Israeli strikes kill dozens across Gaza, Lebanon and Syria

This live blog has now wrapped up. The New Arab will be back at 9am with live updates from Gaza and Lebanon.

According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, the death toll from an Israeli raid on the town of Qasr in the Hermel district has increased from three to five.

This raid was part of a series of deadly Israeli strikes across Lebanon throughout the day.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that an Israeli attack on Jabalia killed 24 members of the family of its researcher, Mohammed Aloush.

“These innocent civilians were killed while they were sleeping and suffering from starvation,” stated the rights group, noting that the victims included “14 children and 6 women, some of whom had disabilities.”

“This is the reality every hour in Gaza, as several Western governments continue their complicity in the ongoing genocide by supplying Israel with arms instead of pressing for an immediate ceasefire,” PCHR added in its statement.

📃Earlier this morning, at approximately, 6:00 am, PCHR’s field researcher in Jabalya, Mohammed Aloush, lost 24 members of his relatives as a result of an Israeli airstrike on their house, among them 14 children and 6 women, some of whom suffer from disabilities. This happened in… pic.twitter.com/XZSvt5ucKh

— Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - PCHR (@pchrgaza) November 10, 2024

Israeli army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has approved expanding the ground invasion in southern Lebanon, according to state broadcaster Kan.

Israel’s military began conducting “limited, localized, and targeted” ground raids into southern Lebanon against Hezbollah on 1 October, shortly after initiating widespread air strikes across the country.

Last week, military and security officials reportedly discussed announcing an end to the ground offensive. However, Kan reports that Halevi authorized new orders to broaden the assault, potentially involving thousands more soldiers.

Israeli forces conducted a raid in the town of al-Khader, located south of Bethlehem, according to the Wafa news agency.

During the operation, soldiers entered the home of Tayseer Abu Sneineh, the mayor of Hebron.

Iran's foreign ministry called Sunday for an arms embargo on Israel and the expulsion of its arch-foe from the United Nations, following a deadly strike in Syria.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran "strongly condemned the aggressive attack carried out today by the Zionist regime against a residential building" in the Damascus area.

The strike on an apartment belonging to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, killed nine people including a Hezbollah commander, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

Baghaei called for measures against Israel, including "an arms embargo" and its "expulsion from the United Nations".

Hamas’s armed wing reported that it targeted 15 Israeli soldiers with an antitank rocket before "finishing them off" with grenades and small arms at close range in Beit Lahiya.

The Israeli army has not commented on the incident.

Three people were killed in the town of al-Qasr, in Hermel district, following an Israeli attack.

Additionally, the two people were also wounded in the assault, the Health Ministry said.

At least 41 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Sunday, including 23 in a raid north of the capital Beirut, the health ministry said.

Israel, at war with Lebanon's Hezbollah since late September, has intensified its air campaign against the Iran-backed movement in recent days, especially in the country's south and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Further north, an "Israeli enemy strike on Almat in the Jbeil district killed 23 people including seven children," the health ministry said in a statement, adding that body parts had been recovered from the site and were being identified.

Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone attack while attempting to build a well amid a severe water shortage in central Gaza.

The Israeli quadcopter strike targeted a group working to install a water pipe network in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The bodies were later transported to Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir el-Balah.

The United States this week will decide whether Israel has made progress toward improving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and how Washington will respond, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday as Israel began to make its case. President Joe Biden's administration told Israel in an Oct. 13 letter signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that the longtime U.S. ally must take steps within 30 days on a series of measures or risk restrictions on American military aid.

"This week we will make our judgments about what kind of progress they have made," Sullivan told the CBS program "Face the Nation." "And then Secretary Austin, Secretary Blinken, the president will make judgments about what we do in response, and I'm not going to get ahead of that."

At least 38 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Sunday in strikes on Baalbek, Almat in Jbeil district and the country's south.

Right-wing Jewish movement Betar said it would rally in Paris ahead of a Nations League football match on Thursday between France and Israel that authorities have identified as a potential flashpoint.

A high police presence is being prepared for the match at the Stade de France. It will take place exactly a week after fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv instigated a number of riots in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam.

Yigal Brand, CEO of World Betar, said in a statement on Sunday that the movement, which is present worldwide and has links to the Israeli right, was "outraged at what has happened in Amsterdam".

"We are proud Zionists and have nothing to apologise for," Brand added in a statement.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan claimed on Sunday that it is Hamas, not Israel, that is standing in the way of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Sullivan, appearing on the CBS programme "Face the Nation," added that the United States will make a judgment about the progress Israel has made over a letter that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote last month regarding humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The death toll from the Israeli strike on an apartment in south Damascus has risen from three seven people on Sundy,a war monitor said.

"An Israeli strike killed seven people and wounded 14, including women and children, in the Sayyida Zeinab area," Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP, revising an earlier toll of three dead.

The Britain-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, earlier said that "the Israeli attack targeted (Hezbollah) figures in the building where Lebanese families and members of the movement live."

Syria's official SANA news agency reported an "Israeli aggression targeting a residential building in the Sayyida Zeinab" area, home to a major Shiite shrine, that killed and injured an unspecified number of people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, in a first public disclosure, that he had okayed a September attack on Hezbollah in which hundreds of communication devices exploded across Lebanon.

"Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon," his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks that killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel's ongoing military operation in Lebanon.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,186 people and injured 14,078 in Lebanon since October 2023, with 53 fatalities reported on Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement on Sunday. 

Arab and Muslim leaders have begun arriving in Saudi Arabia for a summit scheduled for Monday that will focus on Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Saudi state media said.

The Saudi foreign ministry announced the summit in late October during the first meeting of an "international alliance" pushing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Attendees will "discuss the continued Israeli aggression on the Palestinian territories and the Lebanese Republic, and the current developments in the region," the official Saudi Press Agency said on Sunday.

It comes one year after a similar gathering in Riyadh of the Cairo-based Arab League and the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) during which leaders condemned Israeli forces' actions in Gaza as "barbaric".

An Israeli strike targeting an apartment belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah group killed three people Sunday in a stronghold of pro-Iran groups south of Damascus, a war monitor said.

"An Israeli air strike killed three people in the Sayyida Zeinab area," Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he has spoken with US President-elect Donald Trump three times in the past few days aimed at tightening the strong alliance between Israel and the United States.

"In the last few days, I have spoken three times with President-elect Donald Trump... Talks designed to further tighten the strong alliance between Israel and the US," Netanyahu said, quoted in a statement issued by his office.

"We see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in every aspect," he added during a weekly cabinet meeting, according to the statement.

Netanyahu also said he had talked to Trump about "great opportunities before Israel in the field of peace and its expansion".

The United States is Israel's top ally and military backer, and the election came at a critical time for the Middle East amid wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the crises in Gaza and Lebanon, according to a statement from the Israeli President's office on Sunday.

Dutch police on Sunday moved in on a group of pro-Palestinian protesters after they staged a demonstration in Amsterdam's city centre, despite a court order banning protests, an AFP correspondent saw.

Police in riot gear moved in on the protesters who were chanting slogans and holding up placards at Dam square in the wake of clashes between Israeli football fans and groups of youths on Thursday.

Dutch judges on Sunday turned down an urgent request for a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Amsterdam, backing a ban called by its mayor following clashes between Israeli football fans and groups of youths.

The Amsterdam District Court's decision comes three days after the Dutch capital saw riots instigated by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans who sang anti-Arab chants and tore down Palestinian flags from residents' homes.

"The Mayor has rightly decided that there will be a ban on demonstrating in the city this weekend," the court announced on X.

It therefore "rejected the request," the court said.

Dutch activist Frank van der Linde applied for an urgent ban to demonstrate on the city's famous Dam Square, despite a temporary ban on protests announced by mayor Femke Halsema on Friday.

Van der Linde wanted to protest on the Dam against the "genocide in Gaza, but also because our right to protest has been taken away," Dutch national news agency ANP quoted him as saying.

The death toll in Almat, north of Beirut, has risen to 23 casualties, including seven children, according to the ministry of health cited by Lebanese media.

The death toll is likely to increase as rescuers are still recovering bodies.

Three paramedics were killed by Israeli strikes on Adloun, Sidon district on Sunday, the ministry of health said, who called the incident a war crime.

The strike targeted a Civil Defense vehicle of the Islamic Health Authority, Lebanese media.

The victims were identified as Mohammad Abboud, Hussein Abboud and Hassan Dabous.

The US has frozen the delivery of 130 D9 bulldozers to Israel due to the increase of home demolitions in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media said.

D9 bulldozers a type of heavy-duty construction equipment produced by Caterpillar.

The bulldozers were primarily intended for flattening structures in the Gaza Strip, which had led to significant internal criticism in the US, leading to intense pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration,

Israeli forces have detained at least 10 Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa said the raids were carried out in Jenin, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Tubas, and Jerusalem.

Property was vandalised, threats against Palestinian family members were made and homes were ransacked, the Palestinan news agency said.

The general chief of staff of Saudi Arabia's armed forces, Fayyad al-Ruwaili, will visit Tehran on Sunday to meet with his Iranian counterpart and discuss defence ties, state media reported the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff as saying.

The visit follows the election of Donald Trump, who will take office for a second term as US President in January, and who has promised to bring peace to the Middle East.

Iran's state media said al-Ruwaili will head a high-level Saudi military delegation in Tehran, meet Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri, and discuss bilateral and defence ties.

State media added that Bagheri held a phone call with Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud last year to discuss regional developments and improve defence cooperation between the two countries.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to arrive in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday evening to participate in the upcoming Arab-Islamic Summit, Palestinian media reported.

The summit is set to address the ongoing Israeli aggression against Palestinians and other pressing regional issues, including the situation in Lebanon.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike on Sunday killed at least 20 people including three children in the village of Almat, north of the capital Beirut.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Almat in the Jbeil district killed 20 people including three children and injuring six, in an updated toll," the ministry said in a statement.

The victims were reportedly displaced members of the Arsifeh family, originally from Baalbek, L'Orient Today said.

Almat is 50 km north of Beirut.

Qatar has clarified reports that it is halting mediation efforts regarding Israel’s war on Gaza, saying it has only suspended their efforts for the meantime and will be resuming when parties show "seriousness".

Read more on what the Qatari foreign ministry has said concerning its mediation role between Israel and Hamas.

At least 43,603 people have been killed and 102,929 wounded in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the enclave’s Health Ministry said.

51 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours, it added.

Lebanese official media reported an Israeli strike on a house in the main eastern city of Baalbek on Sunday, which was not preceded by an Israeli army evacuation order.

"Enemy aircraft launched a strike on a house in the al-Laqees neighbourhood" of the city, the state-run National News Agency said.

The Israeli daily, Haaretz, has published an editorial piece on Sunday accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military of carrying out an "ethnic cleansing campaign" against Palestinians in northern Gaza.

"The few Palestinians remaining in the area are being forcibly evacuated, homes and infrastructure have been destroyed, and wide roads in the area are being built and completing the separation of the communities in the northern Strip from the center of Gaza City," it wrote.

The piece, titled "Netanyahu's Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza Is on Display for All to See", called the ongoing siege in northern Gaza a "a premeditated act of human destruction", and used direct quotes from Israeli military personnel who said that their "clear orders" consist of "cleansing space".

33 people were killed in Lebanon late on Saturday following wave of Israeli strikes on the east and south of the country, the health ministry said, as Israel intensified its air campaign in the country.

"Israeli enemy raids targeting the Baalbek-Hermel region killed 20 people, including 11 in the Knaissseh locality," a statement from the ministry said. Another 14 people were wounded, it added.

The ministry said five people were killed in the southern village of Hanouiyeh.

Seven rescuers with the Amal-linked Risala Scouts association and the Islamic Health Committee were killed in a strike on the village of Deir Qanun.

Early on Sunday, the United States and Britain launched raids on Yemeni capital Sana'a, the Amran governorate and other areas, Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthi movement, and residents said. 

At least 30 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including women and children, after Israeli strikes targeted two homes in the territory's north, rescuers said on Sunday.

The first strike early Sunday hit a house in Jabalia, northern Gaza, killing "at least 25" people, including 13 children, and injuring more than 30, civil defence said.

Another strike on the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City killed five people, with others still missing in the aftermath, civil defence said.

"A number of civilians are still under the rubble," the agency added.