Israel strikes Lebanon and Gaza, killing dozens in waves of airstrikes

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel has launched dozens of intensive programs airstrikes over Lebanon farming villages in the northeast on Friday, killing at least 52 people and injuring several, Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported.

In Central GazaPalestinians have recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli airstrikes that began Thursday, hospital officials said.

The latest violence comes amid a renewed diplomatic push by the US president Joe Bidenhis administration, days before presidential electionsto reach temporary ceasefire agreements.

Israel’s emergency services said seven people were wounded before dawn on Saturday in an attack in central Tira. Three projectiles entered Israel from Lebanon, the Israeli military said, and some were intercepted.

Magen David Adom said two of the wounded were in moderate condition from the attack, and the others had minor injuries. A photo released by the service showed damage to what appeared to be an apartment block.

Israel has stepped up its offensive against the remaining Hamas fighters in Gaza, northern spray areas and raising fears of worsening humanitarian conditions for civilians still there.

In Lebanon, Israel has expanded its attacks in recent weeks to larger urban centers such as the city of Baalbekwhich is home to 80,000 people, after initially targeting smaller southern border villages where Hezbollah operates.

Iran-backed Hezbollah is becoming a major political party and provider of social services in Lebanon.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and rockets from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas soon after The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel led by Hamaswhich started the war in Gaza. The year-long cross-border fighting turned into full-blown war on October 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion from southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

In Bekaa Valley in Lebanon — where the small villages, olive groves and wineries nestled among the country’s mountain ranges had been largely spared the worst of Israeli bombardment until recently — Israel carried out a series of heavy airstrikes on Friday, killing at least 52 people, leading several families to flee with whatever they had. could carry and send thick plumes of smoke over the horizon.

Intensification of Israeli airstrikes on and around the northeastern city of Baalbek after Israel issued evacuation warnings prompted 60,000 people to flee, emptying nearby villages, said Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region.

In Lebanon, rescuers searched for survivors after airstrikes killed nine people and brought down a building housing 20 people in the town of Younine. Other Israeli strikes killed 12 people in the town of Amhaz and another 31 in at least a dozen villages in northeastern Lebanon, bringing the total death toll to 52, the Health Ministry said. The bombing injured 72, the ministry added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the deadly strikes.

In the capital of Lebanon, Israeli planes hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight and early Friday for the first time in four days, spreading panic after a rare break. The Israeli military, which warned residents to evacuate at least nine locations in Dahiyeh, said it had struck Hezbollah’s weapons manufacturing sites and command centers.

No casualties were reported from Dahiyeh, where fears of Israeli shelling prompt a mass exodus of residents each night.

Bulldozers rumbled through clouds of dust and smoke Friday, clearing debris from sprayed roads where Israeli warplanes reduced dozens of buildings to their skeletal remains.

Formerly home to families and businesses, the mid-rise apartment blocks were left open to the breeze, walls blown in and furniture buried. Hezbollah supporters in several locations he raised the group’s bright yellow banner above the rubble.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in 2023, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 injured in Lebanon, the Health Ministry said, not including Friday’s rising toll. Health authorities say a quarter of those killed were women and children.

In general, United Nations agencies estimate that Israel’s ground invasion and bombing of Lebanon had displaced 1.4 million people. Residents of Israel’s northern communities near Lebanon, about 60,000 people, were also displaced for more than a year.

Hezbollah continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, with projectiles fired from Lebanon on Thursday landing in agricultural areas and killing seven peopleincluding four Thai farm workers.

Israel also continued its bombardment of Gaza on Friday, where a barrage of airstrikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and killed at least 21 Palestinians, including an 18-month-old child and his 10-year-old sister, according to health officials. at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Israeli strikes also hit a motorcycle in Zuwaida and a house in Deir al-Balah, killing four more people, hospital officials said, bringing Friday’s total death toll in Gaza to 25.

Israel said it targeted Hamas infrastructure and a militant operating near the Nuseirat refugee camp, but did not comment on strikes outside the camp. It said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was investigating. In a separate announcement, the military said an airstrike on a vehicle in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis killed a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, Izz al-Din Kassab, and his aide, Ayman Ayesh.

Hamas confirmed the death of Kassab, who was not well known to the public. Israel claimed to have been a coordinator between militant groups in Gaza.

As US diplomats left the region after a series of meetings with Israeli officials, there were no signs of a ceasefire being discovered either in Lebanon or Gaza.

On Friday, Hamas doubled down on its long-standing demands for a permanent ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, saying Israel had offered only a temporary pause in the war and an increase in aid shipments in the latest negotiations. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

“The proposals do not meet the comprehensive needs of the Palestinian people in terms of security, stability, relief and reconstruction,” senior Hamas official Bassem Naem said, speaking first on Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV before confirming group position for The. Associated Press.

Israel’s raging war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza.

Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of the dead in the enclave are women and children.

Israeli forces have recently turned their attention to Hamas militants who they say have regrouped in northern Gaza, renewing an offensive that has it caught tens of thousands of people under intense bombardment without sufficient food or water.

Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly prevented a emergency polio vaccination campaignwhich the World Health Organization announced it plans to resume on Saturday, but only in Gaza City. Towns further north, such as Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, remain inaccessible as Israel tightens its siege.

The UN and other humanitarian organizations warned on Friday that “the situation unfolding in northern Gaza is apocalyptic”, citing Israel’s denial of humanitarian aid in the area, military raids on hospitals, airstrikes on shelters and obstructing Palestinian rescue teams who are struggling to help survivors after Israeli attacks.

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Bassem Mroue from Beirut; David Rising in Bangkok; Isabel DeBre of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Edith Lederer of New York; and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.