UN on Gaza death toll: 70 percent are women and children

The live blog has now ended and will be back at 9am GMT. You can read more of The New Arab's coverage of Israel's war on Gaza here, and on Lebanon here.

There is a "strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas" of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel besieges the area.

"Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation," the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.

The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid. 

(Reuters)

Hamas's armed wing the Qassam Brigades said that it had attacked the Israeli army in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City with mortar rounds, with Palestinian Islamic Jihad also announcing it had also targeted the Israeli army in the Netzarim corridor with mortar rounds, according to Al Jazeera.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 3,117 people, and wounded 13,888 others since October 2023, Lebanon's health ministry said on Friday. 

(Reuters)

UN peacekeepers on Friday accused the Israeli army of damaging one of their south Lebanon positions in a "deliberate and direct" action against their forces.

The incident which occurred on Thursday, is like "seven other similar incidents" carried out by the Israeli army, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said in a statement.

It "is not a matter of peacekeepers getting caught in the crossfire, but of deliberate and direct actions by the" Israeli army, it said.

Israel sent ground troops in to southern Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in late September.

Two excavators and one bulldozer "destroyed part of a fence and a concrete structure in a UNIFIL position in Ras Naqura," UNIFIL said.

"We also note with concern the destruction and removal this week of two of the blue barrels that mark the UN-delineated line of withdrawal between Lebanon and Israel," it said, noting that peacekeepers "directly observed" the Israeli army removing one of them.

Last month, a UNIFIL spokesman said the force had recorded more than 30 incidents in October resulting in property damage or injury to peacekeepers, about 20 of them from Israeli fire or action.

"Despite the unacceptable pressures being exerted on the mission through various channels, peacekeepers will continue to undertake our mandated monitoring and reporting tasks," UNIFIL said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday he had ordered the Mossad spy agency to draw up a plan to prevent unrest at events abroad following violence after a football match in Amsterdam.

"I have instructed the head of the Mossad (David Barnea) and other officials to prepare our courses of action, our alert system and our organisation for a new situation," Netanyahu said in a video statement during a meeting at the foreign ministry to oversee the evacuation of Israelis from Amsterdam.

The Israeli military said on Friday it was planning to reopen the Kissufim crossing into central Gaza to increase the flow of aid into the southern end of the Gaza Strip.

The move comes amid growing international pressure on Israel to get more aid into Gaza, where aid agencies have warned of a gathering humanitarian crisis in the north of the enclave, where Israeli troops have been conducting a major operation for more than a month.

The new crossing would be opened following engineering work over recent weeks by army engineers to build inspection points and paved roads, the army said.

Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli officials demanding concrete measures to address the worsening situation in the Palestinian enclave.

The letter, which was posted to the internet by a reporter from Axios, gave the Israeli government 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Among the demands included in the letter was for the opening of a fifth crossing into Gaza. 

(Reuters)

Hezbollah said its fighters launched missiles at an air base in central Israel on Friday, the latest attack by the Iran-backed group in more than a month of war.

Hezbollah said it "targeted the Tel Nof Air Base, south of Tel Aviv... with a salvo of advanced missiles."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Yechiel Leiter, an official who previously served as chief of staff in the finance ministry, as the next Israeli ambassador to the United States.

(Reuters)

Yemen's Houthis targeted Israel's southern Nevatim Airbase with a hypersonic ballistic rocket called "Palestine 2" and downed early on Friday a US MQ-9 Reaper in the airspace of the Yemeni province of al-Jawf, the group's military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said on Friday.

(Reuters)

Gaza's Ministry of Health has announced that 39 Palestinians have been killed and a further 123 have been wounded in the past 24 hours as a result of Israeli attacks on the enclave.

The ministry also announced that the total number of people killed since the outbreak of war in the enclave is now 43,508 people, with a further 102,684 wounded.

The Israeli military said on Friday it had banned all its personnel from travelling to the Netherlands after several Israelis were injured in clashes after a Europa League football match in Amsterdam.

"Following an assessment of the situation, the army forbids all personnel serving in the army from travelling to the Netherlands until further notice," the military said in a statement.

Israeli shelling on the north Gaza town of Beit Lahia has killed four Palestinians, according to reports from Wafa, with others being according to the report.

An Israeli reserve soldier has died following wounds he suffered during Israel's invasion of south Lebanon two weeks ago, according to the Israeli military. In the same incident five other soldiers were killed and a dozen wounded.

Lebanon state media said the Israeli army on Friday detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages in south Lebanon.

"Since this morning, the Israeli enemy's army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area, with the aim of destroying residential homes there," the official National News Agency said, the latest in a string of similar incidents that have impacted the flashpoint border area.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he hoped US President-elect Donald Trump will tell Israel to "stop" its war efforts, suggesting a good start would be halting US arms support to Israel.

"Trump has made promises to end conflicts... We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told to 'stop'," Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from Budapest, according to an official readout.

"Mr. Trump cutting off the arms support provided to Israel could be a good start in order to stop the Israeli aggression in Palestinian and Lebanese lands," he was cited as saying.

Turkey has fiercely criticised Israel's offensives in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and in Lebanon, and has halted trade with Israel as well as applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court. Israel strongly denies the genocide accusations.

Trump's presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdogan said, adding that pursuing current US policies would deepen deadlock in the region and spread the conflict.

An adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned against launching an "instinctive" response to Israeli air strikes on the Islamic republic last month.

"Israel aims to bring the conflict to Iran. We must act wisely to avoid its trap and not react instinctively," the adviser, Ali Larijani, told state television late Thursday.

"Our actions and reactions are strategically defined, so we must avoid instinctive or emotional responses and remain entirely rational," Larijani added.

The former parliament speaker also praised Nasrallah for accepting a ceasefire during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war rather than making an "emotional decision".

On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said a potential ceasefire between Tehran's allies and Israel could affect Iran's response to the Israeli strikes from the 26 October.

Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President-elect Donald Trump, will not return to the White House, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

Kushner could advise on Middle East policy, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

(Reuters)

Hezbollah said it targeted a naval base near the Israeli city of Haifa with missiles Friday, the second such attack in less than 24 hours.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group said it targeted the "Stella Maris" naval base northwest of Haifa with a missile barrage, "in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the Israeli enemy."

The group had on Thursday claimed another attack on the same area.

In a separate statement, the group claimed that it had also targeted the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, with missiles.

The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday nearly 70 percent of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

The UN count covers the first seven months of the Israel's war on the Gaza Strip that began more than a year ago.

The 8,119 victims verified by the UN Rights Office in that seven-month period is considerably lower than the toll of over 43,000 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the full 13 months of conflict.

But the UN breakdown of the victims' age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.

This finding indicates "a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality," the UN rights office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.

"It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

Israel did not immediately comment on the report's findings.