in Lebanon, we have destroyed 48 Merkava tanks, 9 military bulldozers, 2 armored vehicles, and 8 drones, Al Jazeera reported.
20:00 The Palestine Red Crescent Society says Israeli forces used one of its teams as human shields in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
Soldiers detained the paramedics inside a house “while they were en route to evacuate an injured person in the eastern neighbourhood of Jenin during a raid on the house”, the emergency service said.
18:45 The USS Abraham Lincoln has left the Middle East, leaving the region without a carrier strike group amid escalating Red Sea tensions, including Yemeni operations on US naval assets and strategic US Navy realignments.
18:40 The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that it treated nine individuals who were injured by Israeli gunfire today in the city of Jenin and its refugee camp, located in the northern West Bank.
One of the injured was reported to have sustained gunshot wounds in Jenin itself.
The violence follows earlier reports of four Palestinians getting injured as Israeli forces launched a military offensive on the Jenin refugee camp and the nearby city, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as reported by WAFA.
Since last night, the Israeli occupation forces have continued to storm the city of Jenin and its refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, causing widespread destruction to infrastructure and civilian property.
18:30 Yemen's Houthi announced Tuesday they had targeted a cargo ship in the Red Sea, while a multinational naval task force said two missiles had struck near the Panama-flagged vessel.
Since last November Houthis have been targeting shipping in and around the Red Sea in a campaign they say is in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said they "carried out an operation targeting the ship 'Anadolu S' in the Red Sea with a number of appropriate ballistic and naval missiles", adding that the "hit was accurate and direct".
18:20 The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that Israeli airstrikes on Monday resulted in 28 deaths and 107 injuries. This brings the total number of casualties since the beginning of the conflict to 3,544 dead and 15,036 injured.
The latest figures reflect the ongoing escalation and humanitarian toll as Israeli forces continue their military operations. Emergency services and medical teams remain stretched as they respond to the increasing number of casualties.
18:00 Italy's Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said that Israel on Tuesday staged an "intolerable" new attack on the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
"Today there was a new attack. Three rockets fell on Chamaa. It is intolerable," the minister said on the sidelines of EU talks in Brussels. The UNIFIL force has complained of increasing attacks by Israel since it started its campaign targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
17:50 US special envoy Amos Hochstein said on a visit to Beirut that an end to the war was "now within our grasp" as he met with officials to discuss a truce plan largely endorsed by Lebanon.
The United States and France have spearheaded efforts for a ceasefire in the war, which escalated in late September after nearly a year of deadly exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli troops.
Following a meeting on Tuesday with Hezbollah-allied parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation on behalf of the group, Hochstein told reporters he saw "a real opportunity" to end the war.
"I'm here in Beirut to facilitate that decision, but it's ultimately the decision of the parties... It is now within our grasp," he added.
17:40 Israeli helicopters and drones launched heavy fire on homes in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza and targeted areas in the southern part of Gaza City on Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera correspondents.
The attacks are part of an ongoing escalation in military operations across the region in Israel's war on Gaza.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 17 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on various locations in Gaza since the early hours of Tuesday.
The continued air assaults have compounded the humanitarian crisis in the densely populated enclave, leading to rising casualties and widespread destruction.
17:20 The Israeli military reported the fall of a drone in the Upper Galilee on Tuesday after it entered from Lebanon.
No injuries were reported, and the situation has since been contained, according to the Israeli Home Front Command.
Earlier, sirens sounded across 30 locations in the Upper and Western Galilee as a precaution against potential drone or rocket threats.
The Home Front Command confirmed that the drone had been observed flying over both Upper and Lower Galilee regions before it was tracked and brought down.
16:50 Four Palestinians were injured on Tuesday as Israeli forces launched a military offensive on the Jenin refugee camp and the nearby city, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as reported by WAFA.
The injuries included one person hit by live fire in the thigh and three others wounded by shrapnel from a drone-fired bomb in the eastern neighborhood of Jenin.
The WAFA correspondent reported that Israeli forces set three houses on fire within the camp and ignited a commercial center at its entrance, which was fully ablaze before civil defense teams managed to extinguish the flames. While the teams were able to reach two of the homes, Israeli troops reportedly blocked access to the third.
Red Crescent ambulance officer Hazim Masaroah confirmed that emergency crews, in coordination with civil defense teams, evacuated a family from their home after it caught fire. The raid also caused significant damage to the camp's infrastructure, with Israeli bulldozers cutting off electricity and destroying waterlines as they advanced through the area.
16:30 Hezbollah launched a series of rocket attacks targeting Israeli military positions in the Upper Galilee.
Al Jazeera reported that the rockets targeted military sites, triggering sirens in Kiryat Shmona and other northern towns amid concerns over a potential drone incursion, according to Israel's Home Front Command.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for strikes on Israeli forces gathered in the settlement of Malkia, as well as rocket salvos directed at the settlements of Gaaton and Goren.
Meanwhile, Israeli Army Radio reported that an attacking drone crashed and exploded, killing one Israeli soldier and injuring three others in southern Lebanon.
16:10 Israeli airstrikes stuck areas near Tebnine Hospital in southern Lebanon.
15:56 32-year-old Palestinian photojournalist Ahmed Abu Shariah was killed in an Israeli artillery shelling of his home in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, Quds News reported.
He was a father of two children.
His father, Yousef Abu Shariah, was the former photographer of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Israel has continued its pattern of deliberately targeting journalists and media workers in Gaza for over 13 months, killing at least188 journalists.
15:52 Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson says Hamas leaders have left Doha but denied reports that Qatar has ordered a permanent closure of the Palestinian resistance group’s political office or expulsion of its previously Doha-based leadership.
The Qatari spokesman, Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari, told reporters that "if there is decision to close the office permanently you will hear this news from this platform or in an official statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
“The leaders of Hamas that are in the negotiating team are now not in Doha and as you know, they move between the different capitals,” he said. ”...The office in Doha was created for the purpose of the mediation process — obviously when there is no mediation process, the office itself doesn’t have any function.”
Qatar, which had served as a mediator in indirect cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage exchange deal, has suspended its efforts after growing frustration with the lack of progress on a cease-fire deal for Gaza.
Al-Ansari did not say where the Hamas leaders went nor did he rule out that Doha might return to its mediating role.
“The suspension of negotiation efforts does not in any way mean that there is a Qatari position to withdraw from de-escalation efforts or that there is a change in the position of the State of Qatar on the need to end this war,” he said.
15:20 The Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli forces launched phosphorous shelling on the outskirts of the southern towns of Zebqin, Qlaileh, Majdel Zoun, and Bayyada.
The shelling occurred as Israeli forces attempted to advance from Shamaa towards Bayyada in the west and the areas of Wadi Hassan and Wadi Mouzhlem in the north.
15:00 The Gaza Health Ministry reported that the death toll from the ongoing Israeli war has risen to 43,972, with 104,008 people injured.
WAFA news agency has reported that "Israeli occupation forces committed three massacres against families in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, resulting in the killing of at least 50 Palestinians and the injury of 110 others."
14:49 Hezbollah said it launched missiles at an Israeli military intelligence base near Tel Aviv on Tuesday and attacked Israeli troops near four south Lebanon villages.
Hezbollah statements said its fighters fired "a salvo of missiles" at the Glilot military base in the Tel Aviv suburbs, as well as targeted Israeli troops in four locations including near the Lebanese flashpoint village of Khiam.
14:47 Israel has issued a veiled threat to strike Iraq.
In a letter to the United Nations Security Council posted on X, the Israeli foreign minister claimed his country has the right to “take all necessary measures to protect itself and its citizens against the ongoing acts of hostilities" by militias in Iraq.”
Militants in Iraq have launched several rocket and drone attacks against both Israel and US forces since the war in Gaza began.
A 3 October drone attack launched from Iraq on an army base in northern Israel killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded 24, Tel Aviv said.
Israel struck Iraq in 2019 and has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
13:28 US envoy in Beirut says: there is 'real opportunity' to end Israel's war on Lebanon.
12:04 The UN said over 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in less than two months since Israel escalated its attacks on the country.
"Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence," James Elder, spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva.
"Over the last two months in Lebanon, an average of three children have been killed every single day," he said.
Children's books are scattered among the rubble of a building destroyed in an overnight Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese town of Saksakiyeh. AFP
12:02 Argentina has notified the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon that it is withdrawing three of its officers, a UNIFIL spokesperson confirmed.
"Correct. Argentina has asked its officers to go back," said Andrea Tenenti, UNIFIL spokesperson, in response to a question about a newspaper report, Reuters said.
He declined to comment on the reason for their departure, referring the question to the Argentinian government.
11:55 An infant was killed by the Israeli artillery shelling of a house in the New Camp area, northwest of Al-Nuseirat camp, in the central Gaza Strip.
At least two civilians were also killed and others injured in an Israeli warplane bombing the Sabra neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, WAFA said.
The occupation forces bombed the vicinity of Al-Iman Mosque.
Palestinians gather on the rubble of a house destroyed in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip. AFP
11:04 UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva on Monday that there is "no plan B" to aid Palestinian refugees if Israel bans the UN agency. He added that the state of Palestinian refugees would remain even if UNRWA were to cease its operations.
10:51 Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office reportedly asked the Shin Bet security agency for an opinion allowing him to avoid testifying in his corruption trial on security grounds.
The request, as reported by Haaretz, was based on the claim that Netanyahu could not spend extended periods of time in public places where his arrival would be known in advance, citing security concerns.
Netanyahu is scheduled to testify on 2 December in a case involving charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. However, his office recently sought a statement from Shin Bet indicating that, for security reasons, the prime minister should be exempt from this obligation.
Shin Bet refused to provide the requested opinion and instead initiated an extensive review to assess whether the testimony could proceed as planned while ensuring the necessary security measures for Netanyahu.
The Haaretz report also indicates that Netanyahu has faced pressure from his family and close associates to remove Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
Senior security officials, speaking anonymously, told the newspaper that Bar is under pressure because he refused to comply with Netanyahu’s request and decided to thoroughly investigate the feasibility of holding the testimony while maintaining the necessary security protocols.
This is not the first time Netanyahu has sought to delay his testimony. Last week, Israel’s state broadcaster reported that Netanyahu had requested a two-and-a-half-month postponement of his court appearance, citing his involvement in the ongoing Gaza conflict.
10:02 The United Nations Security Council convened on Monday, with members calling for a significant increase in humanitarian aid to reach those suffering in besieged, war-torn Gaza.
They warned that the situation in the Palestinian territory is worsening.
Tor Wennesland, the UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, highlighted the increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions faced by humanitarian agencies in Gaza, citing access restrictions that are severely hindering their operations.
"The humanitarian situation in Gaza, as winter begins, is catastrophic," Wennesland said.
"In particular, developments in northern Gaza are deeply alarming, with near-total displacement of the population and widespread destruction of land — all amidst what appears to be a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law."
He added: "The current conditions are among the worst we've seen throughout the entire war and are not expected to improve."
Wennesland emphasized that Gaza must remain an integral part of a future Palestinian state, with no reductions in its territory. He called for an end to the repeated forced displacement of Gaza's population and for people to be allowed to return to their homes.
"There should be no long-term Israeli military presence in Gaza," Wennesland stated. He also stressed that calls for the re-establishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza must be firmly rejected and opposed.
Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour said that “violence is a dead end.” He added: “Our region does not need more killing, but a just political solution. The solution is not in the disappearance of one person but in mutual acceptance and coexistence. It is not in killing or being killed, but in living and allowing others to live.”
He made clear that the only course of action the Security Council must take to retain any credibility is to “demand an immediate and unconditional ceasefire under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”
He stressed that the choice is simple, “between occupation and freedom, annexation and independence, apartheid and the dignity of universal rights, oppression and coexistence, and war and peace.”
He called on all states to protect civilians, recognize the State of Palestine, implement the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, and respect international legal obligations without exception or fear or favour.
Mansour also called for decisive action to end Israel's colony activity in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, including taking action against Israeli officials “before we see colonies built again in Gaza.”
09:39 At least two people were killed and several others wounded overnight as Israeli forces continued their bombardment of the southern governorate of Nabatieh, according to the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA).
Israeli airstrikes targeted Nabatieh Al-Fawqa and Kfar Reman, resulting in fatalities and injuries. NNA also reported that attacks hit near Nabih Berri Governmental University Hospital in the city of Nabatieh, while residential areas in Ansariyeh and Bint Jbeil were struck.
Israeli airstrikes also struck a neighbourhood in the heart of Lebanon's capital late on Monday, slamming into an area near the parliament, several embassies, and the UN headquarters, NNA said.
Lebanon's Ministry of Health said at least five people were killed and 31 wounded. An Associated Press reporter at the scene in Beirut described significant casualties on the street as ambulance sirens echoed through the area.
Further airstrikes were reported in Habbush, Al Khardali, Mayfadoun, Zoutar Al-Sharqiya, Qaqaiyat Al-Jisr, and Khiam.
09:32 Since last night, the Israeli occupation forces have continued to storm the city of Jenin and its refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, causing widespread destruction to infrastructure and civilian property.
Local sources reported that a large number of military vehicles entered the city through the Jalameh military checkpoint, deploying in various neighbourhoods and at the entrance to the camp, WAFA news agency reported.
The sources added that Israeli bulldozers began demolishing main roads and vital infrastructure in Jenin while violent clashes erupted around the camp.
In response to the ongoing aggression, the Jenin Education Directorate announced that today’s school day in the city and camp would be conducted remotely.
The Israeli occupation forces also stormed the village of Marah Rabah in Bethlehem, raiding a number of homes there as well.
09:20 US special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Lebanon for truce talks with officials, state media reported.
A Lebanese official told AFP on Monday that the government had a positive view of a US truce proposal, while a second official said Lebanon was waiting for Hochstein's arrival to "review certain outstanding points with him."
On Monday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments.
"Both sides have reacted to the proposals that we have put forward," he said.
Miller said the United States was pushing for "full implementation" of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 and requires all armed forces except the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to withdraw from the Lebanese side of the border with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that even with a deal, Israel would "carry out operations against Hezbollah" to keep the group from rebuilding.
Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah-allied parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the group.
If an agreement is reached, the United States and France will issue a joint statement, he said, followed by a 60-day truce during which Lebanon will redeploy troops in the southern border area near Israel.
Israel has killed more than 3,510 people in Lebanon since clashes began in October last year, with most fatalities recorded since late September.
09:22 In a joint declaration late Monday, leaders of the world's 20 major economies called for a global pact to combat hunger, more aid for Gaza, and an end to hostilities in the Mideast.
Group members endorsed the joint statement but fell short of complete unanimity.
They heightened global tensions over Israel's wars in the Mideast.
The declaration referred to the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and the escalation in Lebanon,” stressing the urgent need to expand humanitarian assistance and better protect civilians.
“Affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination, we reiterate our unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-state solution where Israel and a Palestinian State live side by side in peace,” it said.
09:12 A rocket fired from Lebanon injured at least six people and sparked a fire in Tel Aviv on Monday night.
Israeli medical officials say at least five people have been wounded by shrapnel after the rocket was intercepted.
09:00 A Palestinian civilian was killed when Israeli occupation warplanes bombed a group of citizens west of Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, according to WAFA news agency.
Israeli airstrikes also raided the vicinity of the Touba area near Jabalia camp in the north of the strip.
In addition, Israeli forces demolished several residential buildings near the camp, and artillery strikes hit civilian homes in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Civil Defence teams reported that heavy rains had flooded tents housing displaced families, further exacerbating the suffering of thousands already displaced by the ongoing brutal war.
Short link: