MIddle East Escalation

We have more from US deputy ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, who addressed the Security Council after the latest vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution.

This resolution would have sent a “dangerous message to Hamas”, Wood said, adding that the message would have been “there is no need to come back to the negotiating table”.

He said Hamas would have seen it as “a vindication of its cynical strategy” that the International community forgets about the fate of the Israeli captives held in Gaza.

“We must not let that happen,” Woods said. “We will not forget them.”

He said the US will resume diplomatic efforts for a resolution amid Israel’s ongoing deadly assault on the enclave.

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• The US has once again vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.
• Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has vowed to retaliate against Israeli strikes on Beirut, saying the group will target “central Tel Aviv”.
• An explosion near Syria’s Palmyra has killed at least 11 people, according to a war monitor, which added that Israeli strikes were responsible.
• Dr Hussam Abu Safia, head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, said the facility is under Israeli attack, and dozens of patients remain trapped inside.
• UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has warned that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children” on the occasion of World Children’s Day.

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This is the fourth time since October 2023 that the US has used its veto power to block a Gaza ceasefire resolution in the Security Council.

The US [explained] its reasons: No condemnation of Hamas for the acts of October 7, and also one paragraph called OP1. The US said they wanted in this draft the ceasefire to be connected and conditional on the release of all the captives.

The draft called for the release of all captives and also called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, but did not necessarily link them or make them conditional and this is what the United States is saying it is against.

But clearly the US is on an island by itself.

This draft resolution was a product of weeks of negotiations and it was started by the elected ten members of the Security Council.

Clear frustration on the part of the Security Council that there’s been inaction on Gaza and that’s why the elected ten members came up with this draft.

It had been worked on for nearly three weeks now, but in the end, it was vetoed by the US.

I was just watching the speech at the UN Security Council – again, a heartless and cold veto by the US.

No one is surprised across Gaza by this veto. After all, this war has been largely supported by the US and by the ongoing narrative that has been miming the Israeli military and the Israeli government but not doing anything substantial on the ground.

And that’s why we see the strikes continue everywhere across the Gaza Strip, causing further civilian casualties.

Also causing sheer destruction and more forcible displacement from northern part of the Strip.

The strikes do not stop. The heavy artillery do not stop. Around the clock and no end in sight.

A ceasefire is very, very essential and needed immediately. Without a ceasefire, nothing on the ground can change.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has said that any ceasefire deal with Lebanon must ensure Israel has the “freedom to act” against Hezbollah.

“In any agreement we will reach, we will need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations,” he told foreign ambassadors ahead of US envoy Amos Hochstein’s expected arrival in Israel to discuss a truce.

This comes just after the leader of Hezbollah said that any deal for a ceasefire must protect “Lebanon’s sovereignty”.

Iraq has accused Israel of attempting to legitimise an attack on its territory, after the Israeli foreign ministry protested to the United Nations about attacks by Iraqi militants.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of armed groups aligned with Iran, has claimed frequent drone attacks targeting Israel in recent months, which they say are in support of their Palestinian ally Hamas.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called on the UN Security Council Monday to pressure Iraq to end the attacks launched from its soil.

Saar said Israel would take “all necessary measures to protect itself and its citizens” from the attacks.

In a statement late Tuesday, the Iraqi government rejected the Israeli complaint.

“These allegations are merely excuses intended to justify planned aggression against Iraq,” it said, adding that it was already taking measures “to prevent the use of Iraqi territory for launching attacks”.

Naim Qassem didn’t reveal a lot [about Hezbollah’s position to the US ceasefire proposal]. However, the main point that he mentioned was that Lebanon’s sovereignty should be preserved.

This is the main issue that’s still standing between the Israelis and the Lebanese when it comes to the American [proposal]. The Israelis want freedom of action in Lebanon. They want to be able to hit any time they feel that their security is threatened, while the Lebanese are saying that this is not possible.

With respect to the Beirut-Tel Aviv equation, this was an old equation [that dates back to the time] of the late Hassan Nasrallah. What Naim Qassem is saying is that the attack on Tel Aviv was in retaliation to the attacks on Beirut. So, he’s trying to draw an equation in the middle of a war.

“We emphasise that the [Israeli army] is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation and is not operating against the Lebanon Armed Forces,” the military told AFP news agency in a statement.

Nevertheless, in the last 24 hours the Israeli army has killed four Lebanese army soldiers in total in two separate strikes.

This brings the total Lebanese soldiers killed by Isreal since hostilities broke out between it and Hezbollah in October of last year to 42.

Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has discussed regional developments with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi.

A readout by the Qatari Foreign Ministry said during the meeting Sheikh Mohammed and Araghchi discussed the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Qatar has been a main mediator in negotiations aimed at bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli captives since October 2023.

The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has used the occasion of World Children’s Day to make a plea on X for Palestinian children.

He reminded people that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly more than three decades ago today, in 1989.

“Today, the rights of Palestinian children are violated day in, day out,” Lazzarini continued. “[In Gaza,] they are being killed, injured, forced to flee and deprived of safety, learning and play.”

“In the occupied West Bank, children live in fear and anxiety. Since October last year, more than 170 were killed there while others are losing their childhood in Israeli detention centres.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 17,400 children since last October.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society have reported that prisoner Nael Barghouti has completed his 44th year in Israeli prisons.

This is “the longest total period of detention inside [Israeli] occupation prisons in the history of the Palestinian national prisoner movement”, they said.

Barghouti was arrested in 1978 and charged with taking part in a “commando operation” that killed one Israeli near the West Bank settlement of Halamish.

Both Barghouti’s parents died during his time in prison, and his sister has been banned from visiting him, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Amos Hochstein did not want to divulge any details about the discussions he’s been having over the past 24 hours. This is the second time Hochstein has met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in two days. Berri is of course negotiating indirectly with Israel through the United States and on behalf of Hezbollah.

Hochstein did confirm he would be heading to Israel for additional discussions. This is the start of the process. We were never under any illusion that a ceasefire deal was imminent.

Lebanese officials have expressed cautious optimism. They say the ball is now in Israel’s court. We know that Israel has been saying it will not accept the pre-October 7 status quo. It wants a change. It wants a new reality along the border. It wants Hezbollah to pull back from the border and for the Lebanese state to extend its authority along the border. It also wants an enforcement mechanism it can trust, it claims.

A US role in enforcing this, if indeed Lebanon accepts it, is likely to be accepted by Israel. But we also know that Israel wants the ability to act when it believes it is under threat from Hezbollah. So there are many major sticking points but there’s no doubt that there has been some progress.

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US envoy Hochstein said he will leave Lebanon for Israel in the coming hours.

Tomorrow, he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss a potential Lebanon ceasefire deal, according to Axios reporter Barak Ravid.

We’ll keep you updated on the ceasefire push.

The Israeli military says it has struck more than 100 targets in Lebanon over the past day and has “eliminated” two Hezbollah commanders on the weekend.

The targets included “launchers, weapons storage facilities, command centres, and military structures”, the army said in a statement.

It also said: “On Sunday, the [air force] eliminated the commanders of Hezbollah’s anti-tank missile and operations unit in the coastal sector.”

Earlier, we brought you an update from Dr Hussam Abu Safia, director-general of the hospital in Beit Lahiya, north Gaza.

He told Al Jazeera that 85 patients remain at the hospital, which is currently under attack by Israeli forces.

Abu Safia also said:

• “We are still under a severe siege that does not allow the entry of anything, no medicine, no crews, no food, no ambulances and no civil defence service.
• Yesterday, Tuesday, I received a distress call from the Kahlout family after their house was targeted, and unfortunately we cannot do anything. Whoever survived, survived, and whoever remained, unfortunately, became a martyr.
• We currently have … six very critical cases in intensive care, and unfortunately, cases of malnutrition have begun to arrive since yesterday.
• Seventeen children came to the emergency room with signs of malnutrition.
• Unfortunately, there is no movement or even promises from any international party to open a humanitarian corridor.”

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Gaza’s civil defence workers, reeling from repeated attacks against them, are struggling to reach victims in conflict zones in northern Gaza, reports Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum.
• Lacking medicine, 85 injured Palestinians, mostly women and children, risk dying in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, whose upper floors were wrecked in an Israeli attack yesterday.
• Israel’s military has struck a Lebanese military vehicle in southern Lebanon, killing a soldier – the fourth to die in such an attack in the last two days – according to the Lebanese military.
• US envoy Amos Hochstein is in Lebanon for a second day trying to hammer out a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah. He is expected to meet with Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri shortly.
• Hezbollah official Mahmoud Qmati said any ceasefire must quickly end fighting and preserve Lebanon’s sovereignty. He is neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic about truce prospects, he said.

Israeli forces have released six Palestinian prisoners through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing, Palestinian sources have said.

The released prisoners were from Rafah, Gaza City, Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Hanoon.

Palestinian prisoners who have been released have reported about the horrifying abuses taking place in Israeli prisons, including “daily physical and psychological humiliation”.

Amos Hochstein is expected to meet Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in approximately half an hour. This will be their second meeting in as many days. Then Hochstein is expected to make a statement.

What we understand is that throughout the night, Hochstein was in talks with aides to Berri to try to iron out differences. Lebanon had a number of concerns with the US draft ceasefire proposal, but we understand from sources close to the parliament speaker that progress has been made.

The enforcement mechanism for UN Resolution 1701 was the main sticking point. This was something Hochstein himself talked about when he last visited Beirut in late October. He said there needs to be a new mechanism in place that will satisfy the Israelis. He said 1701 was never implemented by the Lebanese army. We understand that the US will have some kind of role in enforcing this resolution. It will have a seat on a committee that will oversee its implementation.

Next, Hochstein will have to take this draft proposal to Israel. Israeli media is talking about the possibility that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could accept the ceasefire proposal that includes a US role in enforcing that resolution.

We’ve been reporting for nearly a day on Israel’s assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, North Gaza.

The hospital has been under direct Israeli fire, damaging its facilities and endangering the patients remaining inside.

The hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, has been giving us regular updates on the situation there.

Here are his latest comments to Al Jazeera:

• There are 85 injured people in the hospital, most of them women and children. [They are] at risk of death due to the lack of medicine.
• The injured come to the hospital on foot despite their serious condition and are exposed to shelling on the way.
• We cannot respond to distress calls from people under siege in Beit Lahiya.
• An elderly man has died of starvation in the northern Gaza Strip.

Mahmoud Qmati says that any US-brokered ceasefire deal between the group and Israel must end fighting swiftly and preserve Lebanon’s sovereignty, an apparent reference to Israel’s stance that it will keep striking Hezbollah even with a truce in place.

Speaking to Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV, he said he was neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic about the prospects of a truce.

Yesterday, he told Al Jazeera that he expects Israel to do everything it can to continue its assault on Lebanon.

“The Zionist enemy has sabotaged attempts at a political solution in Gaza, and we expect the same to happen in Lebanon,” he said.

Jean-Noel Barrot has called on Israel and Hezbollah to take advantage of a “window of opportunity” to reach a ceasefire.

Speaking to Europe 1 radio, Barrot said US-led ceasefire efforts have given rise to an opportunity for the war to end and displaced people from both countries to return to their homes.

“I call on all sides with whom we are in close contact to seize this window,” said Barrot.

The remarks come after US envoy Amos Hochstein travelled to Lebanon yesterday for a new round of ceasefire negotiations. Hochstein said a ceasefire was “within grasp” but that it was up to Israel and Hezbollah to “reach a conclusion”.

More than a year into the war on Gaza, Israel’s government is increasingly shifting attention to the occupied West Bank, which it is openly discussing annexing and where Israeli settler attacks have become a “daily routine”, says Tamer Qarmout, an assistant professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

“Gaza has been turned to ruins with this ongoing genocide … for them [the Israeli government], it is not an issue any more,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The West Bank is the big prize. This is what they’re looking at. They want to annex the West Bank and it’s official now.”

While the US government, which claims to oppose illegal Israeli settlements, has imposed sanctions on some far-right Israeli settlers, the effect has been “very marginal”, Qarmout said.

“[The US is] going after the most radical groups, but the real elephant in the room is the Israeli government,” he added.

“I think if the US is sincere about stopping settlement expansion it should target the Israeli government. Stop providing funding to Israel that goes into settlements.”

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A Lebanese soldier has been killed after an Israeli attack on an army vehicle in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese army.

The soldier was first injured by this morning’s attack, which occurred on a road between the villages of Burj al-Muluk and Qlayaa, the army said, but later died of his wounds.

The soldier’s death follows an earlier Israeli attack in the southern town of Sarafand that killed three Lebanese soldiers.

The recent deaths have brought the number of Lebanese soldiers killed since the Gaza war erupted last year to 41, according to the army.

We know that many areas across the Gaza Strip were under intense Israeli attacks within the past 24 hours.

Many residential buildings were hit, including one packed with civilians in Beit Lahiya, a town in northern Gaza. At least eight Palestinians were killed.

A few kilometres away, another building was hit in the city of Jabalia where 12 civilians were killed, including a Palestinian professor whose family refused to flee the area.

Another Israeli air attack took place in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City. Once the civil defence crews arrived, they were hit by Israeli artillery units stationed at the eastern borders of the city.

At least one civil defence officer was killed and three were wounded, according to the statement of the rescue service.

These repeated attacks on civil defence workers, as well as ambulance workers, have hindered the ability to provide critical assistance for civilians who are trapped in the conflict zones.

Israel’s military says 21-year-old Roi Sasson, a sergeant in the largest infantry brigade, has been killed in northern Gaza. He was from the town of Mevaseret Zion, west of Jerusalem.

Sasson is the 799th Israeli soldier to be killed since the Gaza war started, according to military figures.

The rubble removal work has been completed in the village of Zefta in the Nabatieh governorate of Lebanon, where a house was destroyed in an Israeli air attack yesterday evening.

Three bodies were recovered, according to the National News Agency.

Israeli forces have carried out a wave of arrests in the occupied West Bank, rounding up seven Palestinians in the governorates of Ramallah, el-Bireh and Bethlehem, according to the Wafa news agency.

Among those arrested are a father and 11-year-old son in the farm town of Mazari al-Nubani, near Ramallah, said Wafa.

While carrying out arrests in the town of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, Israeli forces also confiscated a vehicle and vandalised property while raiding local homes, according to Wafa.

Celine Haidar, a midfielder for Beirut Football Academy (BFA) who was set to captain the team this year, is the latest athlete to become a casualty of Israeli attacks.

This weekend, Haidar was seriously injured in an Israeli strike on her home in Beirut’s southern suburb of Shiyah. She is now in a medically induced coma in Beirut’s Saint George Hospital.

“The strike was close and she was hit in the head,” her mother Sanaa Sharhour told the AFP news agency. “My daughter has a brain haemorrhage, her skull is cracked.

“She dreamt of competing abroad. She said she wanted to be like [Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Lionel] Messi … She wanted to be a star and for everyone to talk about her,” Sharhour said.

“Now everyone is talking about her because she was wounded in a war that she has nothing to do with …They killed her dream.”

The Israeli military says three drones that crossed into Israel from Lebanon have crashed in the western Galilee area after several interception attempts.

There were no casualties, it said.

The Times of Israel is reporting that air raid sirens blared for 20 minutes in coastal communities – stretching from the border with Lebanon down to the port city of Haifa – before the Israeli military announced that the incident had ended.

Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s biggest defence contractors, has tracked a 14.4 percent increase in third-quarter revenue year on year as Israel’s military demands more products for its wars on Gaza and Lebanon.

The Haifa-based firm’s order backlog has “hit a record high of over $22 billion” providing “stability and resilience for the company for years to come,” CEO Bezhalel Machlis said in a statement.

Elbit supplies weapons and equipment to Israel’s Defence Ministry, including surveillance and attack drones, artillery, munitions and high-powered lasers.

An Elbit Hermes 450 drone was used in an attack that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen in the central Gaza Strip in April this year, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Israeli forces pounded Gaza, killing 12 Palestinians in an attack on Jabalia al-Balad in northern Gaza and a rescue worker looking for survivors following a deadly attack on the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City.
• Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat, who was also wounded in the attack on Sabra, said Israeli forces deliberately targeted him when he arrived at the scene to report on the earlier attack.
• Doctors at the Kamal Adwan Hospital said Israeli forces destroyed the roof and upper floors of the facility in a three-hour-long attack on Tuesday.
• Israeli forces also launched new raids on the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, triggering clashes, a day after killing five Palestinians in military operations in the area. Israeli settlers, meanwhile, set fire to Palestinian vehicles in the village of al-Mazraa al-Gharbiya.
• Israel’s military said it intercepted six drones “from the east” and from Lebanon as Hezbollah claimed another attack on Israeli troops in the north of the country.
• John Thune, the incoming Republican leader of the Senate, promised Israel that “reinforcements are on the way” when his party reclaims the Senate majority in six weeks.

The vote will take place at 10am local time in New York (15:00 GMT) today.

The latest resolution – put forward by the 10 elected members of the UNSC – demands “an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. The supporting members are Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland.

The text could still be blocked by the US, one of five non-elected members with the power to veto resolutions, according to Security Council Report, a media outlet which monitors the UN council’s work.

The council has already voted on 11 resolutions related to the war in Gaza since October last year.

Only four of those resolutions was adopted.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, in a statement to mark World Toilet Day, condemned Israel for its deliberate destruction of water and sanitation services in Gaza.

The Palestinian group said the sanitation crisis was particularly dire for displaced Palestinians in the so-called humanitarian zones in Deir el-Balah, az-Zawayda and al-Mawasi. These zones are “neither safe nor humane”, it said. Israel’s attacks and policies have turned the designated zones into “unsanitary areas, where sewage floods streets, roads, and tents housing” displaced people, it said.

As of September this year, Israeli forces have destroyed or damaged nearly all of Gaza’s 87 sewage treatment facilities as well as up to 100km (124 miles) of sewage pipelines. The crisis has been deepened due to severe fuel shortages needed to operate pumps and treatment plants, it said.

“This dire reality has led to the rapid spread of diseases, including skin infections, respiratory illnesses, and documented cases of polio and meningitis,” Al Mezan said. “Those who survive Israel’s relentless bombings are left to endure disease, starvation, or untreated illness, with little hope of relief.”

The Palestinian Information Center is reporting that Israeli settlers set fire to the cars in the village of al-Mazraa al-Gharbiya in the occupied West Bank. It also published footage of the burning vehicles on Twitter.

There has been a rise in Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza.

And as we’ve been reporting, the latest attack came as Israeli soldiers raided the cities of Jenin, Hebron, Ramallah and several refugee camps across the occupied territory.

As we reported earlier, three Lebanese soldiers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an army base in southern Lebanon’s town of Sarafand.

The Lebanese army’s spokesperson, Fadi Eid, told The Associated Press (AP) news agency before the attack in Sarafand that 38 soldiers had been killed in Israeli strikes since October last year. The latest killings bring the overall death toll in the Lebanese army to 41, the AP reported.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on its latest killing of Lebanese soldiers who have for months provided security for Lebanese civilians and engaged in search and rescue efforts amid the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

Lebanon’s government said on Monday that it plans to file a formal complaint with the United Nations Security Council over “repeated attacks” by Israel on its army, and accused Israeli forces of repeated violations of international law.

You can read more here.

Israeli forces stormed the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank earlier, triggering clashes with Palestinian fighters, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Fighting is ongoing and witnesses there are reporting hearing explosions.

Footage published by the Palestinian Information Center shows the moment of a large explosion in the city.

Translation: Explosive devices detonated during the ongoing aggression on Jenin and its camp. 

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The renewed clashes come a day after Israeli forces killed two young men in the city of Jenin and three others in nearby villages.

Israeli raids were also reported in:

• The city of Hebron
• The city of Halhul, north of Hebron
• The Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron
• The cities of Ramallah and el-Bireh
• The towns of al-Mughayyir and Silwan, north of Ramallah
• The Jalazone refugee camp, north of Ramallah
• The village of Osrin, south of Nablus.

Al Jazeera Arabic reporting that the death toll from Israel’s attack on Jabalia al-Balad has now risen to 12.

The Palestinian Information Center is reporting that more than 10 others are missing.

The news outlet published a video of the shrouded bodies of the victims of that attack as well as from the one on Sabra at the Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza.

https://x.com/PalinfoAr/status/1859031834484764858

Translation: Bodies of martyrs who were killed as a result of the occupation’s bombing of two houses in the Sabra neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, and the town of Jabalia, north of Gaza.

Al Jazeera Arabic and the Palestine Information Centre are also reporting continued and intense Israeli attacks on the Sabra and Tal al-Hawa neighbourhoods of Gaza City.

Nearby in Beit Lahiya, which has been cut off by an Israeli siege now in its 46th day, is also under heavy Israeli attack, according to AJA.

More on the attack on Sabra in Gaza City.

Mahmoud Basal, the spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, says Israeli forces deliberately targeted rescue workers as they searched for survivors following the attack.

One Civil Defence worker was killed and three others were wounded, he said.

Basal identified the slain medic as Ali Muhammad Mustafa Omar.

His killing takes the total death toll among Civil Defence workers to 87, the spokesman said.

“This is the 18th time that Israeli occupation forces have targeted our crews during their missions to save lives,” Basal added. “With these targeted attacks, the occupation is seeking to prevent the rescue of people trapped under the rubble.”

The Palestine Information Center posted footage of the aftermath of the attack on X, showing wounded rescuers at the site.

Translation: The first moments of the occupation aircraft bombing the civil defence crews while they were performing their duties in retrieving the injured in the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City.

Translation: The martyrdom of the young man Ali Muhammad Mustafa Omar, one of the civil defence crews, after he and the rest of the crew were targeted by occupation aircraft while performing their duties in retrieving the injured in the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City.

As we’ve been reporting, one of our correspondents was also wounded in Sabra when Israeli forces bombed the site for a second time.

Earlier, Israeli forces bombed Jabalia al-Balad, which is also in north Gaza, killing at least eight people.

The Lebanese armed group said it launched a salvo of rockets at Israeli troops at al-Marj in northern Israel.

The attack took place shortly after midnight local time (22:00 GMT on Tuesday).

Earlier, Hezbollah claimed a total of 34 attacks on Israeli positions on Tuesday, including drone attacks on the Ramat David Airbase in northern Israel and missile attacks on ground troops in southern Lebanon.

We are getting reports that Shabat was lightly injured while he was reporting in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher was hit while at the site of a previous Israeli attack that killed a Palestinian Civil Defence worker.

Shabat was wearing a press jacket at the time of the attack.

The Wafa news agency reported that several Palestinians were killed and wounded in the earlier Israeli attack, which targeted a home opposite the Sultan Bakery in the Sabra neighbourhood.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that an Israeli air attack on Jabalia al-Balad killed at least eight people and wounded several others.

The Israeli aircraft targeted the home of the Jouda family, AJA added.

The attack comes shortly after Israeli bombardment in the neighbouring Beit Lahiya project killed at least eight Palestinians.

• The Israeli military forced food off UN trucks heading to Kamal Adwan Hospital and has “denied or impeded” all 31 aid missions to the north of Gaza so far this month, according to UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
• Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said many children and elderly patients are seeking treatment for malnutrition at the facility. This comes amid warnings of famine in north Gaza with Israel’s siege on the region now in its 46th day.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking from Gaza, has offered a reward of $5m to anybody who returns a captive held in the territory by Hamas.
• US envoy Amos Hochstein held talks in Lebanon and said a ceasefire “is now within our grasp” but, ultimately, it is “the decision of the parties [Hezbollah and Israel] to reach a conclusion”.
• The US has imposed sanctions on several Hamas leaders, according to a notice posted on the Treasury Department’s website.
• Turkey refused to let Israeli President Isaac Herzog use its airspace to travel to the COP29 UN Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan.

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Two Palestinian men were killed by the Israeli army in the eastern region of the occupied West Bank city, the Health Ministry says.

Earlier, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said nine Palestinians were wounded by Israeli forces when they opened fire in Jenin.

Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank have intensified since the war on Gaza began last year, with more than 11,500 Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces.

Senior US and Israeli officials will hold talks in early December in the first meeting of a new channel of communication requested by Washington to raise concerns over civilian harm in Israel’s war on Gaza.

The comments came from US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

US officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of harm to civilians in the war-battered enclave of Gaza since October 7, 2023, but have not taken action on any of them, news reports say.

At least 43,972 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, about 70 percent children and women.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Hamas will not rule Gaza after the war ends and that Israel has destroyed the Palestinian group’s military capabilities.

Speaking from within Gaza, Netanyahu also said Israel has not given up on locating the remaining captives.

“Anyone who dares to harm our hostages will have blood on their head. We will hunt you down and get you,” he said.

Netanyahu has been criticised by captives’ families for not accepting a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would facilitate the return of their loved ones.

And this is also coming at a time when negotiations for a ceasefire are taking place. But these attacks – as well as Israel’s ongoing ground offensive in southern Lebanon and the continued rocket fire from Hezbollah – are adding to scepticism of the prospects of a real ceasefire.

Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned from Israel and the occupied West Bank. 

Israeli authorities are still looking into exactly what happened after a rocket was launched from Lebanon towards central Israel.

Shortly after the fact, the Israeli military released a statement saying that a long-range rocket fired from Lebanon had been intercepted, causing a large piece of shrapnel to fall from the sky at a building in Ramat Gan, triggering a large fire.

But then the Israeli police put out a different statement saying that it was, in fact, a direct hit from this long-range projectile.

The Israeli military then said that an initial investigation found that the projectile intercepted, that an Interceptor from the Iron Dome made impact with what they’re calling a surface-to-surface missile, breaking it up into several large pieces, causing one of them to fall in central Israel.

Israeli authorities are still saying that this is only preliminary findings and they’re going to continue their investigations. When it comes to their air defence systems, they are threefold – the Iron Dome which is the most familiar for shorter-range projectiles, the Arrow and David’s Sling for medium- to longer-range missiles, respectively.

Israeli authorities are saying there were a number of casualties and that they have been evacuating the scene for hours as one of them is still in serious condition.

• At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since Monday morning, medical sources say, including 17 people who were killed in a raid on a house near Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north.
• Gaza’s Interior Ministry says at least 20 people were killed in an operation targeting “gangs” that looted United Nations trucks bringing food into the war-torn territory.
• Israeli forces attacked central Beirut again, carrying out an air raid on a densely populated area and killing at least five people and wounding 31 others.
• In Israel, Hezbollah rockets killed a woman in a northern settlement, while shrapnel from an intercepted missile wounded six people in Tel Aviv. One of the victims is in serious condition.
• Hezbollah said in a statement that it had launched an “air attack with a squadron of qualitative attack drones on sensitive military points” in Tel Aviv.
• The attacks come as Hezbollah mulls over a US-backed ceasefire in Lebanon, with US envoy Amos Hochstein set to arrive in Beirut on Tuesday for talks, despite Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu saying Israel will continue to attack Hezbollah even if a deal is reached.