Israeli strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs, army surrounds Gaza's Jabalia

The New Arab's live blog on Israel war in Gaza and Lebanon has now ended, and will resume tomorrow at 0900am.

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After a year of military operations between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the head of UNICEF warned that children there will face "post-generational challenges” due to the conflict.

"If you look at Gaza really through the eyes of a child, it is a hellscape," UNICEF's executive director Catherine Russell told CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, noting the toll of family deaths and displacements, as well as ongoing lack of food and clean water.

"They are so traumatized by what's happening," Russell said of the kids. "Even if we can get more supplies in there, the trauma that these children are suffering is going to have lifetime and even post-generational challenges for them."

Russell said it remains "very dangerous" to move humanitarian aid in Gaza. However, she credited her organisation with a "success story" of vaccinating thousands of children for polio in the area.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Emmanuel Macron that Israel expects support from France and not restrictions after the French president called for a halt to arms supplies to Israel for use in Gaza.

"Israel's friends are expected to stand behind it, and not impose restrictions on it that will only strengthen the Iranian axis of evil," Netanyahu said in a telephone call with Macron, according to his office.

The United States will not ease its "pressure" on Israel and Arab leaders in the Middle East to reach a deal on hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza, Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview released Sunday.

Washington is working with Israel on humanitarian aid and "the need for a deal to be done which would release the hostages and create a ceasefire. And we're not going to stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region, including Arab leaders," Harris told CBS' "60 Minutes," according to excerpts from an interview released on Sunday.

Israeli air strikes have targeted Lebanon's historic citadel in Baalbek, which is protected internationally due to its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

According to Lebanese outlet LBC, Baalbek's governor said the bombing was 500 to 700 meters away from the citadel.

Many of the country's cultural heritage sites remain at risk due to Israel's aggression on the country, which escalated rapidly since September 23.

Baalbek's Roman's era temples are particularly vulnerable, as Israel has frequently targeted the Shia-majority city.

Baalbek Temples. Unconfirmed whether the strike was inside the site or on its immediate outskirts. Either way, Israel is destroying the heritage of humanity, while those who claim to represent it give them the weapons to do so. pic.twitter.com/bSBq0fCG4L

— Sami Zoughaib | سامي زغيب (@samizog) October 6, 2024

 Flights from all Iran's airports have been cancelled from Sunday 21:00 to Monday 06:00 local time, Iran's Mehr news agency said, citing a spokesperson for Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed victory against Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on Sunday during a visit to soldiers on the Lebanon border.

"The whole world is amazed by the blows you are delivering to our enemies, and I salute you... Together we will fight, and together we will win," he told them, according to a statement issued by his office.

Nearly half of Lebanon's 1.25 million school pupils have become displaced, a top education ministry official said Sunday, as Israel's intensifying strikes on Hezbollah strongholds forced more than one million people to flee.

"There are 1.25 million pupils in Lebanese schools," Director General of Education Imad Achkar said, and "40 percent of them of them have been displaced" by Israeli bombardment.

The Israeli military said that rockets fired from northern Gaza crossed into southern Israel on Sunday, a day ahead of the first anniversary of  Israel's war in the Palestinian territory.

"Several projectiles were identified crossing from the northern Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. One projectile was intercepted, and the rest fell in open areas," the military said in a statement, with Israeli forces on alert for attacks ahead of the grim anniversary of Palestinian militants' unprecedented attack.

Hezbollah said on Saturday that more than 25 officers and soldiers from the Israeli army have been killed, with more than 130 others wounded since the start of its ground invasion of southern Lebanon in early October.

The group said in a statement discussing its operations and the results of its confrontations with the Israeli army over the past 24 hours, that its fighters confronted an elite force on Friday evening that attempted to infiltrate towards a building in the town of Adaisseh, before falling into a pre-planned ambush.

An Israeli airstrike targeted three cars carrying medical and relief materials in the industrial city in Syria's Homs, the Syrian state news agency reported on Sunday, adding that material damage was reported.

The state news agency quoted the head of the industrial city in a town of Homs as saying that no factories were targeted inside the city and that the sound of the blast was a result of the Israeli strike.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year's Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli territory that sparked the Gaza war.

Iran's supreme leader has decorated the Revolutionary Guards aerospace commander for the Islamic republic's missile attacks on arch-foe Israel, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's website said on Sunday.

"Ayatollah Khamenei presented the Order of Fath ("Conquest" in Farsi) to General Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the Guards Aerospace Force," it said.

The decoration was bestowed because of "the brilliant 'Honest Promise' operation", the website said.

Hajizadeh, 62, has headed the Guards aerospace unit since its creation in 2009.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati discussed the latest developments and humanitarian situation in Lebanon in a phone call on Sunday, Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Fidan told Mikati that Turkey is ready to support Lebanon in its humanitarian needs, the statement said.

A woman was killed in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Sunday, Israeli media outlets reported after police said that several people had been injured in a suspected shooting there.

The ambulance service earlier said a seriously injured woman was being treated at the scene while eight other people injured in the attack, including one in a moderate to serious condition, were receiving treatment in a nearby hospital.

The attacker had been killed, the ambulance service said. 

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned Iran on Sunday that it might end up looking like Gaza or Beirut if the Islamic republic was considering an attempt to harm Israel.

"The Iranians did not touch the air force's capabilities - no aircraft was damaged, no squadron was taken out of order," Gallant said in a statement, referring to Iran's recent missile strike on Israel that hit two bases of the Israeli air force.

"Whoever thinks that a mere attempt to harm us will deter us from taking action should take a look at (our achievements) in Gaza and Beirut."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops along the border with Lebanon on Sunday, his office said, nearly a week after the Israeli military launched ground operations against Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today visited the 36th Division base in the Lebanese border area," his office said in a statement.

Israeli military strikes on Lebanon have displaced about 20,000 Palestinian refugees in the country, where a sizeable community lives.

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it opened emergency shelters for more than 4,300 displaced people and is ready to open more. Shelters are filling up fast as the Israeli military intensifies its attacks on Lebanon.

Nearly two million Palestinians have displaced in Gaza, as a result of Israel's one-year war.

As violence escalates in #Lebanon, around 20,000 Palestine Refugees have been forcibly displaced following Israeli airstrikes on camps.@UNRWA activated emergency shelters for over 4,300 displaced people, including Palestine Refugees, Lebanese and Syrians. The Agency stands… pic.twitter.com/MNNri19dMw

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 6, 2024

Iran has prepared a plan to respond to a possible Israeli attack following the Islamic republic's retaliatory missile strike against it last week, local media reported on Sunday.

"The plan for the necessary response to a possible action by the Zionists (Israel) has been fully prepared," Tasnim news agency said, quoting "an informed source" in the armed forces.

On Tuesday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired some 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation after the leaders of groups allied to Tehran were killed in attacks.

"If Israel takes action, there will be no doubt that an Iranian counterattack will be carried out," said Tasnim.

It added that Iran "has a list of many Israeli targets", and said Iran's attack on Tuesday "showed that we can level to the ground any place it desires".

The Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesperson issued new evacuation alerts on Sunday for residents of around 25 areas in southern Lebanon, calling on them to head immediately to the north of the Awali River.

A blast was heard in a factory in the Syrian city of Homs, the state news agency reported on Sunday, adding that the cause is still being investigated.

The Israeli military said Sunday it deployed more troops to defend southern communities and areas bordering Gaza, ahead of the anniversary of its war on the enclave on October 7.

"The IDF's (army) Gaza Division has been reinforced with several platoons, with forces stationed to defend both the communities and the border area," the military said.

"The soldiers are fully equipped to defend the region in coordination with local security forces," it said in a statement.

Inside Gaza, the military said three divisions were working to "dismantle terrorist infrastructure and degrade Hamas's capabilities".

"The Southern Command remains at a heightened state of vigilance and readiness for the coming days," commanding officer Major General Yaron Finkelman was quoted as saying.

Earlier, the military said its forces had surrounded the area of Jabalia in central Gaza where Hamas was trying to rebuild its operational capabilities.

Lebanon on Sunday said the country would be postponing the start of the school year as Israel escalates its air strikes against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Education Minister Abbas Halabi said the new start date for more than one million students would be November 4, because of "security risks".

The health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday an Israeli strike on a mosque-turned-shelter in central Deir al-Balah killed 26 people, while Israel's military claimed to target Hamas.

"The number of martyrs brought to hospitals as a result of the occupation's targeting of displaced people in the Ibn Rushd school and Al Aqsa Martyrs mosque reached 26, with several more wounded," the health ministry said in a statement.

The Gaza civil defence agency had earlier said 21 people had been killed in the pre-dawn strike in central Gaza's Deir El-Balah area.

 At least 41,870 Palestinians have been killed and 97,166 others injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, Gaza's health ministry said on Sunday.

At least 23 killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Saturday, the country's health ministry said.

Israeli forces have detained at least 15 Palestinians in the West Bank during the last 24 hours, including a journalist and former prisoners, Palestinian media said.

The Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS) and the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said in a joint statement that the detentions occurred across several areas, including Hebron, Bethlehem, Tulkarem, and Tubas.

The Israeli military said Sunday its forces surrounded the Jabalia area of northern Gaza in response to indications Hamas was rebuilding despite nearly a year of strikes and fighting.

"The troops of the 401st Brigade and the 460th Brigade have successfully encircled the area and are currently continuing to operate in the area," the military said in a statement.

It cited intelligence suggesting the "presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the area of Jabaliaa... as well as efforts by Hamas to rebuild its operational capabilities in the area".

"Prior to and during the operation, the IAF (air force) struck dozens of military targets in the area to assist IDF (army) ground troops," the military said, adding targets hit were weapons storage facilities, underground infrastructure sites and other militant infrastructure sites.

Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said multiple strikes rocked Jabaliya overnight, with many casualties.

Israeli forces regularly bombarded Jabaliya since the Gaza war began, displacing most residents.

Iran's Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad landed on Kharg island, the oil ministry's news website Shana reported on Sunday, amid concerns that Israel could target Iran's largest oil terminal there.

An Israeli military spokesman said on Saturday that Israel would retaliate, following last week's missile attack by Tehran, "when the time is right."

Following Iran's attack, Axios cited Israeli officials as saying that Iran's oil facilities could be hit in response. US President Joe Biden said on Friday that he did not think Israel had yet concluded how to respond.

"Paknejad arrived this morning in order to visit the oil facilities and meet operational staff located on Kharg island," Shana reported, adding that the oil terminal there has the capacity to store 23 million barrels of crude.

Lebanon's acting PM, Najib Mikati, calls for 'pressure on Israel' for ceasefire in Lebanon.