Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli airstrike hit guesthouses where journalists were staying in southeast Lebanon, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies Friday. In the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli attack in the l eft 38 people dead.
Several journalists have been killed since a near-daily exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border on Oct. 8, 2023.
Lebanon’s health ministry says the total toll over the past year is over 2,500 killed and 12,000 wounded. The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, including more than 400,000 children, according to the United Nations children’s agency. Israeli strikes have killed much of Hezbollah’s top leadership since fighting ramped up in September.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not differentiate between militants and civilians. The Israel-Hamas war began after Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023, blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, on Friday in London, where the Arab leader accused Israel of engaging in ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Safadi did not mince words when describing Israel’s role in the conflicts, saying cease-fire negotiation mediators are trying to “get through the nightmare that the region continues to live in.”
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Group decries Israeli airstrike that killed 3 journalists
JERUSALEM — The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was appalled by the killing of the three journalists by an Israeli strike in Lebanon. The group on Friday called for an independent investigation into why the guesthouse where they were sleeping was targeted.
“CPJ is deeply outraged by yet another deadly Israeli airstrike on journalists, this time hitting a compound hosting 18 members of the press in south Lebanon,” said the organization’s program director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law. This attack must be independently investigated and the perpetrators must be held to account.”
The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike, and later said it was looking into it.
2 people in Israel killed in rocket attack from Lebanon
JERUSALEM — Two people in Israel died of their wounds after a rocket attack from Lebanon on Friday, the country’s rescue services said.
A 35-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man died after sustaining critical injuries from rocket shrapnel in the predominantly Arab town of Majd Al-Krum in northern Israel, rescue services said. Rocket shrapnel hit the town’s “industrial center,” injuring seven others.
The Israeli military said that militants in Lebanon fired 45 rockets into Israel on Friday, with some escaping interception.
UN human rights chief decries bombing in northern Gaza
GENEVA — The United Nations’ human rights chief says the Israeli government’s actions in northern Gaza “risk emptying the area of all Palestinians” and argues that “we are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes.”
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, decried “nonstop” bombing in northern Gaza in a statement Friday and said that “the Israeli military has ordered hundreds of thousands to move, with no guarantees of return. But there is no safe way to leave.”
Israel has been carrying out a major offensive in northern Gaza for more than two weeks. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled their homes. The military says it is battling Hamas fighters who regrouped in the north, one of the first targets of the ground offensive at the start of the war.
Türk said that “the Israeli government’s policies and practices in northern Gaza risk emptying the area of all Palestinians. We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.”
He said Palestinian armed groups also reportedly continue to operate amongst civilians and put them in harm’s way.
Türk called on world leaders to act, pointing to a duty under the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.
Three more Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military announced Friday that three more soldiers were killed in Gaza. All three died on Wednesday, the military said, without specifying if they were all killed in the same incident or providing any details.
In all, 359 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in Gaza since the start of the ground operation, following Hamas militants’ attack on Israel Oct. 7.
Israel says 3 injured by shrapnel from rocket attack from Lebanon
JERUSALEM — Shrapnel from a rocket attack from Lebanon critically injured three people in Israel Friday, Israeli rescue services said.
The three — two 21-year-old men and a 35-year-old woman — were injured in Majd Al-Krum, a predominantly Arab town in the country’s north, rescue services said. It said six others were injured, including an 80-year-old man in serious condition.
Israel’s military said the rocket barrage hit a gym in the town.
Militants in Lebanon fired 45 projectiles into Israel Friday, including some which were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses and others that fell in open areas, the military said.
Israeli military confirms its troops operating near north Gaza hospital
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military confirmed Friday that its troops were operating around Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza. The hospital’s director had said the facility was facing a catastrophic situation with bombardment, Israeli troops preventing the entry of crucial aid and patients dying for lack of medical supplies.
In a social media video posted late Thursday, the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said the hospital had been directly shelled by a tank, a claim the Israeli military did not immediately respond to.
“We’re a few hours away from the death of all these people,” he said. “Until when will this continue? Instead of receiving aid, we receive tanks.”
Israel said troops were operating in the area because it had intelligence that militants and militant infrastructure were there, and said it had evacuated some patients from the hospital the night before and delivered fuel and supplies to the facility. The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify the claims.
The hospital is in the Jabaliya refugee camp in north Gaza, where Israel is staging a renewed offensive against Hamas fighters it says have regrouped there. It has called for the evacuation of all civilians in the north.
In a voice recording obtained by AP from Thursday, Abu Safiya said the hospital has 14 patients in pediatric and neonatal intensive care, and several patients had died due to a lack of supplies and medicine like antibiotics. He said that one doctor at the hospital was killed Wednesday, as bombing could be heard in the background.
His video showed one woman knelt over the yellowed body of a child, who Abu Safiya said had died that morning. Another small child sat alone on a bed, face bloodied and both arms bandaged, crying as flies swarmed around the open wounds on his head.
Jordan’s foreign minister alleges Israel is engaging in ethnic cleansing
LONDON — United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, on Friday in London, where the Arab leader accused Israel of engaging in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
“The only path to save the region from that is for Israel to stop the aggressions on Gaza, on Lebanon, stop unilateral illegal measures of the West Bank that is also pushing this situation,” Safadi said.
“We meet at a very, very critical moment, as you mentioned, the humanitarian situation is really difficult when we look at Northern Gaza, where we do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop,” he said.
Safadi is one of many Arab leaders with whom Blinken has met with as he took negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza and a post war plan on a tour of the Middle East.
Safadi did not mince words Friday when describing Israel’s role in the conflicts, saying mediators are trying to “get through the nightmare that the region continues to live in.”
Israeli attack kills 38 overnight in Khan Younis
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Israeli military conducted operations overnight into Friday in Khan Younis, killing 38 people and injuring more than a dozen others, health officials said.
Palestinians who were killed or injured were taken to the European and Nasser Hospitals. Records from the European hospital obtained by the AP showed at least 15 members from al-Farra family were killed, including 13 children.
Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal posted a video Friday morning of rescuers recovering the bodies of 9 children from the Al-Farra family in Al Manara neighborhood.
The Israeli attack, which included airstrikes and shelling, according to health officials, targeted several residential buildings in neighborhoods east of Khan Younis Governorate. Six members of the Abdeen family were also killed, according to health officials.
Israel has attacked 55 hospitals, Lebanon’s health minister says
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said Friday that Israel has carried out attacks on 55 hospitals — 36 of which were directly hit — leaving 12 people dead and 60 wounded.
Abiad told reporters that eight hospitals have been closed while seven are still partially functioning.
He said that paramedic groups have been targeted in different areas, killing 151 people and wounding 212. Of the paramedics killed, eight remain in their ambulances in south Lebanon with Israel’s military preventing anyone from reaching them, he said.
“Attacks against the medical and paramedic sectors in Lebanon are direct and intentional aggressions,” Abiad said, adding that Israel’s military claims to have intelligence information on what is happening in Lebanon, thus cannot say that these attacks happened by mistake.
“This is a war crime,” Abiad said.
Israeli strike closes Lebanese border crossing with neighboring Syria
BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike in northeast Lebanon has closed another border crossing with neighboring Syria, Lebanon’s state news agency said Friday.
The airstrike on the outskirts of the village of Qaa brings the number of border crossings between the two countries that have been struck by Israel’s military to three. That leaves three functioning border crossings.
An Israeli airstrike on Oct. 5 blocked a highway and left a giant crater near the Lebanese side of the crossing, known as Masnaa, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Beirut. Masnaa is the busiest border crossing between the two countries.
In late September, an Israeli airstrike struck the border crossing of Matraba in Lebanon’s northeast, forcing it to close.
Lebanon’s information minister accuses Israel of committing a war crime
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary alleged Friday that the attack on a compound housing journalists which killed three media staffers is an “assassination” and “a war crime.”
In a statement, Makary said there were 18 journalists representing seven media organizations at the compound in the town of Hasbaya in south Lebanon.
The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers — camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida — were among the journalists killed early Friday. Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was also killed in the airstrike.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike in Lebanon.
Ghassan bin Jiddo, the director of Al-Mayadeen, alleged in a social media post that the journalists were deliberately targeted.
“We hold the (Israeli) occupation fully responsible for this war crime, in which journalist crews, including the Al-Mayadeen team, were targeted,” he said.
An Israeli airstrike on a journalist compound kills 3 TV staffers, Lebanon’s state news says
BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike on a compound housing journalists in southeast Lebanon has killed three media staffers, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Friday.
Local news station Al Jadeed aired footage from the scene showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “PRESS,” covered in dust and rubble. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike, which hit a collection of chalets that had been rented by various media outlets.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike in Lebanon.
The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers were among the journalists killed early Friday. Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator was also killed. The airstrike hit early Friday in the Hasbaya region, which had been spared much of the fighting along the border so far.
Several journalists have been killed since a near-daily exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border on Oct. 8, 2023.
Israel has accused journalists working for Al Jazeera of being members of militant groups, citing documents it purportedly found in Gaza. The network has denied the claims as “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region.”