Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, after a year of near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire.
It's been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel's security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
In northern Gaza, Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, leaving families trapped in their shelters.
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza within the next 30 days or risk losing access to American weapons funding. Israel said Wednesday that it had allowed 50 food aid trucks into northern Gaza.
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Here's the latest:
The death toll from Israeli strikes on Nabatiyeh in south Lebanon rises to 16
BEIRUT — The toll from Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh has risen to 16 dead and 52 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
The city’s municipality building was hit by one of the strikes Wednesday as a city council meeting was taking place inside. The city’s mayor, Ahmad Kahil, is among those killed, according to Huwaida Turk, the governor of Nabatiyeh province.
The National News Agency says there were at least seven airstrikes in Nabatiyeh and nearby villages on Wednesday.
Earlier in the week, Israeli strikes over Nabatiyeh destroyed its historic century-old market district.
The Israeli military said it struck dozens of targets in and around Nabatiyeh linked to the Hezbollah militant group, including command centers and weapons storage facilities that it said were embedded in civilian areas.
US ambassador to UN says an Israeli ‘policy of starvation’ in Gaza would be unacceptable
UNITED NATIONS — Israel must do more to address “the intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and the United States will be watching its actions on the ground, the U.S. ambassador told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield referred to the recent U.S. warning to Israel to allow more aid in or risk losing weapons funding in her address Wednesday.
She acknowledged that two dozen aid trucks have entered northern Gaza — where an Israeli offensive is underway — for the first time in several weeks. But she stressed that progress since last week has been “insufficient,” Israel must follow through on its commitments, and only actions on the ground “will bring real progress.”
“A ‘policy of starvation’ in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and U.S. law,” Thomas-Greenfield warned. “The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this commitment.”
2 Lebanese Red Cross paramedics injured by shrapnel in southern Lebanon
BEIRUT — Two Lebanese Red Cross paramedics have been injured by shrapnel while looking for wounded people after an attack on a town in southern Lebanon.
The Red Cross said on the social platform X that two of its ambulances, in coordination with U.N. peacekeepers, arrived in Jwaya on Wednesday afternoon following an Israeli raid.
As the paramedics began searching for casualties, the area was targeted again, leaving two paramedics with minor shrapnel wounds. Both were taken to Jabal Amel Hospital “and their condition is not worrisome,” the group said.
Four Lebanese Red Cross volunteers were also wounded in a strike Sunday while responding to an attack in Serbine, a village in the Nabatiyeh governorate.
According to the Health Ministry, over 100 paramedics have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since Oct. 8 and more than 220 have been injured. The strikes have also destroyed 128 ambulances and fire trucks and damaged at least 10 hospitals and 45 medical centers.
Israeli military says it has killed another Hezbollah commander
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has killed another Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon.
The army said Wednesday that Jalal Mustafa Hariri, Hezbollah’s commander of the Qana area, was killed in a strike alongside other Hezbollah militants.
There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah, though Lebanese authorities say 15 civilians were killed in Israeli attacks in the town on Wednesday.
The Israeli military says Hariri was responsible for planning and executing a large number of attacks against Israel.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah officials in recent attacks, including the militant group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah
UN humanitarian chief says essential supplies are ‘running out’ in Gaza
UNITED NATIONS — The top U.N. humanitarian official is accusing Israel of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, saying there is barely any food left in the north where an Israeli offensive is underway.
Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday that no food entered northern Gaza from Oct. 2 to Oct. 15, “when a trickle was allowed in.”
“All essential supplies for survival are running out,” she said. “There is now barely any food left to distribute, and most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel.”
Throughout Gaza, Msuya said, less than one third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October “were facilitated without major incidents or delays.”
She said the level of suffering and reality in Gaza is brutal and worsens every day as Israeli bombs fall, fierce fighting continues and “supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.”
Msuya urged all Security Council members to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected. It requires that civilians are protected and receive supplies to meet their essential needs wherever they are.
EU participants in UNIFIL mission voice concern about recent Israeli attacks
ROME — The 16 European Union countries participating in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon have agreed they must keep “a stable presence” in the region.
During the meeting Wednesday, defense ministers and delegates from the participating EU nations expressed “unanimous concern” and strongly condemned recent attacks by Israeli forces on the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon known as UNIFIL. At least five UNIFIL troops have been wounded.
“The importance of ensuring full respect for UNIFIL’s mandate and the protection of its personnel was stressed, urging the international community to maintain a steady and resolute commitment,” the ministers said in a statement after the meeting.
The ministers also said they have “a shared willingness to exert maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Israel so that no further incidents occur.”
At the same time, “Hezbollah cannot use UNIFIL personnel as shields in the context of the conflict,” they said.
They said the failure to fully implement the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which inspired the mission, "can in no way justify attacks against UNIFIL forces," and they stressed the need to revise the rules of engagement so U.N. forces can operate more effectively and safely in the region.
They also agreed that to become “a credible force and contribute to the stability of the region with the support of UNIFIL” the Lebanese Armed Forces needs more training support and international funding.
The EU nations participating in the UNIFIL mission are: Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus.
US sanctions 3 people and 4 firms for raising money for Hezbollah
WASHINGTON — The U.S. has sanctioned three people and four firms involved in a Lebanon-based sanctions evasion network accused of generating millions in revenue for the militant group Hezbollah.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also imposed sanctions on three people involved in trafficking of Captagon, an amphetamine, from Lebanon into Jordan.
The majority of the world’s Captagon is produced in Syria, with smaller production in neighboring Lebanon. Western governments estimate illegal trade in the pills generates billions of dollars for senior members of the Syrian government.
The penalties aim to block them from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them.
Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said Wednesday’s action underscores Hezbollah’s “destabilizing influence within Lebanon and on the wider region.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. will “continue to target the illicit Captagon trade in the region.”
Israeli airstrike on a building in the Bekaa Valley kills 2 civilians, agency says
BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes struck a two-story building in Yammouneh, in the Bekaa Valley, killing two people, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.
The victims in the strike Wednesday afternoon were a local woman and a displaced person, the report said.
Two people were killed and nine others were injured in a separate airstrike on the Rayak-Baalbek highway, the Health Ministry said. Several Lebanese army soldiers were wounded, the news agency reported.
An Israeli airstrike on Douair, near Nabatieh in south Lebanon, destroyed shops and residential apartments, the report said. It is unclear if there were casualties.
International Red Cross deploys surgeons in Lebanese hospitals
BEIRUT — The International Committee of the Red Cross has deployed a team of surgeons to treat war-related wounds at the government-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut.
Many of the patients have been evacuated from hospitals in the south as Israeli strikes intensify in the war against with the Hezbollah militant group. About 1.2 million people have fled southern and eastern Lebanon.
The head of the ICRC in Lebanon, Simone Casabianca-Aeschlimann, said Wednesday that the country's health care system is overstretched because of a large influx of wounded patients.
“The fact that we do not know how this conflict is going to evolve and what is going to happen for us is very trying,” she told The Associated Press.
Earlier this month, ICRC delivered medical supplies including war surgery kits to treat some 2,000 critical patients across over a dozen hospitals in Lebanon.
At least 2,350 people have been killed and more than 10,900 have been wounded since the conflict began a year ago, most of them since late September, Lebanese authorities say.
UK considers sanctioning 2 ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers
LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the U.K. government is considering sanctioning two ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers.
Starmer said “we are looking at” imposing sanctions on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He said the pair has made “abhorrent” comments about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Britain, France and Algeria have called a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday on the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, which Starmer called “dire.”
“Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes, and provide the U.N. humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively,” Starmer said in the House of Commons.
David Cameron, who was foreign secretary in the previous Conservative government until its defeat in the July election, said Tuesday that while in office he was working on a plan to sanction Smotrich and Ben-Gvir over their support for blocking aid from entering the Gaza Strip and expanding illegal Israeli settlements there and in the occupied West Bank.
The sanctions were not put in place before Britain’s snap election was called.
UN official says reports of a Lebanese mayor's death in an airstrike are ‘alarming’
BEIRUT — U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called reports that the mayor of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building “alarming.”
“This attack follows other incidents in which civilians and civilian infrastructure have been targeted across Lebanon,” she said in a statement.
Hennis-Plasschaert called for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
“Military solutions will not and cannot bring safety or security to either side of the Blue Line,” she said, referring to the U.N.-drawn boundary between Lebanon and Israel.
Israeli military allows 50 aid trucks into northern Gaza
JERUSALEM — Israel's military says it has allowed 50 trucks of humanitarian aid into northern Gaza, after the United States warned it to boost aid efforts or risk losing weapons funding.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza, said the delivery was made at the direction of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the “political echelon.”
Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s massive air and ground offensive after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the war. The region has suffered heavy destruction and has been completely encircled by Israeli forces for nearly a year.
No food entered northern Gaza for the first two weeks of this month, according to the World Food Program, as Israel launched another major military operation there. That raised fears that Israel planned to implement a plan by former generals to depopulate northern Gaza.
Israel began allowing food shipments in again on Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a letter to their Israeli counterparts on Sunday, said Israel had 30 days to increase the number of aid trucks getting into the strip daily to 350 -- or the U.S. would reconsider weapons shipments.
The U.S. has spent at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began, according to a report for Brown University's Costs of War project.
The aid entering the strip Wednesday traveled from Jordan into north Gaza after passing Israeli inspection and contained food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment, COGAT said.
Lebanon's caretaker PM accuses Israel of deliberately targeting a meeting in Nabatiyeh
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a municipal council meeting in Nabatiyeh that was convened to discuss the southern city’s service and relief situation.
The strike killed the city's mayor along with four other people and destroyed a municipality building.
Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in a separate statement that the building was targeted during a meeting held to coordinate relief work and aid distribution for people who have remained in southern Lebanon. He said a civil defense member was killed and others injured in the strike.
Mikati accused the international community of being “deliberately silent” about Israeli strikes that have killed civilians and attacks on U.N. peacekeepers.
“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he said in a statement.
Israel has said that its increasing bombardment of many areas of Lebanon in the past month and the ground invasion it launched two weeks ago are aimed at pushing the Hezbollah militant group back from the border and destroying its weapons caches.
UNRWA head calls for international media access to Gaza
BERLIN — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says international media organizations must be allowed into Gaza to report on the conflict there.
UNRWA's Philippe Lazzarini said during a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday that “most of the information that we are receiving is either by (...) local journalists or by organizations operating in Gaza.”
Lazzarini said because there are so many different types of narratives on the conflict, “it is of utmost importance ... that we continue to ask for the presence and all the access of international journalists.”
Iran's president urges Muslim countries to unite against Israel
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has urged Muslim countries to unite against Israel during a phone conversation with the ruler of Oman.
According to a report on the president's website Wednesday, Pezeshkian said: “If we, Islamic countries, are united with each other, the Zionist regime will not dare to commit crimes so easily," and the U.S. and Western countries also could not support it.
Pezeshkian praised Oman’s stance regarding “Israeli crimes” in Gaza and Lebanon and demanded more pressure on those who support Israel, the report said.
Omani state media did not report on the call between Pezeshkian and Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. Oman has long served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.
A man is arrested in Israel accused in an Iranian plot against a scientist
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities say they have arrested a man they believe was involved in an Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli scientist.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Shin Bet internal security agency said Iran paid 35-year-old Vladimir Verhovski $100,000 to kill an Israeli scientist. It did not provide evidence or name the target of the alleged plot.
Iran has accused Israel of being behind the targeted killing of scientists involved in its nuclear program.
The Shin Bet said Verhovski had acquired a gun, cartridge and bullets, and agreed to flee to Russia afterwards. It said he had also gathered information at the direction of Iran.
It’s one of several alleged plots the Shin Bet says it has foiled in recent months that involved Israelis accused of having been recruited by Iran.
Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for years that burst to the surface after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war in Gaza. Israel and Iran exchanged fire directly for the first time in April, and Israel has vowed to retaliate after an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.
Iran supports armed groups across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Mayor of southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh is killed in Israeli strikes, official says
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh have killed at least 5 people.
The ministry and the state-run National News Agency said the provincial capital’s municipality building was hit by one of the strikes Wednesday. Huwaida Turk, the governor of Nabatiyeh province, told The Associated Press that Mayor Ahmad Kahil was killed in Wednesday’s strikes on the provincial capital. Local media reported that the mayor of Nabatiyeh and local government staff were in the building. Rescue workers are searching for bodies under the rubble.
The NNA says there were at least seven airstrikes in Nabatiyeh and some nearby villages.
Earlier in the week, Israeli strikes over Nabatiyeh destroyed its historic century-old market district.
The Israeli military said it struck dozens of targets in and around Nabatiyeh linked to the Hezbollah militant group, including command centers and weapons storage facilities that it said were embedded in civilian areas.
Israeli strikes kill at least 15 people in the southern Lebanon town of Qana
BEIRUT — Israeli strikes have killed at least 15 people in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, which has long been associated with civilian deaths after Israeli strikes during previous conflicts with Hezbollah.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes in Qana late Tuesday. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said 15 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of a building and that rescue efforts were still underway.
In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more, including four U.N. peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.
Israel must stop operations in Lebanon, French president tells Netanyahu
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron stressed “the absolute necessity of a cease-fire without further delay in Lebanon” and called for Israel to stop operations there in a phone call Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Macron urged Israel “to put an end to this unjustifiable targeting," according to a statement from his office, which also said France would continue to work with troop contributors and alongside the United Nations Secretary-General to ensure the full implementation of the mission of the peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.
Netanyahu said in a statement after the call that he was opposed to a unilateral cease-fire. He said he would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide security for residents of northern Israel and “does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.”
Iran is ready for Israeli retaliation, foreign minister tells UN
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran is ready for a retaliatory attack from Israel, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
In a phone call Tuesday with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country is fully prepared to answer to any kind of “adventure-seeking.”
“Responsibility of consequences of spreading insecurity in the region will be on the regime and the United States as main supporter,” of Israel, he added.
He urged the U.N. to use its entire capacity for stopping “crimes and invasions,” as well as providing humanitarian aid to Lebanon and Gaza.
Iran launched some 180 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 in retaliation for the deaths of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel has threatened to strike back for the barrage.
Iran is the main backer of Lebanese Hezbollah and supports anti-Israeli groups in the region such as Palestinian Hamas.
Israel strikes Beirut's southern suburbs
BEIRUT — Israeli jets struck the southern suburbs of Beirut early Wednesday for the first time in six days, Lebanese state media reported. The casualty count was not yet clear.
The attack comes just one day after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States government gave him some assurances of Israel easing its strikes in the Lebanese capital.
Israel says it is striking Hezbollah assets in the suburbs, where the militant group has a strong presence, but is also a busy residential and commercial area. The Israeli military said the Wednesday strike hit a weapons warehouse stored under a residential building.
The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on X, formerly Twitter, saying it is targeting a building in the Haret Hreik neighborhood. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following their surprise attack on southern Israel. Almost one year of low-level fighting has turned into all-out war and displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon.
Elsewhere, Israeli strikes late Tuesday in the southern town of Qana killed at least 15 people, according to Lebanese Civil Defense.
EU official says calls for a cease-fire have not been heard
MANILA, Philippines — A European Union official expressed regret over the failure so far of efforts to forge a cease-fire in the Middle East, saying that fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah has made it more difficult to work for wide-ranging reforms in Lebanon and create conditions to draw international financial aid in.
EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič told The Associated Press in an interview late Tuesday in Manila that stalled reforms in Lebanon include the election of a new president, the establishment of a working government and the signing of a deal with the International Monetary Fund.
“It’s difficult to see that happening in these circumstances when Lebanon is under such a strain,” said Lenarčič, who flew to Manila to attend an Asia Pacific conference on disaster mitigation.
“That’s one of the reasons why we’re calling for a cease-fire, so as to allow Lebanon to organize itself so that it can benefit from all the funding which is out there,” he said. “I regret that we have not been heard.”
The EU was also extremely concerned over the killings of civilians in the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. “This collateral damage is simply unacceptable,” Lenarčič said.
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