Israel-Hamas war latest: Two-day death toll from Israeli strikes in Lebanon reaches 564

Lebanese health authorities on Tuesday raised the death toll from two days of Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah militants to 564. Palestinian officials in Gaza, meanwhile, said new Israeli strikes killed at least two dozen people.

Israel’s military says it will do “whatever is necessary” to push Hezbollah away from Lebanon’s border with Israel. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since the Israel-Hamas war began. On Monday, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes in southern and eastern Lebanon, killing nearly 500 people and wounding more than 1,600 others.

Thousands of people fled southern Lebanon, jamming the main highway to Beirut in the biggest exodus since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

It’s a staggering toll for a country still reeling from a deadly attack on communication devices the week before. Lebanon blamed the attacks on Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny its responsibility.

Hezbollah again launched some 100 projectiles toward Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli military said.

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Here’s the latest:

Britain sends troops to prepare for possible evacuation of its citizens from Lebanon

LONDON — Britain will send 700 troops to the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus as it prepares for the possible evacuation of its citizens from Lebanon.

Cyprus is located across a strip of water from Lebanon, and Beirut harbor has been used before to evacuate foreign nationals by sea from Lebanon. During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, tens of thousands of foreigners were evacuated by sea to Cyprus in a fleet of commercial and military vessels, many supplied by American, British, European and other naval forces.

The British troops and members of the Border Force were to arrive Wednesday, even as the government made repeated appeals for its nationals to immediately evacuate Lebanon. Britain retains sovereign military base areas in Cyprus, which are considered its territory.

“We continue to urge all sides to step back from conflict to prevent further tragic loss of life. Our government is ensuring all preparations are in place to support British Nationals should the situation deteriorate,” said British Defense Secretary John Healey.

“The Royal Air Force also have aircraft and transport helicopters on standby to provide support if necessary,” Healy said.

Hezbollah confirms the death of one of its top commanders, Ibrahim Kobeisi

BEIRUT — Hezbollah on Tuesday confirmed the death of one of its top commanders, Ibrahim Kobeisi, who was killed in an Israeli strike in a southern Beirut suburb.

The strike hit three floors of a six-story building. It was Israel’s third strike over Beirut in less than a week

Kobeisi is the first member of the militant group pronounced dead since Israel and Hezbollah entered a more intense phase of the ongoing conflict.

Israel said Kobeisi was a top Hezbollah commander with the group’s rocket and missile unit. Israeli military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for launches towards Israel and planned a 2000 attack in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed.

It was the latest in a string of assassinations and setbacks for Hezbollah, the strongest political and military actor in Lebanon and widely considered the top paramilitary force in the Arab world.

Iran’s president urges the U.S. to begin a new era of relations with Iran

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged the U.S. to begin a new era in its relations with Iran.

While criticizing the U.S. military presence in Iran’s neighborhood, the U.S. sanctions against Iran, and the killing of Iranian top Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, Pezeshkian said during his speech at the U.N. General Assembly, “We can go beyond these limits and begin a new era. The new era begins by recognizing Iran’s security concerns as well as joint work on joint issues.”

He said his message addresses all governments that follow unconstructive strategies toward Iran.

Pezeshkian said despite the bitterness of years of sanctions, Iran has achieved strong will and self-confidence and is ready to work with the world, “Iran is ready to have economic, political and security equal-base cooperation for building a better world with world powers and neighbors.”

He said Iran expects that the world does not answer Iran’s message for cooperation by imposing more sanctions, “Implementations of (world) commitments for lifting sanctions, improving the economic situation for people of Iran, paving the ground for more agreements.”

Pezeshkian also urged the international community to work toward a permanent cease-fire as soon as possible and to “stop Israeli insane brutality in Lebanon before it sets the region and the world on fire.”

Pezeshkian reiterated that his country is against the Russia-Ukraine war and supports any peaceful solution to end the war and added that Iran “believes that this crisis will end only through dialogue.”

Israeli airstrikes in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza injure many, including children

DEIR AL BALAH, the Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza left multiple Palestinians injured, including children, who were rushed to Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals.

AP footage shows two children with face injuries rushed inside Al-Aqsa hospital, while a man lying on a stretcher inside an ambulance was wailing in pain as two other men were lying face down. Several children were brought in with injuries to their legs and faces.

At the hospital morgue, a mother is seen crying and bidding farewell to her twin sons, Osama and Bilal Fayad, two young men who were killed in the strikes in Nuseirat.

“I raised those two boys.. they were killed together after being struck,” said their father Ahmed Fayad. “They were born together and died together.”

Over a dozen people gathered outside the hospital to perform a funeral prayer as the bodies of the twins were in front of them on the ground wrapped in white shrouds before they were loaded onto a motorbike to be taken for burial.

The strike that killed the Fayad twins in Nuseirat camp also killed three women and injured over 20 people were also injured, according to Awda hospital, where they were taken.

The Israeli strikes in Nuseirat and Bureij camps on Tuesday killed a total of 29 Palestinians, including 14 children and 6 women, hospital officials told the AP.

Israel’s military identifies 3 drones crossing from Lebanon into Israel

TEL AVIV — The Israeli military says three drones were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israel a short while ago, setting off sirens in coastal towns just south of Haifa — more than 50 km (31 miles) from the border with Lebanon. It said two of the drones were intercepted. There were no reports of injuries.

Altogether, more than 300 projectiles have been launched today from Lebanon at northern Israel, according to the Israeli military.

The army said strikes will continue in Lebanon. In the last two hours, Israeli jets carried out a “number of extensive strikes” on targets in the Bekaa region and in southern Lebanon, according to the army, hitting rocket launchers and infrastructure that the army says was used to store weapons.

Turkey’s president accuses Israel of carrying out ‘a clear genocide’ and calls on UN to impose sanctions

UNITED NATIONS — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly he wanted to state “loudly and clearly” that the Israeli government is disregarding human rights, trampling on international law, and “is practicing ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians.

He also accused Israel at Tuesday’s opening of the annual global gathering of carrying out “a clear genocide against a nation a people, and occupying their lands, step by step.”

“Israel’s behavior has once again demonstrated that it is imperative for the international community to develop a protection mechanism for Palestinian civilians,” Erdogan said. “70 years ago, just as Hitler was stopped by an alliance of humanity, (Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and his murder network must be stopped, must be stopped by an alliance of humanity.”

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon called Erdogan’s remarks “shameful” and told reporters the reference to Hitler is “beyond imagination.”

Erdogan called for the Security Council to impose “coercive measures against Israel” – U.N. language for sanctions – and said the General Assembly should recommend the use of force to achieve an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, the exchange of prisoners, and the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid.

In language aimed at Israel’s supporters, especially the United States, Erdogan said their backing “is the reason why this aggression is still going on” in Gaza.

While “supposedly working for a cease-fire,” he said, they continue to send arms and ammunition to Israel.

The U.S., Qatar and Egypt have been working for months for a cease-fire in Gaza, and the United States has blamed Hamas for refusing the latest deal. But Erdogan claimed it’s Israel “that doesn’t want peace, by constantly dragging its feet making a settlement much more difficult, almost impossible.”

Israel’s UN envoy says Israel does not want to send troops into Lebanon but will do what is necessary to halt Hezbollah fire

UNITED NATIONS — Israel’s envoy to the U.N. says his country doesn’t want to send troops into Lebanon but will do “whatever necessary” to halt the Hezbollah rocket fire that has driven tens of thousands of Israelis from their country’s north.

Asked during at a news conference Tuesday at U.N. headquarters whether Israel was contemplating a ground invasion of its northern neighbor, Ambassador Danny Danon said his country is “not eager to start any ground invasion anywhere.”

“We prefer a diplomatic solution. But if it’s not working, we are using other methods to show the other side that we mean business,” he said.

“We will do whatever necessary to bring the residents back to the north,” he added.

He spoke in a week that has seen rapid intensification of hostilities between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, including a wave of Israeli airstrikes that killed more than 550 Lebanese on Monday.

At the same time, Israel is nearly a year into its fight with Hamas militants in Gaza. The war was launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack but has drawn criticism from many countries for the extent of death, destruction and suffering in the Palestinian territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still plans to come to the U.N. to speak Friday at the General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders, Danon said. But he noted that “things are dynamic,” and an update on Netanyahu’s plans could come Wednesday.

Israel’s Defense Minister says forces are ready to carry out more strikes after Hezbollah suffers ‘extremely severe blows’

TEL AVIV — Israel’s Defense Minister said Tuesday that Hezbollah has suffered “extremely severe blows” and Israel has “more strikes ready.”

Speaking to troops after an IDF drill that simulated a ground offensive in Lebanon, Yoav Gallant said “The Hezbollah of today is not the Hezbollah of a week ago. The sequence of blows it faced in its command and control, its operatives, its weapons — all these things are extremely severe blows.”

Mourners carry bodies through streets in Lebanon, some draped in Hezbollah flags

SAKSAKIEH, Lebanon — In the Lebanese village of Saksakieh, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the Lebanon-Israel border, mourners carried 11 bodies through the streets Tuesday, including those of four women, an infant and a 7-year old girl. All had been killed in Israel’s bombardment of the village the day before. Israeli strikes killed more than 560 people across Lebanon in two days.

Some of the bodies were draped in Hezbollah flags, others wrapped in black clothes. A wreath of flowers had been placed on top of the smallest one.

Mohammad Halal, the father of 7-year-old Joury Halal, said his daughter was an “innocent child martyr.”

“She is a martyr for the sake of the south and Palestine,” Halal said and defiantly stated his allegiance to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

US officials in talks with allies to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Hezbollah

NEW YORK — White House principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said Tuesday that Biden administration officials were in talks with allies to help find an off-ramp to the escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

“We’re working on that in real time right here in New York and in capitals around the world,” Finer said in an appearance at an event hosted by the news site Axios on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

“We’re not going to reveal all the details of those sensitive conversations, but we very much want that conflict to de-escalate.”

Finer sidestepped questions about whether the fighting has already become the all-out war that the U.S. had been pressing Israel to avoid with Lebanon as it continues its nearly yearlong conflict in Gaza. But he underscored that a “big war, a wider war” is in neither Israel’s nor Lebanon’s interest.

A new airstrike in central Gaza kills 10 people, hospital says

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Another Israeli airstrike in a central Gaza refugee camp on Tuesday killed 10 Palestinians, including four people from the same family, and injured 11 others, according to Al-Awda Hospital.

The strike hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where six people including three women were killed in an earlier airstrike.

The dead and wounded were taken to Al-Awda Hospital.

Israeli military says it killed a top commander in Hezbollah missile unit

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has killed a commander with Hezbollah’s missile and rocket unit in a strike in Beirut.

It said Ibrahim Kobeisi, who it said was responsible for launches toward Israel, was killed Tuesday.

The military said “other key commanders” were with Kobeisi at the time of the strike, but it did not say whether any of them had been killed or injured.

Lebanese woman working for the UNHCR, her son and a cleaner killed in Israeli airstrikes, the UN agency says

BEIRUT — The U.N. refugee agency in Lebanon says a Lebanese woman who had been working for the agency for 12 years, one of her sons and a cleaner employed by the agency have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.

The building where Dina Darwiche lived with her family was hit in a strike on Lebanon’s Bekaa region on Monday, UNHCR said. Her husband and another child were seriously injured. Her body and that of her younger son were recovered from the rubble on Tuesday.

Ali Basma, who worked as a cleaner for the agency for seven years, was killed in a separate strike in the south. He worked at UNHCR’s office in the city of Tyre.

The U.N. refugee agency said it was “outraged and deeply saddened by the killing of two beloved members of the UNHCR family in Lebanon.”

It said the protection of civilians is a must under international humanitarian law.

An Israeli airstrike hits a building in southern Beirut, Hezbollah’s TV station says

BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike hit a building in a southern Beirut suburb on Tuesday afternoon, a Hezbollah TV station reported. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Later, Israel’s military said it had carried out a “targeted strike” in Beirut, without elaborating. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said “a number of people” were injured in the strike , which destroyed three floors of a six-story apartment building.

Al-Manar TV, which belongs to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, said the strike occurred in the suburb of Ghobeiri, without giving any details.

The attack came after a Monday evening airstrike missed Ali Karaki, Hezbollah’s top military commander in south Lebanon, the group said.

An Israeli airstrike on a nearby area on Friday killed 55 people, including top Hezbollah military commander Ibrahim Akil and 15 other Hezbollah members.

Israeli military reports 10 more rockets fired from Lebanon

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said on Tuesday afternoon that 10 more rockets from Lebanon were fired into Israeli territory, injuring a reservist and raining shrapnel onto a road in northern Israel.

The rockets came in two volleys, the first targeting the Upper Galilee area and the second an area south of Haifa known as Eliakim. Rocket fragments from a rocket that was intercepted injured the Israeli soldier, the military said.

Hezbollah said it had fired middle-range rockets at an Israeli army position in Eliakim.

Israel’s military has now said that there have been at least 110 rockets fired into Israeli territory from Lebanon since Tuesday morning. Israeli strikes on the other side of the border have killed over 550 people since Monday.

Another Israeli strike in central Gaza kills at least 6 people, including 3 women, Gaza medics say

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip— Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli airstrike hit a family house in central Gaza on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least six people, including three women .

The strike occurred in the Nuseirat refugee camp and also wounded 21 others, according to the Awda hospital in the camp, where the casualties were taken.

Footage circulated online showing a woman screaming and rushing to a building that was hit. A man was seen lying on the ground, without moving and bleeding from his head. There were several other people lying on the ground nearby.

Lebanon’s health ministry raises two-day death toll from Israeli strikes to 558

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that the death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon over the past two days of escalation has reached 558, including 50 children and 94 women.

Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters that 1,835 people have also been wounded since early Monday. They were taken to 54 hospitals around Lebanon, he said.

Abiad added that four paramedics were among those killed, and 16 paramedics and firefighters were among the wounded.

A journalist working for a pan-Arab television is killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon, the station says

BEIRUT — A journalist working for the pan-Arab network Al-Mayadeen was killed in Israeli airstrikes while he was at his home in southern Lebanon, the network said Tuesday.

Hadi Al-Sayyed, 22, is the third journalist from the network killed in the ongoing conflict between the Israeli military and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. The network said he was wounded on Monday and died of his wounds on Tuesday.

According to the TV station, Al-Sayyed worked for the Al-Mayadeen’s online section and was at his house in the town of Burj Rahhal near the southern city of Tyre when it was hit in the airstrike.

Last November, Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Al-Maamari were killed in an Israeli strike while covering southern Lebanon.

Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah was killed in Israeli shelling last October while covering the clashes alongside colleagues from the news agency as well as reporters from Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV and France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse. His colleagues were all wounded but survived the attack.

Bombardment from Lebanon hits supermarket in Arab town in northern Israel

JERUSALEM — Bombardment from Lebanon on Tuesday damaged a supermarket in Israel’s Arab city of Tamra, where the majority of residents are Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The attack spread fear through the community, which has no shelters. It was not immediately clear whether the supermarket was hit by a rocket that permeated Israel’s missile defense system or by shrapnel falling from an interception.

“I came here immediately to see what exactly happened,” said Jamal Diab, a friend of the market’s owner. “I saw here lots of damage.”

Tamra has no shelters, according to its mayor, Mousa Abu Rumi. An Israeli state comptroller’s report found in 2018 that only 11 out of 71 Arab local communities have public shelters.

He told The Associated press that Tamra’s residents have been instructed to find “the most protected place” nearby to seek shelter when they hear rocket sirens go off.

A hospital in central Gaza says it received bodies of two Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — A hospital in central Gaza said the bodies of two children killed in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday were brought there.

The Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp said the strike hit a group of people in the nearby Bureij camp, and also wounded six other Palestinians.

The Health Ministry in the coastal territory, meanwhile, said Gaza’s hospitals received 12 dead and 43 wounded Palestinians over the last 24 hours.

The latest fatalities brought the overall death toll in Gaza since the war began on Oct. 7 to 41,467, and 95,921 wounded, said the ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count.

Israel’s military says 100 rockets fired from Lebanon since early morning in second day of intense escalation

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said that 100 rockets had been fired from Lebanon into northern Israel since the early hours of Tuesday morning, setting several fires and damaging buildings in the country’s north in the second day of much-intensified hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

The rockets came in five volleys throughout the morning, the largest of them containing 50 rockets toward the Upper Galilee area. The military said it had struck the launchers where the rockets were fired. Another heavily-targeted area was southeast of the Israeli city of Haifa.

Rocket sirens blared throughout the morning in the country’s north. A video circulating on Israeli media showed explosions on a highway, with drivers pulling over and lying on the ground next to their vehicles.

Galilee Medical Center, a northern Israel hospital, said that two patients arrived to the hospital with minor head injuries from a rocket falling near their car. Several others were being treated for light wounds from running to shelters and traffic accidents when alarms sounded.

Hezbollah has been sending heavy volleys of rockets into Israel as Israel intensifies its operation in Lebanon. In Monday, Israeli strikes killed nearly 500 people, Lebanese health officials say, and Israel’s military ordered the south of the country evacuated.

Southern Lebanese families find shelters farther north as they flee violence near the border

BEIRUT — Lebanese families displaced from villages farther south slept in shelters hastily set up in schools in Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon. Some who did not find shelter elsewhere slept in cars and parks and on the seaside corniche.

Monday’s heavy bombardment sent thousands fleeing from south Lebanon. Hotels in Beirut were quickly booked to capacity and apartments in the mountains surrounding the capital were snapped up by families seeking safe accommodations.

Some offered up empty apartments or rooms in their houses in social media posts, while volunteers set up a kitchen at an empty gas station in Beirut to cook meals for the displaced.

In the eastern city of Baalbek, the state-run National News Agency reported that lines formed at bakeries and gas stations as residents rushed to stock up on essential supplies in anticipation of another round of strikes on Tuesday.

Satellite data shows a wide range of Israeli airstrikes targeted southern Lebanon

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Data from fire-tracking satellites used by the United States showed the wide range of Israeli airstrikes that target southern Lebanon, an Associated Press analysis Tuesday showed.

NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System typically is used by experts to track wildfires across rural areas of the U.S. However, they also can be used to track the flashes and burning that follow airstrikes. That’s particularly true when an airstrike ignites flammable material on the ground, like munitions or fuel.

On Monday, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes in southern and eastern Lebanon, killing nearly 500 people and wounding more than 1,600 others. Thousands of people fled southern Lebanon, jamming the main highway to Beirut in the biggest exodus since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Data from Monday show significant fires breaking out across southern Lebanon, stretching from the border with Israel as far north as Mashghara in the Bekaa Valley, some 20 kilometers (more than 10 miles) from the border. The area of the strikes is over 1,700 square kilometers (650 square miles).

There were several areas that showed multiple, intense fires. One was near the southern coastal town of Naqoura, which hosts a base for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL. Others were in rural areas or villages.

Since its creation at the start of Israel’s occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, the Shiite militia Hezbollah is believed to have stockpiled weapons and missiles throughout southern Lebanon as a deterrent to Israel.

United States Embassy in Jerusalem restricts employees from traveling to Israel’s north

JERUSALEM — The United States Embassy in Jerusalem has restricted American government employees from traveling to Israel’s north after a heavy exchange of fire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.

The embassy said Tuesday that employees require an armored vehicle and prior approval to travel to a large region of the north that includes the bustling coastal city of Haifa.

The U.S. State Department meanwhile urged American citizens to leave the country, where Israeli strikes killed nearly 500 people on Monday.

Israeli strikes kill at least 7 in Khan Younis

DEIR-Al-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say Israel’s strikes early Tuesday killed at least seven people in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. At least 15 others, including women and children, were injured in the strikes, they said.

The civil defense said the dead include five people who were killed in a strike on the Abu Harb family house in the Qizan al-Najjar area. The strike also wounded at least 10 others, it said.

Another strike hit a house in the Tahlia area in Khan Younis, killing at least two people and wounding five others, according to the rescue service. The casualties from both strikes were confirmed in hospital records in Khan Younis.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians but rarely comments on individual strikes.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. It does not say how many were fighters, but says a little over half were women and children.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 of the captives are still being held in Gaza, and a third of them are believed to be dead.

Airlines in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cancel flights to Lebanon

Airlines in the United Arab Emirates, a key East-West travel hub, canceled flight Tuesday to Lebanon over the ongoing cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad canceled flights, as did FlyDubai, the low-cost carrier.

The United Arab Emirates, which reached a diplomatic recognition deal with Israel in 2020, is home to a large Lebanese population.

Egypt’s flagship airliner also canceled its flights to Lebanon on Tuesday. EgyptAir operates two flights daily between Cairo and Beirut. It said the cancellation will stay in place until “the signal stabilizes.”

Also Tuesday, Israeli media reported that Wizz Air, British Airways, Iberia and Azerbaijan Airlines were among several airlines to cancel flights to Israel’s major airport, Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

The Associated Press