Israel intensifies assault on Gaza's Jabalia as besieged Palestinians share 'final' messages

Forty nations that contribute to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Saturday that they "strongly condemn recent attacks" on the peacekeepers.

"Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated," said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.

Other signatories include Ghana, Nepal, Malaysia, Spain, France and China -- all countries that have contributed several hundred troops to the force.

At least five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as Israel takes its fight against Hezbollah into southern Lebanon.

The peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, has accused the Israeli military of "deliberately" firing on its positions.

Palestinian News Agency WAFA reported that 11 Palestinians were killed and others were injured on Saturday evening by Israeli airstrikes on the Nuseirat and Jabalia camps in the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll since dawn to 37.

Medical sources said seven people were killed and others were injured in the bombing of a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, and that four Palestinians were killed and others were injured in the bombing of the Jabalia camp in the north. 

Lebanon's health ministry said Saturday that at least 15 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on three areas considered outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds, updating earlier tolls.

The ministry reported "nine dead and 15 wounded" in an "Israeli enemy strike" on the village of Maaysra north of Beirut, raising an earlier toll of five dead.

It also reported two dead, four wounded and unidentified "body parts" in a Israeli strike on Deir Billa, near the northern town of Batroun, and said four people were killed and 18 wounded in a strike on Barja, raising an earlier toll of 14 wounded for the raid in the Shouf district south of the capital.

The Tamnin Hospital in Bekaa said that several patients were injured when Israeli forces bombed the hospital's vicinity, also causing damage to the medical centre.

The Tel Chiha hospital in Zahle was also announced that it had been damaged by Israeli bombing, with the medical centre's administration saying that it would continue "its humanitarian mission, despite the current circumstances".

Lebanese official media said an Israeli strike on Saturday targeted a marketplace in Nabatiyeh, an important south Lebanon city located around 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the Israeli border.

"Israeli warplanes... carried out a strike that targeted the centre of the marketplace" in Nabatiyeh, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) said, after Israel's army last week told residents to evacuate the city.

Israel's army said on Saturday five new areas along its border with Lebanon had been declared a closed military zone, as its troops clashed with Hezbollah forces inside the neighbouring country.

"Following a situational assessment, the areas of Zarit, Shomera, Shtula, Netua, and Even Menachem in northern Israel will be declared a closed military zone as of 20:00 today (17:00 GMT)," an army statement said, adding: "entry to this area is prohibited".

The Israeli military said that Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired about 320 projectiles from Lebanon into Israel over Yom Kippur, Judaism's holiest day which ended at nightfall on Saturday.

"Throughout the weekend of Yom Kippur, approximately 320 projectiles that were fired by the Hezbollah terrorist organisation crossed from Lebanon into Israel," the military said in a statement.

An Israeli army drone airstrike on Saturday has killed six Palestinians and injured others in the Jabalia and al-Maghazai refugee camps, Palestinian media said, citing local sources.

An Israeli army drone conducted an airstrike targeting a group of civilians in the vicinity of al-Wusta centre in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing two and injuring two others.

Israeli fighter jets targeted a house belonging to the al-Harsh family in the al-Yafawiya neighbourhood, Jabalia, which killed four people.

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on two villages Saturday, one north of Beirut and another south of the capital, killed at least nine people.

An "Israeli enemy strike on Maaysra", a Shiite Islam majority village in a mostly Christian mountain area north of Beirut, killed "five people and wounded 14 others", the ministry said in a statement, adding separately that "four people were killed and 14 others wounded" in an "Israeli enemy strike" on Barja in the Shouf district south of the capital.

The armed wing of Hamas, Al-Qassam Brigades, said on Telegram that its fighters attacked Israeli forces with mortar shells and "destroyed a concentration" in the east of the camp in northern Gaza.

It also said fighters struck an Israeli Merkava tank with a Yassin 105 rocket in central Jabalia, which is currently under a brutal Israel offensive.

A spokesman for UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Saturday said he feared an Israeli escalation against Lebanese militants Hezbollah in the country's south could soon spiral out of control.

This risks "turning very soon into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone," UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP, calling for a diplomatic solution.

A spokesman for UN peacekeepers in Lebanon said on Saturday that Israel in the south of the country had inflicted "a lot of damage" on its positions.

Working is "very difficult because there is a lot of damage, even inside the bases," UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP. "Just last night, on the position of the Ghanaian peacekeepers, just outside, the blast was so strong that it destroyed some of the containers inside very badly."

100 healthcare centres in conflict-hit areas of Lebanon are now closed due to Israeli military attacks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Five hospitals have been shut as a result of structural damage following Israeli attacks, the organisation said, calling for attacks on health workers and facilities that have killed almost 100 people to come to a halt.

Iran has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all flights, local media reported Saturday, weeks after deadly sabotage attacks in Lebanon which were blamed on Israel.

"The entry of any electronic communication device, except mobile phones, in flight cabins or ... in non-accompanied cargo, has been banned," ISNA news agency reported, citing the spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation Jafar Yazerlo.

The decision came over three weeks since sabotage attacks targeting members of the Iran-allied Hezbollah group in Lebanon that saw pagers and walkie-talkies explode, killing at least 39 people.

Nearly 3,000 others were wounded in the attack, which Iran and Hezbollah blamed on Israel, including Tehran's ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani.

Earlier this month, Dubai-based airline Emirates banned pagers and walkie-talkies onboard its planes.

Hezbollah said Saturday it launched a drone attack on a military base in north Israel's Haifa a day earlier.

Hezbollah fighters at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Friday launched "an air attack with a swarm of explosives-laden drones on an air defence base" in Haifa, a statement from the Iran-backed group said.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has visited the site of Thursday's central Beirut explosion, accompanied by two Hezbollah legislators, according to the AFP news agency.

The Israeli air raid on Thursday night in the densely populated Basta neighbourhood killed at least 22 people.

It had targeted the Lebanese group’s security chief Wafiq Safa, but his fate remains unknown, according to Hezbollah sources.

Escalating violence in the Gaza Strip is having "serious impacts" on food security levels, as no food has entered northern parts of the territory since October 1, the World Food Programme said.

"It is unclear how long WFP’s remaining food supplies in the north, already distributed to shelters and health facilities, will last," they said in a statement on X.

Russia, Syria and Iran should take more effective measures to protect Syria's territorial integrity, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, when asked about Israel's recent strike on Damascus.

"We will defend an urgent and permanent peace in Syria...Israel is the most concrete threat to regional and global peace," Erdogan said in an interview with Turkish media.

"It is essential that Russia, Iran and Syria take more effective measures against this situation, which poses the greatest threat to Syria's territorial integrity," according to a readout of the interview from the presidency. 

 The Israeli military has ordered residents of 22 southern Lebanese villages to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River, according to a statement released on Saturday.

The Israeli military on Saturday warned residents of south Lebanon "not to return" to their homes as troops continued fighting Hezbollah militants in the area.

Israeli forces continue to "target Hezbollah posts in or near your villages", military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X. "For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice. Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk."

At least 42,175 Palestinians have been killed and 98,336 others injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, Gaza's health ministry said on Saturday.

Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, landed in Beirut on Saturday where he was received at the airport by MP Mohammad Khawaja, representing Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, and MP Hassan Ezzedine.

Ghalibaf is the second high-profile Iranian politician to visit Lebanon following Israel's intensified aggression in the country in late September.

The Israeli army's Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, claimed that Hezbollah members are "using ambulances to transport terrorists and weapons", in a statement posted on X on Saturday.

Adraee issued a warning "against the continuation of this phenomenon", and called on "medical teams to avoid dealing with Hezbollah members and not cooperate with them".

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Saturday said it launched a salvo of missiles at an Israeli military base south of the coastal city of Haifa, as Israelis marked the Yom Kippur holiday.

Hezbollah fighters struck a base "south of the city of Haifa, targeting the explosives factory there with a salvo of... missiles", the group said in a statement.