Lebanon's Tyre targeted in new wave of Israeli strikes

The United States said it was "deeply concerned" about a bill under consideration in Israel's parliament aimed at banning the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, (UNRWA), as it carries out an irreplaceable role in delivering humanitarian assistance in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.

Speaking at a daily briefing, Miller said humanitarian assistance was not getting to the people in Jabalia in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has stepped up its brutal campaign, and that Washington would not accept that.

"We have made quite clear to the government of Israel that we are deeply concerned by this, this proposed legislation," Miller told reporters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Monday he seeks peace with Arab countries, after a year of war in Gaza and Lebanon which has stoked Arab anger.

He spoke as Washington seeks to rally Arab countries around long-term plans for post-war governance in the Gaza Strip, and further normalisation deals with Israel following the 2020 Abraham Accords.

"I aspire to continue the process I went through a few years ago, with the signing of the historic Abraham Accords, in order to achieve peace with other Arab countries," Netanyahu said in a speech to lawmakers as Israel's parliament began its winter session.

"I emphasise peace for peace, peace out of strength with important countries in the Middle East," Netanyahu said.

"These countries and other countries see very well the blows we inflict on those who attack us, the Iranian axis of evil," he added, two days after Israel bombed military targets in Iran, as retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage on Israel.

"They are impressed by our determination and courage. Like us, they aspire to a stable, secure, prosperous Middle East."

Iran is at a disadvantage that can be exploited in the future after Israeli airstrikes over the weekend, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday.

"You have conducted accurate strikes on their radars and air defence systems, which creates a huge disadvantage for the enemy when we will want to strike later," a statement released by Gallant's office quoted the defence minister as saying during a meeting with air force chiefs.

"You have also damaged their production capabilities, which changes the balance of power. Their supplies are now set, and this affects their calculus. Both their attack and defensive capabilities have been weakened."

Iran has said Saturday's airstrikes caused limited damage. A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry said on Monday that Tehran would "use all available tools" to respond.

Israel's parliament considered a bill on Monday that would ban the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from working in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem.

Lawmakers are expected to vote on the bill after years of harsh Israeli criticism of UNRWA, which has only increased dramatically since the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas's deadly October 7 attacks last year.

A forum representing countries including the European Union member states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey on Monday called for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza and Lebanon.

The Union for the Mediterranean also urged Israel to cease unilateral measures undermining a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the Gaza war spills over across the Middle East.

In a press conference after their meeting in Barcelona, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for a political solution to the crisis that "every day drives more people to despair and sows the seeds of hatred that will wipe out entire generations".

The forum, which gathers the EU and other countries in the Mediterranean basin, said in a joint statement that an "immediate and permanent ceasefire" in Lebanon and Gaza is a "top priority".

They also urged Israel to stop actions such as building settlements in the occupied West Bank and attacking UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.

All parties must protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law, they added.

Borrell said that Israel must show proportionality in its response and that the military escalation in Lebanon "has crossed all red lines".

📸 Family photo - The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Euro-Mediterranean Region are gathering today at 9th Union for the Mediterranean Regional Forum to address the most pressing regional challenges, notably the alarming situation in the Middle East.
🔗… pic.twitter.com/ddfP187xBU

— Union for the Mediterranean (@UfMSecretariat) October 28, 2024

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday that Israel's air strikes on Iran's military sites over the weekend had changed the balance of power between the two arch-foes.

"The enemy has been weakened -- both in its ability to produce missiles and in its ability to defend itself. This changes the balance of power," Gallant said in a statement issued by the defence ministry.

Mossad chief David Barnea has returned from Doha after meetings with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and CIA director William Burns, during which they discussed a revised outline that incorporates previous proposals and recent developments.

In a post on X, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office stated, "In the coming days, the discussions between the mediators and with Hamas will continue to examine the feasibility of talks and a continued attempt to promote a deal."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran seeks to develop a "stockpile" of nuclear bombs aimed at destroying Israel, two days after Israel bombed military targets in the Islamic republic.

"Iran is striving to develop a stockpile of nuclear bombs to destroy us, equipped with long-range missiles, intercontinental missiles that Iran is trying to develop," Netanyahu said in a speech to lawmakers as Israel's parliament began its winter session.

"Iran could threaten the entire world at any point."

Medical sources report that at least 32 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza today, according to Al Jazeera English.

The fatalities include 15 people in northern Gaza, where the Israeli army siege has now entered its fourth week.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said on Monday it has received a report of an incident 25 nautical miles south of Yemen's Mokha. 

An Israeli drone strike targeted a motorcycle in the Lebanese village of Taraya, located in the Baalbek district, killing two people, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).

In a separate incident in the nearby village of Brital, two more individuals were killed when Israeli warplanes targeted a car. Both villages are situated within the Baalbek district.

Israeli raids have struck locations in both eastern and southern Lebanon, according to news publication Al Jazeera English.

Targets include the city of Baalbek and the towns of Qasr Nabaa and Badnayel in the Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon.

Another raid has hit the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. 

Updates will follow as the situation develops.

Hezbollah said it fired on Monday a barrage of advanced rockets towards a naval base in the area of Haifa, a northern Israeli city.

The Iran-backed group said it launched "a rocket barrage at...a naval base" in the Haifa area, after Israeli strikes hit Tyre after an evacuation warning.

Palestinian prisoner rights organisations accused Israeli prison authorities on Monday of "brutally assaulting" Marwan Barghouti, the most prominent Palestinian detainee in Israeli custody.

Prison system staff assaulted Barghouti in his solitary confinement cell at Megiddo Prison in northern Israel on September 9, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees' Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club and a support group for Barghouti said in statements.

The rights groups said they were informed of the event by a lawyer who was able to meet with Barghouti on Sunday. It was his first visit in three months, the Prisoners' Club told news agency AFP.

The assault "resulted in several injuries to Barghouti's body, to his ribs... as well as bleeding of the right ear and a wound to his right arm, along with severe back pain," the groups said.

The Israeli Prison Service said in a statement to AFP that "Since October 7, Barghouti has petitioned twice, regarding claims of mistreatment in prison. The court has examined every one of his claims and concluded that there has been no violation of the law by IPS".

"Nonetheless, prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities."

The Palestinian NGOs said that Barghouti has endured two assaults since being placed in solitary confinement earlier this year.

A former high-ranking member of the Palestinian Fatah party, Barghouti was arrested in 2002 by Israel and sentenced to life in 2004 for murders.

Israel considers him a "terrorist" and has sentenced him to five life sentences for his role in the second intifada, or uprising, from 2000-2005.

Barghouti, now in his sixties, is one of the prisoners whose release could be sought as part of a hostage-prisoner exchange agreement, if one is reached between Israel and Hamas.

According to Palestinian prisoner rights organisations, more than 9,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons -- more than half of whom were detained after October 7.

An unknown number of Palestinians from Gaza have also been detained by Israeli forces in the territory since the start of the war.

At least 43,020 people, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza, according to figures from the territory's health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.

Hezbollah said it ambushed Israeli troops near a Lebanon border village on Monday, more than a month into an all-out war that has involved close-range combat in southern Lebanon.

The Iran-backed group said it "ambushed... the Israeli enemy's vehicles and soldiers as they advanced towards" the outskirts of the border village of Kfar Kila ahead of deadly clashes.

The social media network X on Monday suspended an account that published Hebrew-language messages on behalf of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, just days after it was opened.

The account had a short notice reading "X suspends accounts which violate the X Rules," though the Elon Musk-owned platform did not specify which rule had been violated.

Khamenei's office runs several social network accounts in his name, broadcasting messages in different languages.

The Hebrew-language account had launched on the weekend with a message that is a common greeting in the Islamic world: "In the name of Allah, the Benevolent, the Most Merciful."

It was opened after Israel carried out air strikes against military sites in Iran on Saturday in response to Tehran's missile attack on October 1.

At least four Iranian soldiers were killed in the attack which Iran said caused "limited damage" to a few radar systems.

Over 1,100 authors have launched "a mass boycott of Israeli publishers complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people," according to a press statement from a coalition of solidarity groups.

Described as the largest cultural boycott of Israeli institutions to date, the statement notes that signatories refuse to engage with these institutions due to concerns about links to "apartheid and displacement."

Among the signatories are Nobel, Booker, Pulitzer, and National Book Award winners.

This boycott aligns with a campaign started over 20 years ago by Palestinian civil society, urging cultural workers to avoid partnerships with Israeli academic and cultural institutions linked to alleged human rights abuses and the perpetuation of apartheid. 

For the full letter and list of signatories, see the link provided.

According to Al Jazeera TV, the historic city of Tyre has been subjected to relentless air strikes, with Israel reportedly carrying out at least four attacks on buildings in and around the Corniche area in recent hours.

This comes after such buildings received forced evacuation warnings from Israel earlier on Monday, and they have since been targeted in the attacks.

Many structures have collapsed due to the strikes, creating large plumes of smoke over the Corniche, al Jazeera TV added.

Tyre is one of Lebanon’s oldest cities and is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

Lebanese official media said Israel struck Tyre on Monday after the military issued an evacuation call for swathes of the ancient coastal city, already hit earlier in the day.

"Enemy aircraft launched their first strike after the Israeli warning for the city of Tyre and targeted a residential apartment," the National News Agency said, subsequently reporting "a series of strikes" on the city.

مشاهد للدمار في شارع الرئيس #نبيه_بري في #صور بعد غارات العدو الاسرائيلي #الجديد pic.twitter.com/IpyuiwG96r

— AL Jadeed Tv (@AlJadeed_TV) October 28, 2024

Israeli tanks thrust deeper on Monday into two north Gaza towns and a historic refugee camp, trapping around 100,000 civilians, the Palestinian emergency service said, as reported by news agency Reuters.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. 

The emergency service said its operations had ground to a halt because of the three-week-long Israeli assault back into the north.

The Gaza Strip's health ministry said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on Monday, 13 of them in the north of the shattered coastal territory.

Israel's defence ministry said on Monday it has earmarked $530 million to accelerate development of the laser air defence system known as "Iron Beam".

"The Ministry of Defence has signed a major deal worth approximately 2 billion shekels to significantly expand procurement of the laser interception systems, 'Iron Beam,'," a statement said.

Iron Beam would supplement other aerial defence capacities such as the more well-known Iron Dome.

These have been unable to intercept every projectile launched by the Lebanese armed group, resulting in both civilian and military casualties.

The defence ministry will work with defence companies Rafael and Elbit, the statement said.

It quoted ministry director general Eyal Zamir as saying he hoped the new system would "enter operational service within a year".

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is Israel's national defence research and development arm.

Defence company Elbit said in a separate statement the ministry granted it a contract worth about $200 million specifically to develop Iron Beam.

Israel announced in late September it had received a new US military aid package worth $8.7 billion, at a time when it is at war with both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The ministry said $5.2 billion of that was designated for air defence systems, including "supporting the continued development of an advanced high-powered laser defence system currently in its later stages of development".

According to news publication Al Jazeera, medical sources that Israeli raids in Gaza have killed 22 people since this morning, including 13 in the northern region of the Strip.

In a related development, Israeli Army Radio reported the detention of approximately 600 Palestinians from the Jabalia refugee camp and other areas in northern Gaza.

Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Tyre on Monday killed seven people, with the Israeli army later issuing an evacuation call for swathes of the southern coastal city.

An "Israeli enemy strike this morning on a building" in the centre of Tyre killed "seven people and wounded 17 others", a health ministry statement said, updating an earlier toll of five dead and 10 wounded.

Tyre was subjected to heavy Israeli strikes last week, leaving swathes of the centre in ruins.

The health ministry in Gaza said on Monday that at least 43,020 people have been killed in the year-long war.

The toll includes 96 deaths in the previous 48 hours, according to the ministry, which said 101,110 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, 2023.

An Israeli drone has reportedly killed a child in Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

Three civilians, including the child, lost their lives during Israeli airstrikes on the Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza.

Local sources reported that the child was targeted by a drone in Maghazi, while an artillery strike on the Bureij camp claimed two additional lives and left several others injured.

The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia was doing everything it could to try to facilitate attempts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East by urging restraint on all sides.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the comments when asked about the aftermath of Israeli strikes on Iran.

"Russia is maintaining contacts with all parties to this conflict. We have contacts with Tehran, and we have contacts with the Israelis and the Palestinians," Peskov told reporters.

"Russia is constantly doing everything possible to call on the parties to show restraint and to facilitate any attempts to de-escalate tensions.

"...There is still an extremely tense situation in the region and, of course, it is very important now to promote restraint in this regard." 

Israeli military issued on Monday an evacuation order for large swathes of Tyre, including areas already ordered to evacuate and other new ones, up to the edge of a hotel where journalists are usually based. 

Iranian media on Monday said a civilian was killed during the Israeli strikes over the weekend which targeted military sites, although authorities had not previously reported civilian deaths.

"The martyr Allahverdi Rahimpour, a civilian who was killed near Tehran during the recent attack by the Zionist regime, has been buried," the local Fars news agency reported. Tasnim news agency also reported the death.

The top commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has warned Israel it would face "bitter consequences" after its attack on Iranian military sites, local media said on Monday.

Guards chief Hossein Salami, quoted by Tasnim news agency, said Israel had "failed to achieve its ominous goals" with its air raids on Saturday.

Israel struck military sites in response to Tehran's October 1 missile attack, itself retaliation for the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.

Salami said the Israeli attack was a sign of "miscalculation and helplessness" as Israel battles Tehran-aligned militants in Gaza and Lebanon.

"Its bitter consequences will be unimaginable" for Israel, Salami warned according to Tasnim.

Iranian media have played down the severity of the Israeli operation, signalling what analysts say is the Islamic republic's reluctance to escalate further.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday said that Israel's attack which killed four soldiers "should neither be exaggerated nor minimised".

He described it as a "miscalculation" on Israel's part.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said: "We do not seek war but we will defend the rights of our nation and country."

Iran "will give an appropriate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime," Pezeshkian added.

Also on Sunday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Iran's "right to respond", also saying that Tehran had "received indications" hours before Israel's attack.

US news website Axios on Saturday said Israel has "sent message to Iran" ahead of its attack and warned it "against a response".

Iraq has condemned Israel's use of its airspace to attack neighbouring Iran in a protest letter sent to United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council, Baghdad said Monday.

A statement from government spokesman Bassim Alawadi said the letter condemns "the Zionist entity's blatant violation of Iraq's airspace and sovereignty by using Iraqi airspace to carry out an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran on October 26".

Spain’s Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has reaffirmed the country’s commitment to contributing to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

"We will remain in UNIFIL and have provided 5.5 million euros in humanitarian aid, and we will continue to support the Lebanese army," Albares announced in a post on X.

The post included a photo from his meeting in Barcelona with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.

En Barcelona me he reunido con mi homólogo de Líbano, Abdallah Bou Habib. Le he trasladado el compromiso de España con su país. Nos mantendremos en @UNIFIL_, hemos contribuido 5,5M€ ayuda humanitaria y seguiremos, damos apoyo a las Fuerzas Armadas de Líbano. pic.twitter.com/yH24ec2Lxw

— José Manuel Albares (@jmalbares) October 28, 2024

Lebanon's health ministry said Israel struck the southern city of Tyre on Monday, killing at least five people and wounding 10 others.

An "Israeli enemy strike this morning on a building" in the centre of the coastal city "led to a provisional toll of five dead and 10 wounded", a health ministry statement said.

It added that "work is ongoing to remove the rubble".

According to French news agency AFP, a video journalist saw emergency personnel rush a survivor to an ambulance on a stretcher, while other rescuers worked to put out a heavily smouldering fire at the site, where a residential apartment block had collapsed like a pancake.

Tyre, an ancient coastal city which boasts a UNESCO World Heritage site, was subjected to heavy Israeli strikes last week, leaving swathes of the centre in ruins.

Israel last month escalated air strikes and sent ground forces into Lebanon, following a year of cross-border exchanges of fire with Hezbollah over the Gaza war.

An Israeli strike targeted a residential building next to Al Jawad restaurant. 7 people are dead and 3 injured so far. There could still be more people trapped in the rubble.

Stop arming Israel.

Tyre, Lebanon pic.twitter.com/lmYwKYkhwn

— courtneybonneauimages (@cbonneauimages) October 28, 2024

Tehran will "use all available tools" to respond to Israel's weekend attack on military targets in Iran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday.

Iran previously played down Israel's air attack on Saturday, saying it caused only limited damage, while US President Joe Biden called for a halt to escalation that has raised fears of an all-out conflagration in the Middle East.

Speaking at a weekly televised news conference, Baghaei said: "(Iran) will use all available tools to deliver a definite and effective response to the Zionist regime (Israel)".

The nature of Iran's response depends on the nature of the Israeli attack, Baghaei added, without elaborating.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that Iranian officials should determine how best to demonstrate Iran's power to Israel, adding that the Isreli attack should "neither be downplayed nor exaggerated".

Scores of Israeli jets completed three waves of strikes before dawn on Saturday against missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran, Israel's military said.

The heavily armed arch-enemies have engaged in a cycle of retaliatory moves against each other for months, with Saturday's strike coming after an Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1, much of which Israel said was downed by its air defences.