Lebanon’s Hezbollah says Israeli fire killed seven fighters
Beirut + GAZA ( Web News )
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah said Friday that Israeli fire killed seven of its fighters, without specifying where or when they died as border tensions persist during the Israel-Hamas war.
The group named the seven fighters in a statement stating they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem,” the phrase Hezbollah uses to mourn members – now numbering 68 – killed since border clashes with Israel began last month.
The border area between the two countries has seen daily exchanges of fire, in particular between Iran-backed group Hezbollah and Israel, since the start of the Israel-Hamas war triggered by the October 7 attacks on Israel by Gaza-based Hamas.
Earlier Friday, Israel’s military said it struck an organization in Syria, which it did not name, saying the group was behind a drone crash into a school in southern Israel a day earlier.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli strike targeted sites belonging to Hezbollah – which has fought alongside Damascus since at least 2013.
On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes killed three pro-Iran fighters as they hit sites belonging to Hezbollah near the Syrian capital Damascus, according to the Observatory with a network of sources inside Syria.
Israel has struck Syria several times in the past month.
At least 90 people have been killed on the Lebanese side in cross-border skirmishes, according to an AFP tally, most of them Hezbollah combatants.
Six soldiers and two civilians have been killed on the Israeli side.
WHO says north Gaza hospitals are under bombardment.
The biggest hospital in the Gaza Strip and another with children on life support was coming under bombardment on Friday, the World Health Organization said.
Twenty hospitals in Gaza were now out of action entirely, it said.
Asked about the Gaza health ministry’s allegation of an Israeli strike on the courtyard of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said: “I haven’t got the detail on Al Shifa but we do know they are coming under bombardment.”
She said there was also “significant bombardment” on Rantissi hospital, the only hospital providing pediatric services in North Gaza.
Asked to elaborate, she said there was “intense violence” at the Shifa site, quoting colleagues on the ground. She did not attribute blame.
Gaza families have been sheltering at the hospital, the territory’s largest, which is inside Gaza City encircled by Israeli troops. Israel says militants have headquarters in the area and has told residents to leave and go south.
The Rantissi hospital has children on life support and receiving dialysis, Harris added, saying it would be impossible to evacuate them safely.
At the same briefing, the UN humanitarian office spokesperson Jens Laerke said that there had been some “issues” getting aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which it said had been designed for pedestrians, not trucks.
Only 65 trucks carrying food, medicine, hygiene supplies and water, and seven ambulances, crossed from Egypt into Gaza on Wednesday, it said, which is a fraction of pre-conflict levels.
None of that aid can reach northern Gaza, he added.
“We cannot drive to the north at the current point which is of course deeply frustrating because we know there are several hundred thousand people who remain in the north,” said Laerke.
“If there is a hell on earth today, it’s name is northern Gaza,” he said. “It is a life of fear by day and darkness at night and what do you tell your children in such a situation, it’s almost unimaginable – that the fire they see in the sky is out to kill them?” he said.
He urged Israel to re-open the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow more aid through.
Israel has started four-hour battle pauses in the northern Gaza Strip to enable Palestinians to flee the brunt of its retaliatory attacks on the enclave following a deadly cross-border rampage by Hamas militants on October 7.
However, Laerke criticized the pauses, saying they had not been coordinated with the United Nations.
“Obviously, for this to be done safely for humanitarian purposes it has to be agreed with all parties,” he said.
He also voiced concerns about overcrowding in Gazan shelters, as tens of thousands of people stream southwards.
“It can only make the situation of overcrowding in UNRWA facilities – and thank god for them – it can only make it worse,” he said, referring to the UN Palestinian refugee agency which operates shelters for displaced Gazans.
Israel revises down death toll from October 7 Hamas attack
Israel on Friday revised down the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks in southern Israel from 1,400 to 1,200, according to a foreign ministry spokesman.
“This is the updated number. It is due to the fact that there were lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists … not Israeli casualties,” ministry spokesman Lior Haiat told AFP.
Israel previously said Hamas fighters who poured across the heavily militarized border on October 7 killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
But in an unrelated statement on Friday that was critical of the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO, Haiat said Hamas murdered “about 1,200 people.”
Haiat separately confirmed the new toll in a statement to AFP.
Since the October 7 attacks, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Over 11,000 people have since been killed in retaliatory strikes in Gaza by Israel, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
Evacuations from Gaza into Egypt suspended on Friday
Evacuations from the Gaza Strip into Egypt for foreign passport holders and for Palestinians needing urgent medical treatment were suspended on Friday, three Egyptian security sources and a Palestinian official said.
The Palestinian official and an Egyptian medical source said the suspension was due to problems bringing medical evacuees to the Rafah border crossing from inside Gaza.
Limited evacuations from Gaza to Egypt began on Nov. 1 and were paused twice in the past week due to bombardments that aid staff said hit or targeted medical convoys.
The Egyptian sources said several dozen foreign passport holders and their dependents as well as a small number of medical evacuees had entered Egypt on Friday before crossings were suspended.
On other days, several hundred foreign passport holders, dual nationals and dependents had been crossing.
Early on Friday, Gaza border authorities published a list of those newly authorized to cross, including groups from Canada, Romania, Russia, Brazil and Poland.
Israeli strike on Gaza City school kills at least 20: Al Shifa hospital director
The director of Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, told Reuters on Friday that at least 20 Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli strike on Al-Buraq school in Gaza city.
The biggest hospital in the Gaza Strip and another with children on life support was coming under bombardment on Friday, the World Health Organization earlier said.
Twenty hospitals in Gaza were now out of action entirely, it said.
Asked about the Gaza health ministry’s allegation of an Israeli strike on the courtyard of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said: “I haven’t got the detail on Al Shifa but we do know they are coming under bombardment.”
She said there was also “significant bombardment” on Rantissi hospital, the only hospital providing pediatric services in North Gaza.
At least 11,078, including 4,506 children, killed in Israel strikes on Gaza
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that 11,078 people have been killed in five weeks of Israeli military campaign targeting the militant group since October 7.
The death toll includes 4,506 children, a health ministry statement said, while 27,490 people have been wounded in the war, which erupted with deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel.
Israel launched an offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters poured across the militarized border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages.