Israel-Lebanon live: Family of 8 killed in Gaza refugee camp strike as 40 countries condemn peacekeeper attack
An Israeli tank fired on UN headquarters in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the organisation said
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An Israeli strike on the central Gaza Strip has killed a family of eight in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Palestinian medical officials said.
It killed the parents and their six children, who ranged in age from eight to 23, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.
It comes as 40 nations, including the UK, “strongly” condemning attacks on United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon.
On Saturday, at least 19 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the Jabalia city and refugee camp in northern Gaza, the Hamas-run civil defence agency told the AFP news agency.
A spokesperson said that a strike occurred before 9:40pm local time and had left “12 dead, including women and children”, adding that 14 people were still missing and likely trapped under the rubble
In southern Lebanon, children are among eight people killed in villages as Israel intensifies airstrikes in its fight against militant groupHezbollah.
According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, a strike on Baysarieh, a village in Sidon province, killed three people, including a 2-year-old and a 16-year-old, while another strike in the Bekaa Valley killed five more people.
The UN says that aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months
UN humanitarian officials say aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months and warn that critical lifelines in the territory’s north, where Israel has renewed its military offensive, have been cut off.
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq delivered the grim news Friday, saying the main crossings into northern Gaza have been closed and no food or other essential supplies have entered since Oct. 1. More than 400,000 people who remain in the north are under increasing pressure to move south, he said.
“The situation is terrible” across northern Gaza, Haq said, adding that the entire territory faces insecurity.
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The UN says that aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months
U.N. humanitarian officials say aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months and warn that critical lifelines in the territory’s north have been cut off
Israeli soldier urges UK to be Churchill not Chamberlain in standing against ‘evil’ Iran
A wounded Israeli soldier urged the UK not to forget the mistake of Neville Chamberlain by being more like Churchill and standing up against “the evil of Iran”.
Barak Deri, an Israeli Defence Force reservist, has been hailed as a hero in his country and is visiting London this week as part of a mission to win support for Israel’s struggle in the ongoing war on multiple fronts in the Middle East.
The 32-year-old, who was wounded and is likely to be disabled for the rest of his life, arrived in the UK with a simple warning that “Israel’s war is the West’s war” and the demand: “We cannot be quiet, we must send a clear message that another Holocaust is not an option.”
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Israeli soldier urges UK to be Churchill not Chamberlain in standing against Iran
Wounded soldier Barak Deri said his war started on 7 October last year when he faced ‘the toughest choice’ of his life
Activists risk their lives to rescue animals in areas of Lebanon hit by Israeli airstrikes
Hours after an Israeli strike destroyed a three-story building in Beirut, killing at least 10 people, Maggie Sharawi received a telephone call from a person living nearby saying that the attack had killed a cat that had several kittens.
While civil defense members were combing through the rubble for human victims or survivors, Sharawi and other members of Animals Lebanon, an animal protection organization, also rushed to the scene in Beirut’s central Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood Friday.
They began climbing through rubble, twisted metal and collapsed walls to reach the kittens. The animals, just a few days old, were pulled out, put in a plastic carrier and taken away as the rescuers continued searching for other cats whose cries could be heard emerging from under the debris.
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Activists risk their lives to rescue animals in areas of Lebanon hit by Israeli airstrikes
Animal rights activists are risking their lives in Lebanon to rescue cats, dogs and other animals harmed by Israeli airstrikes
Germany’s Nazi history has left it in turmoil over how to treat Israel
Rwo events took place last weekend in Germany. At a conference in Berlin called The Big Chill, a group of thinkers and activists denounced what they called “anticipatory obedience” in which Germans, including Jews, had been “muted, de-platformed and stigmatised” for criticising Israel’s response to the atrocities of 7 October 2023.
At the same time, in a small town called Zeitz in eastern Germany, 10 “stumbling stones”, small memorial brass plates denoting the homes of Jews taken to be exterminated in concentration camps, were ripped up. “Whoever did this wants to tear the Holocaust out of our memory,” a leading local politician, Götz Ulrich, declared.
The sad fact is both sets of assertions are largely true. And yet, it was a weekend like any other and neither event received particular coverage.
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Germany’s Nazi history has left it in turmoil over how to treat Israel
Germans have long been praised for their culture of remembrance and coming to terms with the crimes of the Nazis, writes John Kampfner. But this has turned into a level of support for Israel that is leaving many too scared to speak out about war in Gaza and Lebanon
Women and children killed in strikes on refugee camp
Israeli airstrikes flattened a residential area and killed at least 22 people including women and children in an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.
In an area where Israel’s military launched a major ground operation last week, one of the strikes late Friday destroyed an entire building, killing at least 20 people and severely damaging several nearby buildings in the center of Jabaliya camp, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
A different strike killed a mother, father and injured their baby in another part of Jabaliya, medical officials said.
First responders who rushed to the area before the strikes had ceased found a 20-meter (65-foot) deep hole within a house in the area.
At least 20 bodies had been recovered from the area as of Saturday morning, with many others said to be missing under the rubble, emergency service officials said, adding that at least six women and seven children were killed.
Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday said hospitals across Gaza received the bodies of 49 people killed over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 219 wounded. The deaths brought the death tally to 42,175 since the war began on Oct. 7 last year, with 98,339 wounded, according to the ministry.
Irish peacekeepers stood their ground in the face of an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. It’s not the first time
The 30 Irish peacekeepers carried only rifles and small arms. The Israeli force was preparing to advance with all the tools of a military superpower: tanks, aircraft, drones, heavy artillery and thousands of troops.
But when the Israelis ordered the Irish soldiers to vacate their observation post on the Lebanon-Israel border last week to clear the way for their invasion, they refused.
The incident, which sparked a tense stand-off and diplomatic spat, was just the latest in a long history of confrontations between the Israeli army and the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.
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How Irish peacekeepers stood their ground in the face of an Israeli invasion
Irish peacekeepers have a long history of putting themselves in the firing line in Lebanon — and becoming so close with locals that people speak English with a Cork accent, Richard Hall writes
Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe want Lebanon's army to reassert itself in the country's south
The leaders of nine southern European Union countries on Friday pledged support for Lebanon’s armed forces to reassert control over the country’s southern territory in hopes of bringing peace to an area plagued by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
In a joint declaration, the leaders of the so-called MED9 — Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia — said they would “continue advocating for further support to Lebanon and its people, including to the Lebanese Armed Forces which are called to play a critical stabilizing role.”
“The unfolding situation in the Middle East is gravely alarming,” the declaration said. “In light of the reverberations of the Gaza conflict on the wider region, we express our extreme concern with the escalation of the military confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah.”
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Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe want Lebanon's army to reassert itself in the country's south
The leaders of nine southern European Union countries on Friday pledged support for Lebanon’s armed forces to reassert control over the country’s southern territory in hopes of bringing peace to an area plagued by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah
Activists risk their lives to rescue animals in areas of Lebanon hit by Israeli airstrikes
Hours after an Israeli strike destroyed a three-story building in Beirut, killing at least 10 people, Maggie Sharawi received a telephone call from a person living nearby saying that the attack had killed a cat that had several kittens.
While civil defense members were combing through the rubble for human victims or survivors, Sharawi and other members of Animals Lebanon, an animal protection organization, also rushed to the scene in Beirut’s central Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood Friday.
They began climbing through rubble, twisted metal and collapsed walls to reach the kittens. The animals, just a few days old, were pulled out, put in a plastic carrier and taken away as the rescuers continued searching for other cats whose cries could be heard emerging from under the debris.
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Activists risk their lives to rescue animals in areas of Lebanon hit by Israeli airstrikes
Animal rights activists are risking their lives in Lebanon to rescue cats, dogs and other animals harmed by Israeli airstrikes
In pictures: Palestinians flee refugee camps in northern Gaza
As Hezbollah and Israel battle on the border, Lebanon's army watches from the sidelines
Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines.
It’s not the first time the national army has found itself watching war at home from the discomfiting position of bystander.
Lebanon’s widely beloved army is one of the few institutions that bridge the country’s sectarian and political divides. Several army commanders have become president, and the current commander, Gen. Joseph Aoun, is widely regarded as one of the front-runners to step in when the deadlocked parliament fills a two-year vacuum and names a president.
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As Hezbollah and Israel battle on the border, Lebanon's army watches from the sidelines
Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines
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