BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army said an Israeli drone wounded one of its soldiers Wednesday in an attack when the unit was working in the country’s south, as Israel battles militant group Hezbollah.
“A soldier was wounded due to an attack by an Israeli enemy drone as an army unit was working to open the Marjayoun-Hasbaya road,” the Lebanese army said on X.
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Lebanon army says Israeli drone attack wounds soldier
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Lebanon army says Israeli drone attack wounds soldier
- An army unit was working to open the Marjayoun-Hasbaya road
UK says its fighter jets played a part in preventing further escalation in Middle East
LONDON, Oct 2 : Britain said two of its fighter jets and an air-to-air refueling tanker played a part on Tuesday in attempts to prevent further escalation in the conflict in the Middle East, but that the jets did not engage any targets.
“Two Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets and a Voyager air-to-air refueling tanker played their part in attempts in attempts to prevent further escalation in the Middle East, demonstrating the UK’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on X.
“Due to the nature of this attack, they did not engage any targets, but they played an important part in wider deterrence and efforts to prevent further escalation.”
Iran on Tuesday fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon. Israel vowed a “painful response” against its enemy.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, when asked if Britain was prepared to use its military to help Israel defend itself, said on Tuesday Israel had the right to self-defense.
“Two Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets and a Voyager air-to-air refueling tanker played their part in attempts in attempts to prevent further escalation in the Middle East, demonstrating the UK’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on X.
“Due to the nature of this attack, they did not engage any targets, but they played an important part in wider deterrence and efforts to prevent further escalation.”
Iran on Tuesday fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon. Israel vowed a “painful response” against its enemy.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, when asked if Britain was prepared to use its military to help Israel defend itself, said on Tuesday Israel had the right to self-defense.
Cyprus on standby to assist evacuations from Middle East
- One country has sought Cyprus’s assistance for the evacuation of civilians
- Cypriot authorities had offered facilities to nine other countries in assisting smaller groups of people to leave
NICOSIA: Cyprus has fully activated a mechanism to allow third-country nationals evacuating the Middle East safe passage through the island as the crisis in the region worsens, government officials said on Wednesday.
One country has sought Cyprus’s assistance for the evacuation of civilians, and Cypriot authorities had offered facilities to nine other countries in assisting smaller groups of people to leave, Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said. He did not identify the countries.
Kombos said that while airports in the region remained functional, use of the Cypriot facility might be unnecessary.
“If, as a result of yesterday’s developments, airports in the region shut, the (evacuation) plan comes into play,” Kombos said after a meeting of the island’s national security council, top advisers to the government on security issues.
He was referring to Tuesday’s missile attack by Iran on Israel, which had previously launched a barrage of attacks against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon, decimating its senior command.
Close to 60,000 people from Lebanon were evacuated through Cyprus in 2006, during the last large-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The island is the closest European Union member state to Lebanon, about 40 minutes by air and 10 hours away by boat. Some individuals from Lebanon have already started arriving on the island on private yachts, Cypriot officials said.
Food aid to Gaza falls as Israel sets new aid rule – sources
- The new customs rule applies to truck convoys chartered by the United Nations to take aid from Jordan to Gaza via Israel
- In a parallel move, Israeli authorities have restricted commercial food shipments to Gaza amid concerns that Hamas was benefiting from that trade
GAZA: Food supplies to Gaza have fallen sharply in recent weeks because Israeli authorities have introduced a new customs rule on some humanitarian aid and are separately scaling down deliveries organized by businesses, people involved in getting goods to the war-torn territory told Reuters.
The new customs rule applies to truck convoys chartered by the United Nations to take aid from Jordan to Gaza via Israel, seven people familiar with the matter said.
Under the rule, individuals from relief organizations sending aid must complete a form providing passport details, and accept liability for any false information on a shipment, the people said.
They said relief agencies are disputing that requirement, which was announced mid-August, because they fear signing the form could expose staff to legal problems if aid fell into the hands of Hamas or other enemies of Israel.
As a result, shipments have not been getting through the Jordan route — a key channel in Gaza supplies — for two weeks. The dispute has not affected shipments via Cyprus and Egypt, the sources said.
In a parallel move, Israeli authorities have restricted commercial food shipments to Gaza amid concerns that Hamas was benefiting from that trade, the people familiar with the matter and industry sources said. UN and Israeli government data show that in September, deliveries of food and aid sank to their lowest in seven months.
Israeli’s military humanitarian unit, Cogat, which oversees aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, confirmed that no UN-chartered convoy has moved from Jordan to Gaza since Sept. 19, but a spokesperson said Israel was not blocking goods.
The spokesperson referred questions about the form dispute to Israel’s Ministry of Economy. A ministry spokesperson did not answer Reuters’ questions. A spokesperson for the UN’s emergency-response arm, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), declined to comment. Cogat did not address specific questions about commercial shipments.
The twin restrictions, which have not been previously reported, have reignited concerns among aid workers that pervasive food insecurity will worsen for the 2.3 million Gazans trapped in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“Lack of food is some of the worst it’s been during the war, these past weeks especially,” Nour Al-Amassi, a doctor who works in southern Gaza, told Reuters by phone.
“We thought we’d been able to get a hold on it but it’s got worse. My clinic treats 50 children a day for various issues, injuries and illness. On average 15 of those are malnourished.” The number of trucks carrying food and other goods to Gaza fell to around 130 per day on average in September, according to Cogat statistics. That is below about 150 recorded since the beginning of the war, and far off the 600 trucks a day that the US Agency for International Development says are required to address the threat of famine in wartime.
Food insecurity has been one of most fraught issues of the war that began after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year. In May, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying they suspected Israeli authorities had used “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”
Israeli authorities have denied this, saying they facilitate food deliveries to Gaza despite challenging conditions. In September, they filed two official challenges to the ICC, contesting the legality of the prosecutor’s request and contesting the court’s jurisdiction.
CHAOTIC ROUTES
During the war, aid to Gaza has been delivered through several different routes that have come in and out of operation, according to UN and Israeli officials. The main route before the war was to southern Gaza via Egypt, after a detour for Israeli scans.
Since Israel launched a military assault on the town of Rafah in May, UN aid coming that way has slumped because insecurity made it increasingly difficult to organize, UN relief agencies have said.
In May, a US-led effort launched a pier to deliver humanitarian aid by boat, but the jetty was damaged by storms and abandoned in July. Some shipments that were earmarked for the pier at the time have yet to reach Gaza even after they were re-routed through the Israeli port of Ashdod, aid workers said.
Israel opened the Jordan route in December, allowing trucks to move directly from the Hashemite Kingdom to Gaza. UN and NGO aid workers say the Jordan corridor became the most reliable until the recent suspension.
Transportation via the route was helped after Israeli authorities agreed with Jordan to simplify customs procedures for humanitarian aid transported by UN agencies.
But in mid-August, Cogat informed UN relief agencies that this fast track had been revoked, the people familiar with the matter said. That generates additional costs and delays. The new customs form is an extra headache, the sources said, adding the UN side had proposed an alternative and was hopeful Israel would accept it.
FALL IN COMMERCIAL IMPORTS Compounding concerns about hunger in Gaza, the sources pointed to a recent drop in commercial supplies.
Commercial imports by Gaza-based traders made up the majority of the 500 trucks that entered the territory daily before the war. Israel halted most of these supplies when war broke out, but allowed food imports to resume from Israeli-controlled territory in May, helping to augment the supply of fresh, nutritious products not contained in aid shipments, four Gazan traders and four UN officials said.
But commercial shipments have fallen from a daily average of 140 trucks in July to 80 in September, according to Cogat statistics. In the last two weeks of September, Gaza-based traders said the daily average fell even further, to a low of 45 trucks.
Israeli authorities actively promoted commercial supply since May, saying in June it was a more efficient alternative to UN aid.
But they changed tack after realizing that Hamas managed to levy taxes on some commercial shipments and seize some of the food, people familiar with the matter said.
Palestinian officials say 51 killed in Israeli strikes on southern Gaza
- Israel continues to strike Gaza despite its attention shifting to conflicts with Lebanon and Iran
- Records at European hospital show seven women and 12 children were among 51 killed
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes killed at least 51 people in southern Gaza overnight, including women and children, as the military launched ground operations in the hard-hit city of Khan Younis, Palestinian medical officials said Wednesday.
Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza nearly a year after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war there, and even as attention has shifted to Lebanon and Iran. Israel has launched ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Tehran fired ballistic missiles on Israel late Tuesday.
Separately, Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in the Lebanese border town of Odaisseh, forcing them to retreat.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military or independent confirmation of the fighting, which would mark the first ground combat since Israeli troops crossed the border this week. Israeli media reported infantry and tank units operating in southern Lebanon after the military sent thousands of additional troops and artillery to the border.
The military warned residents to evacuate another 24 villages in southern Lebanon after making a similar announcement the day before. Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes as the conflict has intensified.
Palestinians describe massive raid in Gaza
The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 51 people were killed and 82 wounded in the operation in Khan Younis that began early Wednesday. Records at the European Hospital show that seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed.
Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Residents said Israel had carried out heavy airstrikes as its ground forces staged an incursion into three neighborhoods in Khan Younis. Mahmoud Al-Razd, a resident who said four relatives were killed in the raids, described heavy destruction and said first responders had struggled to reach destroyed homes.
“The explosions and shelling were massive,” he told The Associated Press. “Many people are thought to be under the rubble, and no one can retrieve them.”
Israel carried out a weekslong offensive earlier this year in Khan Younis that left much of Gaza’s second largest city in ruins. Over the course of the war, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to areas of Gaza where they have previously fought Hamas and other armed groups as the militants have regrouped.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7 and took around 250 hostage. Around 100 are still in captivity in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say a little more than half were women and children. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Iran fires missiles to avenge attacks on militant allies
Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for a series of devastating blows Israel has landed in recent weeks against Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began.
Israelis scrambled for bomb shelters as air raid sirens sounded and the orange glow of missiles streaked across the night sky.
The Israeli military said it intercepted many of the incoming Iranian missiles, though some landed in central and southern Israel and two people were lightly wounded by shrapnel.
Several missiles landed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where one of them killed a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been stranded in the territory since the war broke out.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate against Iran, which he said “made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it.”
US President Joe Biden said his administration is “fully supportive” of Israel and that he’s in “active discussion” with aides about what the appropriate response should be.
Iran said it would respond to any violation of its sovereignty with even heavier strikes on Israeli infrastructure.
Hezbollah and Hamas are close allies backed by Iran, and each escalation has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.
Iran said it fired Tuesday’s missiles as retaliation for attacks that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian military. It referenced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, both killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in Beirut. It also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader in Hamas who was assassinated in Tehran in a suspected Israeli attack in July.
The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday morning to address the escalating situation in the Middle East.
Israel says its forces are operating in Lebanon
Israel is meanwhile carrying out what it says are limited ground incursions into southern Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes and artillery have been pounding southern Lebanon as Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel, where there have been few casualties.
Israel has said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for tens of thousands of its citizens displaced from homes near the Lebanon border to return. Hezbollah has vowed to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas.
Israel has warned people in southern Lebanon to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of a UN-declared zone intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war. The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire.
Israeli strikes have killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry. Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
Hezbollah is a widely seen as the most powerful armed group in the region, with tens of thousands of fighters and an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles. The last round of fighting in 2006 ended in a stalemate, and both sides have spent the past two decades preparing for their next showdown.
Gazan buried as only known victim of Iranian barrage against Israel
- Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali had been staying in a Palestinian security forces compound in the occupied West Bank when he was killed by falling missile debris
- A large section of the rocket lay on the ground where it fell outside the compound
JERICHO, West Bank: A 38-year-old Gazan, the only known fatality in Iran’s missile attack against Israel, was buried on Wednesday.
Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali had been staying in a Palestinian security forces compound in the occupied West Bank when he was killed by falling missile debris during Tuesday’s attack, which Israel said was largely thwarted by its air defense systems.
Security forces personnel carried the body draped in the red, green, white and black Palestinian flag. The crowd of about 200 mourners was made up of fellow Gazans staying in Jericho and local people.
A large section of the rocket lay on the ground where it fell outside the compound.
Around 700 workers from Gaza have been staying in Jericho, in the Jordan Valley, since the start of the war in Gaza almost a year ago.
Unlike Israelis, who went into bomb shelters after warning sirens sounded across the country, many Palestinians in the West Bank went out to watch the missiles and observe the explosions as they were intercepted by the Israeli air defense.
Video footage taken from a CCTV camera showed a large metal tube falling out of the sky and landing on a man walking across a street, apparently killing him instantly.
Reuters was able to confirm the location from the road layout, buildings, utility poles and markings on the ground which matched satellite imagery of the area. The date was verified by a timecode.
The missile attack by Iran marked a potentially dangerous new phase in the war, which was triggered by the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct 7 last year and followed by an Israeli invasion of Gaza and which has since spiralled into a wider conflict now threatening to draw in Iran.
The Hamas attack on Oct 7 prompted the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon to fire a barrage of missiles against Israel, and the two sides have been engaged in daily cross-border fire ever since.
Over recent weeks, the conflict has flared seriously with Israel conducting the heaviest air strikes against targets in Lebanon since the last war in 2006, and Hezbollah firing hundreds of rockets and missiles at Israel.
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