Extract from ABC News
Palestinians inspect the school after the Israeli attack. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)
In short:
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says at least 22 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza City.
Israel says it was targeting Hamas militants that were in an adjacent school.
The number of people killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday has risen to at least 37 people, Lebanon's health ministry said.
At least 22 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a school that was housing displaced people in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says.
The Gaza health ministry said most of those killed were women and children. The Hamas-run government media office said 13 children and six women were among the dead.
An official from the Gaza civil defence agency said that more than 30 other people were injured after an Israeli rocket hit the Al-Zaytoun School C in Gaza City.
"The women and their children were sitting in the playground of the school, the kids were playing, and suddenly two rockets hit them," said one witness Said Al-Malahi.
Some of the dead were wrapped in blankets and carried away on donkey carts, as ambulances transferred other bodies.
Israel's military said in a statement the air force had "conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control centre in Gaza City".
It said the target was "embedded inside" the Al Falah School, which is adjacent to the Al-Zaytoun School buildings.
Officials in Gaza said thousands of people were sheltering at the school that was hit. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)
The military did not provide a death toll but said "numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence".
It is the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accusing Hamas of hiding among the civilian population in Gaza.
Hamas denies the IDF's accusations.
Smoke rises from Jabal al-Rihan in Lebanon, following Israeli air strikes. (Reuters: Karamallah Daher)
The IDF said it carried out strikes on thousands of rocket launchers in southern Lebanon on Saturday afternoon, local time, that it said posed an "immediate threat" to Israel.
It also said some 180 other unspecified targets were struck.
Israel's military also said Hezbollah fired "about 90" rockets toward Israel on Saturday afternoon, local time.
Emergency services on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border worked to extinguish fires that broke out after the rockets were fired.
It was not immediately clear if there were any injuries or casualties.
Firefighters work to extinguish a house fire following a rocket attack from Lebanon. (Reuters: Jim Urquhart)
Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati cancelled a planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York over the escalating conflict, his office said in a statement.
US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said he was worried about an escalation between Israel and Lebanon but that the Israeli killing of a top Hezbollah leader brought justice to the group, which Washington designates as a terrorist group.
"While the risk of escalation is real, we actually believe there is also a distinct avenue to getting to a cessation of hostilities and a durable solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel secure," Mr Sullivan said.
Death toll from Beirut strike grows
The Lebanese health ministry has raised the death toll from an Israeli strike on Beirut's suburbs to at least 37, including three children and seven women.
In a statement on Saturday, local time, the IDF said at least 16 Hezbollah militants were killed in the attack.
Israel's strike on Friday was the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon's capital in months and came shortly after Lebanon's Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets.
Before the updated death toll was announced during a televised news conference on Saturday, the ministry had said at least 14 people were killed and 66 people were injured.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and other senior members of an elite Hezbollah unit were killed in the air strike, which sharply escalated the year-long conflict between Israel and the militant group.
Hezbollah confirmed Aqil's death in a statement that called him "one of its top leaders", without providing details of how he died.
At least 31 people were killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut's suburbs on Friday. (Reuters: Amr Abdallah Dalsh)
In a second statement issued later, Hezbollah said Aqil was killed in Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh in what it called a "treacherous Israeli assassination".
It also said Ahmed Wahbi, a commander who oversaw the military operations of the al-Hajj Radwan Force during the war in Gaza until early 2024, was also killed in the Israeli strike.
The group said several more of its members were killed, but it did not disclose whether they were commanders or its foot soldiers.
UN rights chief says weaponising ordinary devices illegal
The strikes came after communication devices, including pagers and two-way radios used by Hezbollah, detonated earlier this week, reportedly killing 37 people and injuring more than 3,400 others.
Hezbollah has described it as an Israeli attack.
Hezbollah said the device attacks this week were a "declaration of war".
Weaponising ordinary communication devices would represent a new development in warfare — and targeting thousands of Lebanese people using pagers, two-way radios and electronic equipment without their knowledge was a violation of international human rights law, the United Nations human rights chief said on Friday.
Volker Türk told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council there must be an independent and transparent investigation of the device explosions in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"Those who ordered and carried out these attacks must be held to account," he said.
When reporters asked Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon about speculation Israel was behind the explosions, he said: "We are not commenting."
AP/Reuters/AFP
No comments:
Post a Comment