Israel 'massacres' 18 members of the same family in Gaza's Zawayda, airstrike kills 10 in south Lebanon

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Harrowing footage from a UN delegation filmed in northern Gaza on Saturday, showed the levels of destruction in the area.

A delegation from the UN finally made it into North Gaza. The video footage from the car shows a harrowing level of destruction. pic.twitter.com/wDRljMh8MR

— AHMED | أحمد (@ASE) August 17, 2024

The Palestinian Authority's Health Ministry has revealed the identity of the two men who were killed by an Israeli drone attack on their car in Jenin in the occupied West Bank earlier today, Al Jazeera has reported.

The two were named as Rafat Dawasi and Ahmad Abu Ora, who were killed instantly in the attack that left their car ablaze, the ministry said.

Dawasi was from Silat al-Harithiya, a village in the Jenin governorate, and Abu Ora was from Aqqaba, near Tubas, it added.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan said "everyone understands: now that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are "not willing to achieve a ceasefire deal".

"The Israelis, in the two-day negotiations, rejected the paper, introduced by the Americans on June 24 based on Biden’s initiative, the entire Security Council resolution, and also responsible for the Israeli points," he told Qatari network Al Jazeera late on Saturday.

"They rejected it even after Hamas accepted that during the two-day negotiations. They stand against the paper and they have new ideas that were not discussed before."

"We have to remember … what the army minister in Israel said, which was the main obstacle to achieving an agreement, is Netanyahu. He was, and is, the obstacle."

An Israeli reserve officer has been killed in centeal Gaza, the Israeli army confirmed on Saturday.

The reservist was named as Yotam Itzhak Peled.

An Israeli airstrike on a car in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin killed at least two Palestinians on Saturday in the Jenin area, the Palestinian health ministry said.

At least three people have been injured in an Israeli attack on the Lebanese town of Markaba, the country's Ministry of Public Health said.

Earlier, the Israeli army said its fighter jets targeted buildings in Markaba, Ramyah, and Kfar Hamam in southern Lebanon, which they claimed were being used by Hezbollah.

Israeli negotiators have expressed "cautious optimism" about moving towards an agreement on a Gaza truce after talks in Doha, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Saturday.

"The team expressed cautious optimism to the prime minister regarding the possibility of advancing towards a deal based on the latest American proposal," a statement said.

"There is hope that the heavy pressure on Hamas from the United States and mediators will lead to the removal of their opposition to the American proposal, potentially allowing a breakthrough in the negotiations."

Four Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli bombardment of Deir al-Balah, late on Saturday, the Wafa news agency is reporting.

Several more have been injured, according to local sources cited by the Palestinian website.

The sources said that the Israeli occupation forces targeted a house located to the south of the city.

Hamas claims that the ongoing crimes against Palestinians are being committed with "absolute support by the US administration and Western capitals," which, according to the group, are providing the "necessary cover and time for the Israeli government to commit a barbaric genocide in the Gaza Strip."

In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Hamas described Israel’s actions as "collective punishment" amounting to "ethnic cleansing." The group also urged the international community to "stop remaining silent and to bring war criminals to justice."

Palestinian Civil Defence teams in the Gaza Strip have rescued a baby from a residential building that caught fire following an Israeli attack earlier today, Al Jazeera reports.

A video shared on social media shows the baby being lowered from the top of the apartment building by what appears to be a rope, while smoke billows from the lower floors.

Israeli news outlet Ynet has a video showing large fires spreading in northern Israel after Hezbollah retaliated to an Israeli strike that killed 10 people, including a woman and her two children, with rocket attacks.

בעקבות הירי מלבנון: שריפה באזור איילת השחר שבעמק החולה | תיעוד pic.twitter.com/W4jMXEcVlI

— ynet עדכוני (@ynetalerts) August 17, 2024

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have recovered the bodies of six people killed in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp, according to the organization.

The medics also rescued one injured person from the scene.

Footage shared by the group shows the victims being taken to a local hospital.

🚨Palestine Red Crescent EMS teams retrieved 6 martyrs and one injury after the Israeli occupation targeted a house in #Jabalia Camp in the northern #Gaza Strip.
📷Footage by PRCS volunteer: Ali Abu Harbid. pic.twitter.com/GeLYWlwYyd

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) August 17, 2024

A senior Hamas official on Saturday dismissed US President Joe Biden's optimism after the American leader said a Gaza ceasefire was closer after talks in Doha.

"To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion," Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement sent to AFP. "We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats."

The death toll in Gaza has risen to 40,074, with 92,537 injured, as reported by the Gaza health ministry.

Fires triggered by incoming rockets have erupted in at least 10 locations in northern Israel, according to The Times of Israel.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the rocket barrage, stating that it targeted the kibbutz of Ayelet HaShahar for the first time.

The Lebanese group said the attack was in retaliation for an earlier Israeli strike in Lebanon’s Nabatieh, which killed 10 people.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that dozens of Israelis have gathered outside the homes of ministers and public officials across the country, protesting against the government and demanding a deal to secure the release of captives held in Gaza.

According to the newspaper, some protesters, blindfolded and holding signs, lined the route of Likud politician Yuli Edelstein as he made his way to the synagogue.

The threat of polio is rising fast in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak. One case has been confirmed, others are suspected and the virus was detected in wastewater in six different locations in July.

Polio was eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, aid groups say. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage and garbage.

To avert a widespread outbreak, aid groups are preparing to vaccinate more than 600,000 children in the coming weeks. They say the ambitious vaccination plans are impossible, though, without a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

A possible cease-fire deal couldn't come soon enough.

“We are anticipating and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a polio outbreak in the coming weeks or month,” Francis Hughes, the Gaza Response Director at CARE International, told The Associated Press.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, said in a joint statement Friday that, at a minimum, a seven-day pause is needed to carry out a mass vaccination plan.

Israel has issued another round of evacuation orders, this time targeting neighborhoods in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp.

Avichay Adraee, Israel’s Arabic-language spokesperson, announced the orders on social media, listing specific blocks in Maghazi and other central Gaza neighborhoods where residents are urged to flee. He stated that Hamas had launched rockets from these areas and warned that Israel's military would respond "forcefully."

Adraee urged residents to "move immediately to the humanitarian zone" for their safety.

This marks the third consecutive day of new evacuation orders in Gaza, displacing tens of thousands.

An Israeli air raid targeted a house near the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.

The strike, west of the camp, killed at least six people, including two children, and injured several others.

The victims were taken to al-Awda Hospital, the agency reported. This attack follows a series of deadly airstrikes earlier in the az-Zawayda area, just a few kilometers south of Nuseirat camp.

Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike in the early hours of Saturday killed 15 people from a Palestinian family, including nine children and three women.

The strike hit the home of the Ajlah family in Al-Zawaida neighbourhood of central Gaza, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. The Israeli military did not offer an immediate comment.

"The toll from the Israeli strike on the Ajlah family home and their warehouse in Al-Zawaida is 15 dead," Bassal said.

Bassal gave a list of those killed, including nine children and three women.

A witness said the strike took place shortly after midnight.

"Three rockets hit the house directly," Ahmed Abu al-Ghoul told AFP as rescuers pulled bodies from the rubble of the flattened house.

"There were a lot of children and women inside... What have they done to deserve this?"

AFPTV footage of the aftermath, captured after dawn, showed rescuers searching for bodies under piles of collapsed concrete blocks.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli air strike on Saturday in southern Lebanon killed ten people, as the Israeli military reported hitting weapons stores of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

The toll from the strike in the Nabatieh area is one of the largest in southern Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israeli forces began exchanging near-daily fire over their border after war in the Gaza Strip began in October.

International mediators have been trying to reach a Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants, which diplomats say could help to avert a wider war in which Lebanon would be on the front line.

The death toll from the latest strike included "a woman and her two children" and five other people were wounded, two critically, Lebanon's health ministry said in a statement.