Middle East latest: Israel kills 52 in northeast Lebanon after a night of strikes in Beirut

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted last year, at least 2,900 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports, not including Friday’s toll. Health authorities say that a quarter of those killed were women and children.

More than a year of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000, Palestinian health officials say, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.

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Here’s the latest:

Death toll from Israeli strikes in northeast Lebanon climbs to at least 52

BEIRUT — Lebanese health authorities said Israel launched dozens of intense airstrikes across Lebanon’s northeastern farming villages on Friday, killing at least 52 people and wounding 72 others. The strikes pounding rural villages that had previously been spared the worst of Israel’s intense air campaign against Hezbollah.

The governor of Baalbek, Bachir Khodr, reported airstrikes on nine villages across the northeast.

The state-run news agency, NNA, separately reported four more people killed in the small farming village of Ollak, also in the Bekaa Valley — a rural area of olive groves and vineyards nestled between Lebanon’s two mountain ranges where the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group draws significant support.

Israel is being attacked daily by one-way drones from Iraq, two officials say

WASHINGTON — Iranian-backed militias are launching one-way attack drones against Israel from inside Iraq, which U.S. and partner forces have had to intercept, two officials told The Associated Press.

Both a U.S. defense official and a regional security official said the one-way drones have been an issue since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, and aren't a retaliation from Iran for Israel's strikes last week.

However the drone attacks have increased in number in recent weeks. There’s been an average of about five launches a day from within Iraq targeting Israel by Iranian-aligned militia groups, and within the last week, eight UAVs were fired in one 24-hour period, the regional security officer said.

U.S. and partnered forces have been intercepting the attack drones, both officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public on the Iraq-launched drone attacks.

The ongoing launches have increased the chance that Israel will respond directly to those attacks, the regional security official said.

Israel's offensive in northern Gaza has created ‘apocalyptic’ conditions, say 15 humanitarian agencies

UNITED NATIONS – The leaders of 15 United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations warned Friday that "the situation unfolding in northern Gaza is apocalyptic” and the entire Palestinian population in the territory risks imminent death from disease, famine and violence.

During Israel’s nearly monthlong offensive in the north, Palestinians have been denied basic humanitarian aid and lifesaving supplies while bombardments and other attacks continue, the leaders said. They said that in the past few days, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed — mostly women and children — and thousands have been displaced.

Hospitals have been attacked and cut off from supplies, dozens of schools serving as shelters have been bombed or forcibly evacuated, and rescue teams have been deliberately attacked and thwarted from attempts to rescue people from under the rubble of their homes, they said.

“The entire region is on the edge of a precipice,” the leaders said. “An immediate cessation of hostilities and a sustained, unconditional cease-fire are long overdue.” They also demanded the immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in southern Israel.

Among those signing the statement were the heads of the U.N. humanitarian office OCHA, World Health Organization, World Food Program, children’s agency UNICEF, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies and Oxfam.

Some 100,000 people recently displaced from northern Gaza are sheltering in schools, buildings, or makeshift sites in Gaza City, while about 75,000 people are estimated to remain in the north Gaza governorate, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Israel says it killed a senior Hamas political official in Gaza

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has killed Hamas official Izz al-Din Kassab in a strike in Gaza, describing him as one of the last senior officials from the group’s political bureau.

Hamas confirmed the death of Kassab in a brief condolence statement, saying he was killed along with his assistant, Ayman Ayesh, in an Israeli strike that targeted their car in Gaza’s southern town of Khan Younis.

Kassab, responsible for coordinating with other groups in Gaza, was not well-known to the public. Most Arab media reports on his death quoted only the Israeli army’s announcement.

The Israeli military described Kassab as a “significant source of power,” adding that he was responsible for coordinating between Hamas’ different factions and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has made eliminating Hamas' leadership a key aim of its campaign in Gaza. Last month Israeli forces in Gaza killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. In August Israel was believed to be behind an explosion in Iran that killed Ismail Haniyeh, the senior Hamas political leader.

UN to move ahead with a smaller polio vaccination effort in northern Gaza

UNITED NATIONS — A scaled-down polio vaccination campaign is set to begin Saturday in part of northern Gaza, which has seen intense Israeli bombardment.

The U.N. World Health Organization and children’s agency UNICEF made the announcement in a joint statement Friday.

The second dose of polio vaccine for children in northern Gaza was postponed from Oct. 23 due to lack of access, Israeli bombings and mass evacuation orders, and the lack of assurances for humanitarian pauses, the statement said.

“The humanitarian pause necessary to conduct the campaign has been assured,” WHO and UNICEF said. “However, the area of the pause has been substantially reduced compared to the first round of vaccination in northern Gaza.”

The campaign will now be limited to just Gaza City, compared to the first round of vaccinations on Sept. 5 throughout northern Gaza, the U.N. agencies said.

While at least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from areas of north Gaza towards Gaza City for safety in the past few weeks, around 15,000 children under the age of 10 remain in northern towns including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun which remain inaccessible and won’t be part of Saturday’s vaccination campaign, the agencies said.

The final phase of the polio vaccination campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children in the north with a second dose of oral polio vaccine, the agencies said, but “achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints.”

“To interrupt poliovirus transmission, at least 90% of all children in every community and neighborhood must be vaccinated,” WHO and UNICEF said. “This will be challenging to achieve given the situation.”

Israeli airstrikes hit northeastern Lebanon, killing 24 there, Lebanese agency says

BEIRUT — Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed at least 24 people in northeastern Lebanon, the country’s news agency said, raising the death toll from eight there.

It was the latest deadly toll in the area since the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah escalated last month.

Israel’s military has said that its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure.

Lebanon’s state National news Agency reported four airstrikes in different villages across country’s northeast, saying rescuers were still searching for survivors in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, from the rubble of a targeted house.

Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region in Baalbek-Hermel region, said that 60,000 people have already fled their homes in the area due to Israeli bombardment.

The death toll from Friday's strikes in the northeast was expected to increase further, reports said.

Death toll rises from West Bank raid that the UN says badly damaged its offices

Palestinian health officials say the death toll from an Israeli raid in the north of the occupied West Bank has risen from three to four.

The Ramallah-based health ministry said two people were killed by gunfire and two by bombing in the two-day military raid, which ended Thursday.

The Israeli military said its troops withdrew from the camp after striking two militants who had fired upon soldiers and killing other militants in “close quarters combat.”

Hamas denounced the attack, which it said killed a Hamas leader in the area.

The operation in the Nur Shams refugee camp heavily damaged the offices of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The agency's Commissioner General, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote Thursday on X that it had been put of service by Israeli military bulldozers that partially demolished the building.

The Israeli military denied it damaged the building. It said militants had planted explosives nearby and set them off to attack Israeli troops and that the blast “likely caused damage to the building.”

Palestinian health officials say that Israeli fire has killed at least 736 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, including at least 165 children.

Israeli Cabinet approves 2025 budget ramping up defense spending amid fighting in Gaza and Lebanon

Israel’s Cabinet on Friday passed a budget for 2025 Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, ramping up defense spending amid the war in Gaza and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

The budget, which must still be approved by Israel’s parliament before taking effect, increased allotted defense spending to at least $27.2 billion, Israeli media reported, though that could increase to $40 billion pending further cabinet discussions.

In the last year, Israel spent $27.5 billion on defense, according to the the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“We have come together for an important, difficult, but necessary budget in a year of war,” Netanyahu said after the budget was approved.

The budget has been mired in controversy in Israel, with the destruction caused by conflicts on two fronts driving up government expenditures and debt, a mass call-up of reservist soldiers hurting families and small businesses, and international credit ratings being downgraded.

Economists have called for an end to the war with Hamas in Gaza and for far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to construct a budget that reduces the country's deficit — something that would require unpopular decisions such as raising taxes or cutting spending.

Smotrich on Friday claimed the budget would reduce the deficit and that spending allocations were “intended to support all war efforts until victory” and allow Israel to “emerge from war into accelerated growth.”

Opposition lawmakers promptly criticized the budget for allocating funds to government ministries — run by Netanyahu’s far-right and ultranationalist coalition partners — which they described at superfluous. Yair Lapid wrote on X that the budget “distributes billions of shekels to 10 unnecessary government ministries. They’ve lost their shame.”

Israeli airstrikes on villages in northeastern Lebanon kill 10 people, news agency says

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s state news agency says two separate Israeli airstrikes on Friday in the country's northeast have killed 10 people.

The National News Agency said eight people were killed when a village home in Amhaz was destroyed while two other people were killed in the village of Taraya.

Israel intensified its airstrikes on the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel region earlier this week, killing dozens and leaving tens of thousands displaced.

Lebanese legislator Hussein Haj Hassan, who represents the region in Parliament, said that so far 60,000 people have been displaced from the area, many of them moved to safer towns and villages nearby.

UN rights office warns of threat to UNESCO World Heritage Site in Baalbek and other archaeological sites

BEIRUT — The U.N. Human Rights Office on Friday expressed alarm over “the continuing grave impact” of Israeli military operations on civilians and civilian targets in Lebanon, including the destruction of places of worship and risks posed to invaluable archaeological sites.

The office said that since Israel's air force ordered the northeastern Lebanese city of Baalbek evacuated, airstrike that followed have "come perilously close" to the ancient Roman-era temple complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Destruction of cultural heritage “depletes the historical and cultural identity of the communities it represents,” it said.

The sites destroyed or severely damaged so far include mosques in the southern villages of Yaroun, Maroun el-Ras, Blida, and Kfar Tibnit, OHCHR said, adding that a Melkite Greek Catholic church in the port city of Tyre was also damaged in early October.

Civilian objects, buildings dedicated to religion and other sites of cultural significance are protected from attack under international humanitarian law unless they become military objectives, the office said.

It stressed that should the sites lose their protection, any attacks upon them must still comply with the principles of proportionality and precaution, and that all parties to the conflict should take special care to avoid damage to buildings dedicated to religion or other sites of cultural or historical significance.

Death toll rises to 25 from Israeli strikes on Thursday in central Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Hospital officials in Gaza said on Friday that the death toll from Israeli strikes on the central parts of the territory the day before has risen from 16 to 25 as more bodies have been recovered.

The Palestinians killed in the series of strikes on central Gaza include five children and seven women, the officials said.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specific strikes but said it had killed armed militants in central Gaza on Thursday.

UN aid agency says there's a new wave of displacement from Beirut after Israeli strikes

GENEVA — The U.N. humanitarian aid coordination agency is pointing to a new “wave of displacement” in Beirut after the Israeli army issued new orders for people to leave.

Spokesman Jens Laerke of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, citing local officials, says the new displacement orders for the capital’s southern suburbs were followed shortly afterward by heavy airstrikes.

He told reporters in Geneva that other recent displacement orders from the Israeli military spurred an estimated 50,000 people to leave the eastern city of Baalbek and head mostly toward the northern Bekaa Valley.

“We are working to access civilians who remain in hard to reach areas. To date, 15 convoys have successfully been organized to reach areas” in four Lebanese cities, including Baalbek, Laerke said. “But the insecurity has an impact on what we can do.”

During the same briefing, World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris expressed concerns about the malnutrition situation in Gaza.

“We’ve not really seen any food aid into north Gaza since the 2nd of October. People are running out of ways to cope. The food systems have collapsed,” she said. “The opportunity to care for those who are at the most critical stage is not there anymore.”

An Israeli airstrike on the edge of Qamatiyeh in Lebanon kills 3 and wounds 5

BERIUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli airstrike on a mountain town overlooking Beirut has killed three people and wounded five.

The ministry gave no further details about the early Friday airstrike on the edge of Qamatiyeh, southeast of Beirut.

An Associated Press journalist who visited the scene said the strike was closer to the nearby village of Ein al-Rummaneh, adding that it caused minor damage to an apartment on the first floor of a building.

On Oct. 6, an Israeli strike in Qamatiyeh killed six people, including three children, Lebanon's Health Ministry said.

Thailand tells Israel not to allow workers to enter closed military zones after 4 are killed in northern Israel

BANGKOK — The employer of the Thai workers killed and injured in northern Israel had received permission from the Israeli military to bring the workers to the area for about 1-2 hours, said Nikorndej Balankura, spokesperson of Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding Friday that the employer was also killed.

The worker who was injured was in serious condition and was being treated at a hospital in Haifa, he said, and the Thai embassy was already in touch with the families of the deceased.

Projectiles fired Thursday from Lebanon into northern Israel killed seven people, including four Thai workers, in the deadliest such attack since Israeli troops invaded Lebanon in early October. Israel's northernmost town, Metula is surrounded by Lebanon on three sides and has sustained heavy damage from rockets. The town's residents evacuated in October 2023, and only security officials and agricultural workers remain there.

Nikorndej said Thailand has called on Israel to refrain from granting permissions for Thai workers to enter closed military zones from now on, to prevent such losses from happening again.

“Thailand reiterates its call on all conflicting parties to immediately cease any retaliatory actions to prevent the situation from prolonging and aggravating, and to restore regional peace and stability in the Middle East region,” he said.

Israel pounds Beirut suburb overnight with airstrikes

BEIRUT — Israel's air force resumed airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburb, destroying buildings in several neighborhoods, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Friday. There was no immediate word on casualties.

The early Friday airstrikes on Dahiyeh — after a four-day lull during which no airstrikes were reported in the suburb — destroyed dozens of buildings and caused fires in the area, the agency said.

In recent days, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on the northeastern city of Baalbek and nearby villages, as well as different parts of southern Lebanon.

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