Israel bombs Gaza region where civilians were told to seek refuge, as mediators try to unlock aid
Khan Younis (AP): Israel bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee to ahead of an expected ground invasion, killing dozens of people on Tuesday in attacks it says are targeted at Hamas militants that rule the besieged territory.
With no water, fuel or food being delivered to Gaza since Hamas' brutal attack on Israel last week, mediators struggled to break a deadlock over delivering supplies to increasingly desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals.
US President Joe Biden prepared to head to the region as he and other world leaders tried to prevent the war from sparking a broader regional conflict.
Violence flared on Tuesday along Israel's border with Lebanon, where Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants operate.
In Gaza, dozens of injured were rushed to hospitals after heavy attacks outside the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, residents reported. Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official and former health minister, reported 27 people were killed in Rafah and 30 in Khan Younis.
An Associated Press reporter saw around 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
Family members came to claim the bodies, wrapped in white bedsheets, some soaked in blood.
An airstrike in Deir al Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing nine members of the family living there. Three members of another family that had evacuated from Gaza City were killed in a neighbouring home.
The dead included one man and 11 women and children. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.
"When we see a target, when we see something moving that is Hamas, we'll take care of it," Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said.
A strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed a top Hamas commander, Ayman Nofal, the group's military wing said the most high-profile militant known to have been killed so far in the war.
Nofal was in charge of Hamas militant activities in the central Gaza Strip and was associated with the creation of the group's "joint operations" room that coordinated between Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other militants in the territory.
The UN human rights office decried "appalling reports" that civilians who were trying to flee to southern Gaza were killed by a military strike.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani urged Israeli forces to avoid "aerial bombardments, indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks" and to "take precautions to avoid and in any case, to minimize loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects."
Israel sealed off Gaza since the militant attack on southern Israel October 7 killed over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and resulted in some 200 taken captive in Gaza. Hamas militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since, aiming at cities across Israel.
Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Nearly two-thirds of those killed were children, a ministry official said.
Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.
Emergency teams struggled to rescue people while cut off from the internet and mobile networks, running out of fuel and exposed to unceasing airstrikes.
On Monday Israeli warplanes struck the headquarters of the Civil Defense in Gaza City, killing seven paramedics.
Another 16 medics and doctors have been killed on the job, Gaza officials said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that his country's retaliation against Hamas aims to eradicate the group's political and military rule over Gaza.
'We are not fighting just our war. We're fighting the war of all civilized countries and all civilized peoples," he said.
Israel has massed troops at the border for an expected ground offensive, but Hecht said Tuesday no concrete decisions have been made despite Israel's mass evacuation order for the north of the Gaza Strip.
More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes roughly half of Gaza's population and 60 per cent are now in the approximately 14-kilometer (8-mile) long area south of the evacuation zone, the UN said.
Aid workers warned that the territory was near complete collapse. Hospitals were on the verge of losing electricity, threatening the lives of thousands of patients, and hundreds of thousands of people searched for bread and water.
The UN agency for Palestinians said more than 400,000 displaced people are crowded into schools and other facilities in the south. The agency said it has only 1 liter of water a day for each of its staff members trapped in the territory.
Israel opened a water line into the south for three hours that benefitted only 14 percent of Gaza's population, the UN said.
At the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid were waiting to enter. The World Food Program said that it had more than 300 tons of food waiting to cross into Gaza.
Civilians with foreign citizenship many of them Palestinians with dual nationalities also waited in Rafah, desperate to get out.
"We come to the border crossing hoping that it will open, but so far there is no information," said Jameel Abdullah, a Swedish citizen.
An agreement to open the border appeared to have been reached Monday, but Israel denied reports of a cease-fire in Rafah, which would be a precondition. On Tuesday morning, gates were still closed.
An Egyptian official said Tuesday that Egypt and Israel agreed that the aid convoys at the border would travel into Israel for inspection at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and Israel. The aid would then be allowed into Gaza. A brief humanitarian cease-fire would take place and foreign nationals would be allowed to exit Gaza via Rafah, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak with the media.
Officials for Hamas and Israel cast doubt on an immediate opening, saying they were unaware of an agreement.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Israel for the second time in a week on Monday after a six-country tour through Arab nations, said in Tel Aviv that the US and Israel had agreed to develop a plan to enable humanitarian aid to reach civilians in Gaza. There were few details, but the plan would include "the possibility of creating areas to help keep civilians out of harm's way."
Gen. Erik Kurilla, the head of US Central Command, arrived in Tel Aviv for meetings with Israeli military authorities ahead of a Biden visit planned for Wednesday to signal White House support for Israel. Biden will also travel to Jordan to meet with Arab leaders amid fears the fighting could spread in the region.
Israel evacuated towns near its northern border with Lebanon, where the military has exchanged fire repeatedly with Hezbollah militants.
Israel said it killed four militants wearing explosive vests who were attempting to cross into the country from Lebanon on Tuesday morning. Video from a reconnaissance drone the army shared showed the militants near the border wall before they were targeted, causing an explosion. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
"Whoever approaches the border with Lebanon will be killed," said Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
Israel has warned Lebanon it will strongly retaliate against attacks from across the border.
Israel fought a vicious monthlong war with Hezbollah in 2006 that ended in a stalemate and a tense detente between the two sides.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Israel's continuing offensive in Gaza could cause a violent reaction across the region.
"Bombardments should be immediately stopped. Muslim nations are angry," Khamenei said, according to state media.
Hamas' military wing released a hostage video on Monday showing a dazed woman having her arm wrapped with bandages. The woman, who identified herself as Mia Schem, 21, rocked slightly as she spoke, the sound of explosions reverberating in the background.
The plight of the hostages Hamas claims it has more than 200 of them has dominated the Israeli media since the attack. Interviews with relatives of hostages are shown over and over on television. Israeli officials have vowed to maintain the siege of Gaza until the hostages are released. (AP)
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Netanyahu recommends his Cabinet approve Hezbollah cease-fire proposal
Beirut, Nov 26: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people.
The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon's Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting.
Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending.
The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel.
Lebanese officials have said Hezbollah also supports the deal. If approved by all sides, the deal would be a major step toward ending the Israel-Hezbollah war that has inflamed tensions across the region and raised fears of an even wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's patron, Iran.
The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides' compliance.
But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted on Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, doesn't provide “effective enforcement” of the deal.
“If you don't act, we will act, and with great force,” Katz said, speaking with UN special envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel's security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France.
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart,” Borrell told reporters in Italy on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting. He said France would participate on the ceasefire implementation committee at Lebanon's request.
Bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs continues
Even as Israeli, US, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city's downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck at least six buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs. One strike slammed near the country's only airport, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The airport has continued to function despite its location on the Mediterranean coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah's operations are based.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in the suburbs, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where UNIFIL is headquartered.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate.
Other strikes hit in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israeli military said it killed a local Hezbollah commander.
The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometres from the Israeli border.
Previous ceasefire hopes were dashed
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force in the region, would likely significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since.
Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country's north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted there could be last-minute hitches that delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
