Israeli forces kill 73 in Gaza's Beit Lahia as buildings 'collapse on residents'

The Government Media Office in Gaza announced that the death toll from the Israeli bombing of Beit Lahia has risen to 73, with dozens wounded and missing.

Hamas has responded to Israel's recent release of videos purportedly showing slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in underground tunnels before the 7 October 2023 attack.

The group described the videos as a "miserable attempt to save face for his defeated army that was humiliated by the leader Sinwar and his brothers".

"The brave leader, the martyr Yahya Sinwar, ascended while fighting on the battlefield, after leading the battle, moving for a whole year on the battle fronts in various areas of the Gaza Strip, leading the ranks of our people's valiant resistance."

More than 50 Palestinians have been killed and dozens of wounded in a new massacre committed Israeli forces in Beit Lahia, local sources told The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Palestinian media reported that the bombing completely destroyed a number of homes with their residents inside.

The Israeli army on Saturday released footage it claimed showed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and his family in an underground Gaza tunnel hours before Hamas launched the October 7 attack.

The footage shows Sinwar along with his children and wife moving through a tunnel, while the Hamas leader appears to be stocking up on supplies ahead of the group's attack on Israel, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a televised briefing while showing the grainy images.

Israel had earlier released drone footage of the Hamas leader's last moments, which observers described as a PR misstep. The footage went viral online, showing Sinwar dressed in military fatigues and a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.

]The Israeli army has released a new video of its clash with slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza area of Tal el-Sultan.

The video, shared on X by the army's Arabic spokesman, Avichay Adraee, purportedly shows the Hamas leader in his final moments, sitting on a chair in a damaged building.

A shell is then fired at the building.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said Iranian-backed groups who tried to kill him and his wife would pay "a heavy price," after his office reported a drone targeted his residence in Caesarea.

"Iran's proxies who tried to assassinate me and my wife today made a grave mistake," said Netanyahu who, his office said, was not home at the time of the incident.

The Israeli military said its air force struck Hezbollah weapons stores and an intelligence centre on Saturday in the group's southern Beirut stronghold.

The Israeli Air Force "conducted a strike on a number of Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and a Hezbollah intelligence headquarters command centre in Dahieh," the military said in a statement.

G7 supports 'significant and sustained increase' in humanitarian aid to Gaza: statement

No aid has entered northern Gaza for at least 15 days, a Hamas senior official said, as the area remains under a vicious Israelis siege.

Sami Abu Zuhri told Al Jazeera that Israel is carrying out crimes in North Gaza that are "bigger than any words can describe".

He added that Israel has cut off internet services there to "hide its crimes and not to reflect the daily holocaust being committed".

Israeli planes have reportedly dropped leaflets over southern Gaza showing a picture of the slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar with the message that "Hamas will no longer rule Gaza", Al Jazeera reported.

The sentence used language frequently heard by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 

"Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace,” the Arabic-language leaflet, said according to residents of the southern city of Khan Younis and images circulating online.

Following the elimination of Sinwar, the IDF dropped leaflets in Khan Yunis: "Sinwar ruined your lives, he hid in a dark den and was killed when he fled in panic." Hamas will no longer rule Gaza, you have a chance to free yourself from its tyranny. For those who lay down their… pic.twitter.com/HX50KNGcUc

— Rose 🌹 (@rose_ervin8117) October 19, 2024

Several areas of Beirut's southern suburbs have targeted by Israeli strikes, local media reported.

 The official National News Agency (NNA) reported that "consecutive strikes" had targeted the area.

A building in Haret Hreik was struck twice, first by a fighter jet and then a drone, reportedly.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday more than 400 Palestinians were killed in the north of the territory over the past two weeks during an ongoing military assault Israel says is aimed at preventing Hamas militants from regrouping.

"We have recovered more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and its camp, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, since the start of the military operation by the occupation army" on October 6, Gaza civil defence agency spokesman, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP.

Lebanon security source says Israel has hit Beirut's southern suburbs, known as Dahieh.

Naval drills hosted by Iran with the participation of Russia and Oman and observed by nine other countries began in the Indian Ocean on Saturday, Iran's state TV said.

The exercises, dubbed "IMEX 2024", are aimed at boosting "collective security in the region, expand multilateral cooperation, and display the goodwill and capabilities to safeguard peace, friendship and maritime security", the English-language Press TV said.

Participants would practice tactics to ensure international maritime trade security, protect maritime routes, enhance humanitarian measures and exchange information on rescue and relief operations, it said.

The exercises coincide with heightened tensions in the region as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza rages and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels retaliate by launching attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

In response to regional tensions with the United States, Iran has increased its military cooperation with Russia and China.

Lebanon state media said four people including a mayor were killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike on a town in the eastern Bekaa Valley region.

The strike hit a residential building in the town of Baaloul, killing four, the official National News Agency said, adding that the dead include Haidar Shahla, the mayor of the nearby town of Sohmor.

The Israeli military on Saturday called on residents to leave parts of Beirut, a warning usually followed by strikes on those areas of the Lebanese capital.

"Urgent warning to residents of the southern suburb (of Dahiyeh), specifically those in ...Haret Hreik neighbourhood: You are located near facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah, against which the IDF (Israeli military) will be operating in the near future," military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote in Arabic on X.

#عاجل ‼️ انذار عاجل إلى سكان الضاحية الجنوبية وتحديدًا المتواجدين في المباني المحددة في الخريطتيْن والواقعة في حارة حريك

🔴أنتم متواجدون بالقرب من منشآت ومصالح تابعة لحزب الله حيث سيعمل ضدها جيش الدفاع على مدى الزمني القريب
🔴من أجل سلامتكم وسلامة أبناء عائلتكم عليكم اخلاء هذه… pic.twitter.com/JhfeEIwB0T

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) October 19, 2024

Hezbollah said it fired rockets the northern Israeli town of Safed on Saturday, after the Israeli army reported 115 projectiles launched from Lebanon targeting the country amid the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Hezbollah said it "bombed the occupied city of Safed... with a rocket salvo," shortly after announcing rocket attacks on Haifa in northern Israel.

Israeli emergency services said a man was killed by shrapnel near the port city of Acre on Saturday after a barrage of rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel.

"Paramedics have pronounced the death of a man, around 50 years old, who was struck by shrapnel while sitting in his vehicle," the Magen David Adom emergency service said in a statement.

All of northern Gaza's three hospitals are completely out of service, Al Jazeera reports, following weeks of attacks and sieges.

“We cannot count the number of those killed. The numbers are terrifying,” the official added.

The Indonesian, al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals in northern Gaza have been subject to Israeli attacks and forced evacuation orders in over the weeks.

Israeli military strikes killed at least 32 people across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, as forces tightened a siege around hospitals in Jabalia in the north of the enclave.

In the central Gaza Strip camp of Al-Maghzai, an Israeli strike on a house killed 11 people, while another strike at the nearby camp of Nuseirat killed four others.

Five other people were killed in two separate strikes in the south Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, medics said, while seven Palestinians were killed in the Shati camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

Late on Friday, medics said 33 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 85 others were wounded in Israeli strikes that destroyed at least three houses in Jabalia.

"IDF troops are currently operating in the Jabalia area against Hamas terrorist infrastructure and terrorists. We are unaware of the incident," the Israeli military said.

European Commission Vice President Josep Borrell said Saturday the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar opened a 'new perspective' for a ceasefire in Gaza.

"Certainly after the killing of Yahya Sinwar a new perspective is open and we have to use it in order to reach a ceasefire, to release the remaining hostages and to look for a political perspective," Borrell told journalists on the sidelines of a G7 defence summit.

At least 42,519 people have been killed and 99,637 wounded in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday.

19 Palestinians were killed and 91 wounded in the last 24-hour period, the ministry added.

The Israeli army said at least 115 projectiles were fired on Saturday from Lebanon targeting the country amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The projectiles were fired mainly into northern Israel, with sirens blaring across the region at regular intervals. AFP compiled the figure of projectiles based on a series of statements released by the Israeli army on Saturday.

Israel is accusing Iran of "trying to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior official told Channel 12, after a drone reportedly launched from Lebanon targeted his home in the north Israel town of Caesarea.

Israel's attacks in Lebanon and Gaza are pushing Iran to take "legitimate steps", Turkey's foreign minister said on Saturday, in an apparent show of support for Tehran's October 1 missile attack on Israel.

"Israel's aggressive stance is forcing Iran to take legitimate steps," Hakan Fidan said at a joint press conference in Istanbul with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.

Hezbollah said it fired rockets on Saturday towards a region north of Israel's Haifa in response to Israeli attacks on its strongholds in southern Lebanon.

"The large rocket salvo" came in retaliation for Israeli attacks on south Lebanon villages, Hezbollah announced after the Israeli army said a barrage of projectiles was fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, with sirens blaring at regular intervals.

Health authorities in Gaza said Israeli forces surrounded and shelled the Indonesian Hospital in the territory's northern town of Beit Lahia at dawn on Saturday.

"Israeli tanks have completely surrounded the hospital, cut off electricity and shelled the hospital, targeting the second and third floors with artillery," said the facility's director, Marwan Sultan.

"There are serious risks to medical staff and patients."

In a statement, Gaza's health ministry also said Israel had targeted the upper floors, adding there were "more than 40 patients and wounded in addition to the medical staff" present.

"Heavy gunfire" towards the hospital and its courtyard had sparked a "state of great panic" among patients and staff, it added.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Hamas was alive and will survive despite the death of its leader Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli military operation in Gaza.

"His loss is certainly painful for the resistance front" against Israel, "but it will not end at all with the martyrdom of Sinwar", Khamenei said.

The Palestinian Islamist movement "Hamas is alive and will remain alive", he said in a statement.

Sinwar "was the shining figure of resistance and struggle", Khamenei said in his first remarks on Sinwar since he was killed on Wednesday.

"He stood with unwavering determination against the cruel and aggressive enemy and slapped them with tact and courage," he added.

"He left behind the irreparable blow of October 7, 2023 as his legacy in the history of this region, and then he soared with honour and pride to the ascension of the martyrs."

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, responding to comments by US President Joe Biden, said on Saturday anyone who knows "how and when Israel will attack Iran" should be held accountable.

Araghchi said on X: "Anybody with knowledge or understanding of 'how and when Israel was going to attack Iran', and/or providing the means and backing for such folly, should logically be held accountable for any possible causality."

Speaking to reporters at the end of a visit to Berlin on Friday Biden said he had an understanding of how and when Israel was going to retaliate against missile attacks by Iran.

At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strike on a home in central Gaza's al-Maghazi refugee camp, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA said on Saturday, adding that there are still missing people under the rubble.

 A drone was launched towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home in the northern Israeli town of Caesarea on Saturday, his spokesman said, adding that the premier was not in the vicinity and there were no casualties.

Earlier, the Israeli military said that a drone was launched from Lebanon and that it had hit a building. It was not immediately clear what the building was.

Two more drones that crossed into Israeli territory were intercepted, the military said.

There were no casualties reported, according to the Israeli ambulance service and police said explosions had been heard in Caesarea, coastal town where Netanyahu has a holiday home.

Lebanese authorities said two people were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday in Jounieh, north of Beirut, in the first strike on the area since Hezbollah and Israel started trading fire last year.

The health ministry said an "Israeli enemy raid" hit a car in Jounieh, with Lebanese state media saying the attack occurred on a key highway linking the capital to the country's north.