Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment within the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, on Sunday.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
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Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment within the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, on Sunday.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike killed an elite Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Monday, the most recent in an escalating trade of strikes alongside the border which have raised fears of one other Mideast warfare even because the preventing in Gaza exacts a mounting toll on civilians.
The strike on an SUV killed a commander in a secretive Hezbollah power that operates alongside the border, in response to a Lebanese safety official, who spoke on situation of anonymity in response to laws. Hezbollah recognized the slain fighter as Wissam al-Tawil with out offering particulars.
He’s essentially the most senior militant within the armed group to have been killed since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault into southern Israel triggered all-out warfare in Gaza and lower-intensity preventing between Israel and Hezbollah, which has escalated since an Israeli strike killed a senior Hamas chief in Beirut final week.
This image launched by Hezbollah Navy Media reveals senior Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil who was killed in Kherbet Selem village in south Lebanon on Monday.
/Hezbollah Navy Media by way of AP
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/Hezbollah Navy Media by way of AP
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who’s again within the area this week, seems to be attempting to go off a wider battle.
Israel says it has largely wrapped up main operations in northern Gaza and is now specializing in the central area and the southern metropolis of Khan Younis. Israeli officers have mentioned the preventing will proceed for a lot of extra months as the military seeks to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken in the course of the militant group’s Oct. 7 assault that triggered the warfare.
The offensive has already killed over 23,000 Palestinians, devastated huge swaths of the Gaza Strip, displaced practically 85% of its inhabitants of two.3 million and left 1 / 4 of its residents dealing with hunger.
‘Sickening scenes’ in Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals
Medics, sufferers and displaced folks fled from the principle hospital in central Gaza because the preventing drew nearer, witnesses mentioned Monday. Shedding the power can be one other main blow to a well being system shattered by three months of warfare.
Medical doctors With out Borders and different support teams withdrew from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in latest days, saying it was too harmful. That unfold panic amongst folks sheltering there, inflicting many to affix the lots of of hundreds who’ve fled to the south of the besieged territory.
Tens of hundreds of individuals have sought shelter in Gaza’s hospitals, that are additionally struggling to deal with dozens of individuals wounded every day in Israeli strikes. Solely 13 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, in response to the U.N. humanitarian workplace.
Omar al-Darawi, an worker at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, mentioned the power has been struck a number of occasions in latest days. He mentioned hundreds of individuals left after the help teams pulled out, and that sufferers have been focused on one flooring so the remaining medical doctors can are inclined to them extra simply.
“We now have massive numbers of wounded who cannot transfer” he mentioned. “They want particular care, which is unavailable.”
Extra useless and wounded arrive every day as Israeli forces advance in central Gaza following heavy airstrikes. Gaza’s Well being Ministry mentioned Monday that 249 Palestinians have been killed and 510 others had been wounded throughout the territory within the final 24 hours.
World Well being Group employees who visited Sunday noticed “sickening scenes of individuals of all ages being handled on blood-streaked flooring and in chaotic corridors,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the top of the U.N. company, mentioned in an announcement. “The massacre in Gaza should finish.”
Dire circumstances within the remoted north
The state of affairs is much more dire in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces minimize off from the remainder of the territory in late October.
Complete neighborhoods have been demolished, and lots of of hundreds of individuals have fled, whereas those that stay face extreme shortages of meals and water. The WHO mentioned late Sunday it has not been capable of ship provides to northern Gaza in 12 days.
Even there, Israel continues to be battling what it describes as pockets of militants.
An airstrike early Sunday flattened a four-story house crammed with displaced folks within the city Jabaliya refugee camp, killing at the very least 70, together with girls and kids, in response to Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil protection. There was no quick affirmation from the Well being Ministry, which has struggled to keep up its operations within the north.
Palestinians seek for our bodies and survivors within the rubble of a home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.
Fatima Shbair/AP
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Fatima Shbair/AP
Palestinians seek for our bodies and survivors within the rubble of a home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.
Fatima Shbair/AP
Search efforts had been nonetheless underway on Monday. The civil protection circulated a graphic video displaying the aftermath of assault, with a number of our bodies scattered among the many rubble.
Jabaliya, which was constructed for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 warfare surrounding Israel’s creation and is now a dense, built-up neighborhood, has seen weeks of heavy preventing.
Greater than 23,00 Palestinians have been killed, and greater than 58,000 wounded, because the warfare started, in response to the Well being Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The dying toll doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Well being officers say about two-thirds of these killed have been girls and minors.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties as a result of the group operates in closely populated residential areas, however the navy hardly ever feedback on particular person strikes. The navy says it has killed some 8,000 militants, with out offering proof, and that 176 of its personal troopers have been killed within the offensive.
In search of to go off a wider warfare
Blinken, who met with the leaders of Jordan and Qatar on Sunday, as soon as once more spoke of the necessity for Israel to regulate its navy operations to attenuate hurt to civilians and permit extra support into the territory.
However his principal focus seemed to be stopping the warfare from spreading.
A Hezbollah rocket barrage hit a delicate air visitors base in northern Israel on Saturday in one of many greatest assaults in three months of low-intensity preventing alongside the border. The militant group mentioned was an “preliminary response” to the killing of Hamas’ deputy political chief Saleh Arouri in Beirut final week.
Israel has principally sought to restrict the preventing in its north, however its leaders say their persistence is sporting skinny, and that if the tensions can’t be resolved via diplomacy, they’re ready to go to warfare. They’ve expressed explicit concern concerning the Radwan Pressure, the elite Hezbollah unit by which al-Tawil was a commander, which operates alongside the border.
Hezbollah started firing rockets shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault ignited the warfare. Hamas and different militants killed about 1,200 folks in southern Israel that day, principally civilians, and took some 250 folks hostage, over 100 of whom had been launched throughout a cease-fire in November.
Hezbollah has mentioned its assaults, which have pushed tens of hundreds of Israelis from their properties, purpose to ease strain on Gaza. However the group seems cautious of risking an all-out warfare that might convey huge destruction to Lebanon.
