Israeli attacks intensify in north Gaza, kill 40 in eastern Lebanon

Israel killed scores of people in Gaza and Lebanon on Wednesday, as Republican former president Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the US elections.

Israeli forces killed at least 15 Palestinians in violent strikes on a building in Gaza’s Beit Lahia, where a mother and children were among the dead.

A Palestinian man and his son were also killed in an Israeli strike, north of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, the Wafa news agency reported. Palestinians wounded by the strike were taken to the Al-Awda Hospital, as search and rescue workers scrambled to save people.

The UN agency UNICEF said north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital is now a "besieged war zone" adding that the "last neonatal intensive care unit remaining in the north has been damaged in heavy attacks in recent days".

The agency also said that in the past year, 4,000 babies have been cut off from life-saving care due to continued Israeli assaults on hospitals.

The World Health Organisation said the polio vaccination drive in Gaza has now concluded, however around 10,000 children could not be reached to receive a second dose in the north as Israel’s siege and bombardment of the area continues.

Fresh strikes on Lebanon

On Wednesday, Israeli strikes intensified around Lebanon, killing 40 people in the country’s east, the health ministry said in a statement.

The toll includes 11 people killed in Baalbek, nine of them in the Shikan district.

Reports said he city's famed Palmyra hotel had also been damaged in nearby strikes, with the health ministry reporting two people had been killed there.

An Israeli strike also killed 16 people in the village of Nasriyah, the ministry said.

"Rescue and rubble removal operations are still ongoing in search of missing persons," the ministry added.

Israel's army had not issued evacuation warning for Lebanon's east.

Lebanon’s civil defence crews also pulled 30 bodies from beneath the rubble of collapsed apartment buildings that were targeted by Israeli strikes on Tuesday.

Hezbollah announced said it targeted a miliary base south of Tel Aviv "for the first time" and a naval base near the Israeli city of Haifa with drones and missiles late on Wednesday, the fourth attack on the base in as many weeks.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Wednesday his group had tens of thousands of combatants ready to fight Israel.

"We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants" ready to fight, he said, adding that nowhere in Israel was "off-limits" to the group's attacks.

He also said the results of the US elections will have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal to end the war in Lebanon.

"We don't base our expectations for a halt of the aggression on political developments... Whether (Kamala) Harris wins or (Donald) Trump wins, it means nothing to us," he said in a pre-recorded speech before Trump announced his victory.

West Bank raids

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israel launched raids on a town near Bethlehem called Al-Khader. According to the Wafa news agency, Israeli forces forced their way into homes, fired barrages of concussion grenades and tear gas cannisters at locals causing them to suffocate.

Israeli forces also shot and killed a man in Jenin, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in the city to seven in the past 48 hours.

Egypt said it is joining Turkey and dozens of other countries in urging the UN to halt arms deliveries to Israel.

Egypt’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Tuesday stating they will be part of "international efforts to pressure Israel to cease its continuous violations of international law and international humanitarian law".

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 43,391 Palestinians and wounded 102,347 since 7 October 2023. Israeli attacks have also killed 3,050 in Lebanon and wounded 13,658 others in the same time frame. The number is expected to rise after Wednesday's strikes.