Israel carries out 'major massacre' in Gaza's Jabalia, at least 150 killed or injured

This live blog has now wrapped up. The New Arab will be back at 9am with live updates from Gaza and Lebanon.

According to Al Jazeera, three journalists were killed after the Israeli military bombed a hotel residence in the southern Lebanese town of Hasbaya, citing Lebanon’s Civil Defence.

Earlier, it was reported that the Israeli military had shelled the hotel, which was housing journalists and technicians covering the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries.

Lebanese TV channel Al Jadeed News released footage showing a bombed-out building with its roof collapsed and floors covered in rubble following the attack

Gaza’s Civil Defence agency has reported that the Israeli military has carried out a “major massacre” in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, destroying at least 10 residential buildings.

According to the Wafa news agency, which cited local sources, around 150 people, including women and children, have been killed or injured in the attack. The exact number of those killed versus injured was not specified.

The final death toll may rise as ambulance and rescue teams are struggling to reach the site of the attack in the al-Hawaja area, located in the center of the Jabalia camp, due to restrictions imposed by Israeli forces.

Wafa reports that the bombed buildings belonged to the following families: Al-Najjar, Abu Al-Auf, Salman, Hijazi, Abu Al-Qumsan, Aql, Abu Rashid, Abu Al-Tarabish, Zaqoul, and Shaalan.

Two Palestinians were killed, and 20 others — including women and children — were injured by Israeli artillery fire in the southern city of Khan Younis.

A medical source at Nasser Hospital informed Anadolu news agency that two bodies and 20 injured individuals were brought in after the attacks on the eastern areas of Gaza’s second-largest city.

Lebanon state media said an Israeli strike hit Beirut's southern suburbs on Thursday, shortly after Israel issued evacuation warnings for the Hezbollah bastion.

"Israeli warplanes launched a new strike a short while ago on the Choueifat" area, Lebanon's official National News Agency said. AFPTV footage showed a plume of smoke rising from the targeted site.

Lebanon's health ministry said three children were among 12 people killed in Israeli strikes on Thursday on two villages in the country's east, one month into the Israel-Hezbollah war.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Al-Khodr in the Baalbek-Hermel region killed seven people including three children," the ministry said, adding that another Israeli attack in the same area "killed five people".

An Egyptian security delegation met with a delegation of Hamas leaders in Cairo as part of efforts to resume the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV said on Thursday, citing an unnamed official source.

Egypt and Qatar have acted as mediators between Israel and Hamas in months of talks that broke down in August without an agreement to end fighting that began when the Palestinian militant group launched attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV said later on Thursday citing sources that a Hamas delegation, headed by chief negotiator and deputy Hamas Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya, arrived in Cairo to meet with the head of general intelligence agency, Hassan Mahmoud Rashad.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he welcomed Egypt's willingness to advance a deal for the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip.

A senior Hamas official told AFP on Thursday that the group had told Egyptian officials it was ready to stop fighting in Gaza if Israel committed to a ceasefire deal.

The official said a Hamas delegation discussed "ideas and proposals" related to a Gaza truce with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Thursday, adding that "Hamas has expressed readiness to stop the fighting, but Israel must commit to a ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, allow the return of displaced people, agree to a serious prisoner exchange deal and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza."

The Israeli army said on Thursday that four of its soldiers were killed fighting in southern Lebanon, where the military has been battling Hezbollah forces for weeks.

The Israeli army provided the names of the four soldiers in a statement, saying the troops "fell during combat in southern Lebanon" on Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas at a BRICS summit in Russia on Thursday.

"We are strongly for a quick end to the bloodshed (in Gaza)," Putin told Abbas in televised comments, in the pair's second meeting since August.

Gaza’s Civil Defence agency reports that Israeli forces are intentionally targeting rescue teams in northern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.

Mahmoud Basal, the agency’s spokesperson, stated that first responders have been “targeted” multiple times, resulting in “several members injured, and others left bleeding on the streets with no one able to rescue them.”

Basal shared a photo on social media of a burned truck, describing it as “the only civil defence vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip governorate.” He claimed the truck was “targeted by the Israeli army” in Beit Lahiya, a northern city just outside Jabalia, near Gaza’s border with Israel.

“We are unable to provide humanitarian services to citizens in the northern governorate of the Gaza Strip due to threats from Israeli occupation forces, who have threatened to kill and bomb our teams if they remain inside Jabalia camp,” he said.

Israel's military chief said there was a possibility for a "sharp conclusion" to the war on Lebanon, the military said on Thursday.

"In the north, there's a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion. We thoroughly dismantled Hezbollah's senior chain of command," Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said in a video statement from a security assessment in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

(Reuters)

An Israeli group representing families of Gaza captives called Thursday on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas to secure an agreement for the release of captives, after new truce talks were announced.

"We demand the Israeli prime minister grant the negotiating team full authority to secure this deal. Time is running out for the hostages," said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, adding: "We urgently call on world leaders to exert maximum pressure on Hamas to accept this deal and end a humanitarian catastrophe that has already claimed too many innocent live".

Israeli spy chief David Barnea will head to Doha on Sunday for talks aimed at restarting negotiations towards a Gaza hostage release deal, the Israeli prime minister's office said Thursday.

"At the direction of Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu, the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, will leave on Sunday for a meeting in Doha with the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, and with the prime minister of Qatar," said the statement, adding that "the parties will discuss the various options to restart the negotiations to release hostages from Hamas captivity following the latest developments."

The Lebanese Health Ministry revealed that 2,593 people have been killed since 8 October. This includes the 19 that have been killed in the last 24 hours.

Dozens of Lebanese civilians were killed following Israeli attacks across the region.

Reports reveal 15 people have been killed and many have been injured in towns including Khadr, Kafr Tabnit, Jwaya, and Qalaouiyeh in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

At the same time, Israeli strikes hit the town of Alimat in the Jbeil district. They bombed multiple locations, including Tyre and towns, Al-Bassariya, Al-Mansouri, Al-Sawani, Kafr Shuba, and Haniyya.

An Israeli delegation will travel to Doha on Sunday, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

The statement came after Qatar and Washington's top diplomats said that negotiators will gather in Doha to try to restart talks toward a deal for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

The Netanyahu spokesperson gave no other details.

(Reuters) 

An Israeli drone strike on a car killed two people on the busy route between Aaraiya and Kahaleh, which lies less than 5 km away from the Lebanese army's headquarters in Yarze just outside Beirut.

Footage of the damage caused and large flames from the vehicle struck were shared by Lebanese media outlets.

After midday, Israeli raids also targeted the town of Jebchit in the Nabatieh district and an uninhabited area in Aalmat El Chamalieh in the central Byblos (Jbeil) district.

The site lies around 6 km from the major Christian pilgrimage site of Aanaaya and was also targeted on Wednesday, causing shock in the area due to its distance far away from any Hezbollah constituencies.

On the same morning, an Israeli strike hit a Shia community centre (Husseiniya) in the town of Al-Khader, east of Baalbek, and initial information indicated a number of casualties.

A joint proposal made by France and the United States remains the basis for any potential ceasefire in Lebanon, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, adding that the full implementation of UN resolution 1701 was still the goal of diplomatic efforts.

The resolution calls for southern Lebanon to be free of any troops or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state.

France's top diplomat also said Lebanon must end a two-year vacuum and elect a new president, calling the lack of an elected head of state 'inconceivable'.

"To preserve its unity in the face of challenges, to be represented at the negotiating table in the future, Lebanon must have a head of state," Barrot told a news conference in Paris.

(Reuters)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Thursday said that the United States was open to "different options" to ending the Gaza war after months of pushing a US-led ceasefire plan.

"We're looking at different options," Blinken told reporters in Qatar.

"We haven't yet really determined whether Hamas is prepared to engage, but the next step is getting the negotiators together... we'll certainly learn more in the coming days."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after talks in Qatar on Thursday that he anticipates negotiators will get together in the coming days for discussions on a ceasefire deal to end Israel's war on Gaza.

Speaking alongside Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Blinken said the two discussed options to capitalise on the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and move the abortive negotiations forward.

(Reuters)

Israel's military on Thursday claimed, without evidence it had dismantled a tunnel of Hezbollah's elite Radwan forces in southern Lebanon.

"The underground tunnel was found inside a civilian house, which served as a weapons storage facility in a village in southern Lebanon," the military statement said.

(Reuters)

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Thursday over 770 Palestinians have been killed in the north of the territory since Israel launched an assault.

"Since the start of the military operation in northern Gaza more than 770 people have been killed," said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency, adding that the toll could rise as there were people buried under the rubble.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said an international conference in Paris supporting Lebanon raised $800 million in humanitarian aid and another $200 million for the country's army.

Some 70 government delegations and 15 international organisations met in Paris aiming to raise at least 500 million euros in humanitarian aid and push for a ceasefire, but with the US focused on its own efforts, diplomats said they expect little concrete progress.

(Reuters)

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Thursday that only the state should carry weapons as he pushed for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

"Lebanese authorities must deploy over (all) Lebanese territory and weapons should be carried only by the state and the Lebanese army," Mikati said on the sidelines of a Lebanon aid conference in Paris, without explicitly calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah, the only group that did not lay down its arms after the end of the Lebanese civil war.

Lebanon's official National News Agency said an Israeli strike targeting a car on a highway leading to the capital, Beirut, killed two people on Thursday.

"An enemy drone targeted a car on the Kahale road," the NNA said, referring to a mountain area on the main highway between Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Gaza's government media office released a statement, following an Israeli attack on the Shuhadaa al-Nuseirat school in the central part of the territory, stating that Israeli forces were aware that they were targeting displaced civilians seeking shelter.

“The occupation army knew that the school housed thousands of displaced persons and that the majority of them are children and women who were displaced from their bombed homes and residential neighbourhoods," it said.

The statement highlighted that the Israeli airstrike on the school-turned-shelter raised the total number of displacement centres hit in Gaza since the war began to 196.

Among the 17 killed in the strike, at least nine were children.

Additionally, 52 wounded Palestinians have been admitted to local hospitals for treatment.

The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site Al-Araby al Jadeed reports that Lebanon's General Directorate of Civil Defense and the Islamic Health Authority have condemned Israel for allegedly violating international laws by targeting their teams and centres.

In a statement, the authorities also refuted claims that their ambulances were being used for military purposes, calling these accusations false narratives to justify attacks.

"These attacks have been carried out both directly and through incitement, whether by local agents of discord or by spreading false narratives to justify the aggression," the statement said.

"The latest claim accuses ambulances belonging to the Civil Defense - Islamic Health Authority of transporting military equipment and personnel, which, according to them, 'justifies' targeting these vehicles," it added.

It urged the Lebanese government, international bodies, and organisations to protect the health sector in accordance with international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The statement reiterated that the Islamic Health Authority serves civilians and is not involved in military activities.

The Israeli military claims, without evidence, that the school it struck on Thursday in Nuseirat in the Gaza Strip, which killed at least 17 people, was a Hamas command and control centre.

(Reuters)

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told BRICS leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that the world needed peace in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine and Sudan.

"Across the board, we need peace," Guterres said at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

"We need peace in Ukraine. A just peace in line with the UN Charter, international law and UN General Assembly resolutions."

(Reuters)

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati affirmed that "the solution begins with the implementation of Resolution 1701, and today we call for a ceasefire," adding: "Enough destruction, war, and bloodshed. In the end, we will implement Resolution 1701, so let's implement it now to prevent further bloodshed."

In a media briefing after the Paris conference, Mikati thanked "everyone who contributed to the success of the conference and all that was sent for humanitarian causes in Lebanon, in addition to their solidarity with Lebanon and the Lebanese state. The aid has been generous, and we hope the war ends so that we can rebuild the state and elect a president."

Mikati said: "There is significant international pressure to stop the fighting, and all the meetings that have taken place in recent days and the speeches at the conferences all affirm solidarity with Lebanon and demand a ceasefire. However, this is not in my hands or in the hands of the countries that have stood with us, but rather in Israel's hands, which continues with wars, destruction, and explosions in the region."

He added: "We are committed to the humanitarian aspect, but that alone is not enough because humanity must be protected before it can be helped, and the legitimacy of humanity worldwide is at risk."

Mikati emphasised that the immediate priority is to stop the fighting and then implement UN Resolution 1701 by fully deploying the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon, including areas south of the Litani River, while strengthening its cooperation with UNIFIL.

He also highlighted the need to elect a president and form a new government committed to enacting necessary reforms. 

Sri Lanka police arrested three people in connection with warnings of a planned attack on Israel travellers visiting the Indian Ocean island, a government minister said Thursday, a day after the authorities stepped up the security across the country as the US issued a warning about a possible attack at a popular tourist destination.

Three Sri Lankans have been taken into custody and are now being interrogated said Minister of Public Security and Foreign Affairs Vijitha Herath.

He declined to give further details, saying that would hamper the investigation.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Thursday that Israel aims to "empty" the Gaza Strip of Palestinians, especially in the northern part where it launched a sweeping assault this month.

"It has been a full year since the greatest catastrophe that the Palestinian people experienced after the Nakba of 1948, which is the Israeli war in which crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing are being committed in the Gaza Strip," Abbas said in a speech to members of the BRICS group.

"This is part of a plan to empty the territory of its people, especially now in northern Gaza where the occupation forces are resorting to starving the population there."

Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli strike on a school where displaced people were sheltering in the central Gaza Strip has killed at least 17 people.

Another 42 people were wounded in the strike on Thursday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

A Syria war monitor said Israeli strikes in the capital and in central Homs province on Thursday killed two people, including a soldier.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes in Damascus's Kafr Sousa district targeted "the courtyard of a government building near a military fuel station".

"One person whose identity is unknown" was killed and three others wounded, the Britain-based war monitor said.

In Homs province, which borders Lebanon where Israeli troops are fighting Hezbollah, the Israeli strikes "targeted a truck near a regime forces checkpoint on the road on the outskirts of Qusayr".

That attack killed a soldier and wounded four others, the Observatory said.

Syrian state news agency SANA said the Israeli army "launched an air attack... targeting two sites" in the Kafr Sousa district of Damascus and a military site near Homs. It reported one soldier killed and seven others wounded.

Hezbollah said it was clashing at close range on Thursday with Israeli troops in a south Lebanon border village, claiming it had hit two tanks.

Hezbollah fighters were engaged in "heavy clashes in the village of Aita al-Shaab" at close range, the group said in a statement, adding that they hit a Merkava tank that came to assist the troops after earlier saying it had "destroyed" another tank.

The Gaza Health Ministry said on Thursday that at least 42,847 people have been killed since 7 October 2023.

The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 100,544 people have been wounded.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Qatar for talks on Thursday with the key mediator on the war in Gaza, as he seeks momentum for a ceasefire after Israel's killing the leader of Hamas.

After meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Blinken flew to Saudi Arabia and then Qatar, where he will meet the Gulf state's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani to assess Hamas's position on a truce.

Blinken is paying his 11th trip to the region since the 7 October attacks, after repeated disappointment as he seeks to end the Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Thursday it could no longer provide first responder services in the north of the territory, accusing Israeli forces of threatening to "bomb and kill" its crews.

Since 6 October, the Israeli military has mounted a sweeping air and land assault on north Gaza, initially focused on the Jabalia area, with evidenceless claims that it is to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

"We are unable to provide humanitarian services to citizens in the northern governorate of the Gaza Strip due to threats from Israeli occupation forces, who have threatened to kill and bomb our teams if they remain inside Jabalia camp", the agency's spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Bassal said that its first responders "have been targeted" on several occasions, leaving "several members injured, and others are left bleeding on the streets with no one able to rescue them".

Bassal published a photograph of a burnt truck on social media, explaining that it was "the only civil defence vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip governorate", which includes Gaza City.

Bassal wrote that the truck was "targeted by the Israeli army" in the northern city of Beit Lahia, just north of Jabalia and near Gaza's northern border with Israel.

Hezbollah said it launched a "large rocket salvo" at the northern Israeli town of Safed on Thursday.

Hezbollah fighters bombed "the town of Safed... with a large rocket salvo", the group said in a statement, adding the launch came "in response to Israeli enemy attacks" on Lebanon.

The Israeli military claimed, without any evidence, on Thursday it hit several Hezbollah weapons production facilities in overnight strikes in Dahiyeh.

This comes as Lebanese state media reported that six buildings were levelled in at least 17 Israeli strikes during the night.

"Overnight, the IAF (air force) conducted intelligence-based strikes on several weapons storage and manufacturing facilities belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in the area of Dahiyeh," the military said in a statement.

Lebanon's official National News Agency said an Israeli strike targeted a car on a highway leading to the capital Beirut, as Israel and Hezbollah fight a month-old war.

"An enemy drone targeted a car on the Kahale road," the NNA said, referring to a mountain area on the main highway between Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

International support will be needed to shore up and expand Lebanon's army and rebuild the country's destroyed infrastructure, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati told a Paris conference convened amid Israel's war on Lebanon.

Mikati said the Lebanese government had decided to recruit more troops and could deploy 8,000 soldiers as part of a plan to implement a ceasefire and UN Security Council resolution, which calls for the army to be deployed in southern Lebanon.

(Reuters)

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the prevention of further conflict in Lebanon, as he addressed leaders of the BRICS emerging economies.

"We need to continue to push for a ceasefire in Gaza, relaunch the two-State solution and stop the spread of war in Lebanon. There should be no more suffering and destruction in Palestine and Lebanon," Xi told a summit in Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his call for a ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday, adding he regretted that Iran had engaged Hezbollah against Israel but also criticising Israel's operations in the south of the country.

(Reuters)

France pledged to provide a 100-million euro ($108-million) package to support Lebanon at an international conference Thursday, as President Emmanuel Macron said “massive aid” is needed to support Lebanon and Israel has displaced a million people, killed over 2,500 and deepened an economic crisis.

“In the immediate term, massive aid is needed for the Lebanese population, both for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war and for the communities hosting them,” Macron said in his opening speech at the conference.

French organisers hope participants’ financial pledges of humanitarian aid will meet the $426 million the United Nations says is urgently needed.

Hezbollah says it targeted an Israeli military base near Haifa for the second time within 24 hours.

Hezbollah fighters bombed the “defence industry” base “north of the city of Haifa with a salvo of rockets,” a statement said, after claiming an attack Wednesday on the same site.

Germany will provide a further 96 million euros ($103.57 million) in humanitarian and development aid to Lebanon, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday ahead of a meeting of some 70 delegations in Paris focused on helping the country.

"We are making it clear that we not only see the suffering in Lebanon these days, we are taking action; we are supporting the people on the ground who, for the most part, want only one thing: to live in safety and peace in the future, just like so many people in Israel," added Baerbock.

France is hoping that the meeting will raise about 500 million euros ($540 million) in humanitarian aid, according to a French foreign ministry framework document for the conference.

(Reuters)

Syrian state media said Israeli airstrikes hit a residential area of Damascus and a military site in Homs Thursday, killing a soldier and wounding seven other people.

The Israeli army "launched an attack from the occupied Syrian Golan and from north Lebanon targeting two sites" in the Kafr Sousa district of Damascus and a military site near Homs, the official SANA news agency reported citing a military source.

SANA said a soldier was killed and seven others wounded in the strike in Homs, a central province which borders Lebanon, where Israeli troops are fighting Hezbollah.

Syrian state media made no mention of any casualties in the Damascus strike but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights spoke of "human losses".

Israel unleashed a wave of air strikes in Beirut on Wednesday night, Lebanese state media said.

The official Lebanon National News Agency reported at least 17 Israeli strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, calling the raids "the most violent in the area since the beginning of the war".

Six buildings were destroyed around the suburb of Laylaki, NNA said, including a residential complex hit by four Israeli strikes "causing a large fire".

The Lebanese army said Thursday that three of its soldiers were killed by Israeli fire while carrying out a rescue operation in the south.

"The Israeli enemy targeted Lebanese army personnel in the vicinity of Yater village, in the Bint Jbeil area of the south, while carrying out an operation to evacuate wounded, which led to the deaths of three martyrs, including an officer," an army statement said.