Israeli airstrikes killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past day, including 11 at a makeshift cafeteria in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, medics said. In Lebanon, warplanes struck Beirut’s southern suburbs and killed 33 people elsewhere in the country on Tuesday.
The latest bombardment came as the United States said it would not reduce its military support for Israel after a deadline passed for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The State Department cited some progress, even as international aid groups said Israel had failed to meet the U.S. demands.
In Lebanon, large explosions shook Beirut’s southern suburbs — an area known as Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah has a significant presence — soon after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for 11 houses there.
There was no immediate word on casualties. The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure, including command centers and weapons production sites, without providing evidence.
Another Israeli strike on an apartment building east of Beirut killed at least six people. Wael Murtada said the destroyed home belonged
to his uncle and that those inside had fled from the Dahiyeh last month. He said three children were among the dead and other people were missing.
An Israeli airstrike on a residential building in central Lebanon killed 15 people, including eight women and four children, and wounded at least 12 others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. The strike came without warning, and state media said the building was sheltering displaced families.
Israel has been carrying out intensified bombardment of Lebanon since late September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and stop more than a year of cross-border fire by the Lebanese militant group.
A rocket exploded in a storage building in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya on Tuesday, killing two people, first responders said. Another two people were wounded by shrapnel in a separate impact outside the town.
A Hezbollah drone smashed into a nursery school near the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Tuesday morning, but the children were inside a bomb shelter and there were no injuries. The impact scattered debris across the playground.
At the same time, Israel has continued its 13-month campaign in Gaza set off by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel.
An Israeli strike late Monday hit a makeshift cafeteria used by displaced people in Muwasi, the center of a “humanitarian zone” that Israel’s military declared earlier in the war.
At least 11 people were killed, including two children, according to officials at Nasser Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Video from the scene showed men pulling bloodied wounded from among tables and chairs set up in the sand in an enclosure made of corrugated metal sheets.
A strike on a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun killed 15 people on Tuesday, including relatives of Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat, who has been reporting from the north.
Mohamed Shabat and his wife Dima, both volunteer doctors at Kamal Adwan Hospital, were killed along with their daughter Eliaa, according to hospital director Hossam Abu Safiya.
On the other hand, Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed 33 people across the country on Tuesday, among them many who had been displaced by the intensified conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
The attacks targeted not only known Hezbollah strongholds such as the southern suburbs of Beirut, but also areas where the Iran-backed group has not traditionally had a presence.
The health ministry said a strike on a town in the Chouf region south of Beirut killed at least 15 people, revising a previous toll upwards from 12.
"The Israeli raid on Joun in the Chouf district resulted... in the death of 15 martyrs, including eight women and four children," it said.
Twelve others were wounded in the strike, the ministry added.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said the building had housed displaced people fleeing bombardment by Israel in its war against Hezbollah.
The health ministry said a strike a few kilometres further north in the mountainous Aley region east of the capital killed eight people.
A security source told AFP the attack had hit a house where people displaced in the war had taken refuge.
The ministry also reported one dead in an Israeli strike in the Tyre area in south Lebanon.
Elsewhere in the south of the country, the ministry reported strikes on the towns of Tefahta and Roumin killed seven people.
Attacks on the Hermel region in the Bekaa Valley in the east of the country bordering Syria killed another two people.
Nabatiyeh, the largest city in the south, again came under attack. Last month, Israeli strikes razed its historic marketplace and killed the mayor.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it fired missiles at an air base near Tel Aviv, following a wave of Israeli air strikes on the group's south Beirut bastion.
Israel reported two people killed in the northern town of Nahariya by rocket fire from Lebanon.
Since September 23, Israel has stepped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut and in the east and south of the country. On September 30, it sent in ground troops.
Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds have often targeted buildings where displaced civilians have sought refuge, with Lebanese security officials telling AFP the targets were Hezbollah operatives.
On Tuesday morning Israel launched more than a dozen air strikes on south Beirut, state media said, shortly after its military warned residents of four districts to evacuate.
- Thousands killed in Lebanon -
Israel's military said it had hit "Hezbollah terrorist targets" in south Beirut including "command centres, weapons production sites, and additional Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure".
Witnesses told AFP they heard gunfire in the area ahead of the strikes -- warning shots by residents for people to leave following the evacuation call.
The Lebanon war came after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
With little sign of an end to the conflict, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix met Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut on Tuesday as part of a visit aimed at boosting calls for a ceasefire.
More than 3,300 people have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according to the health ministry, the majority of them since late September.
