Israel again carried out deadly air strikes on north Gaza, where the UN calls conditions “apocalyptic”, as Lebanon’s Hezbollah intensified rocket fire near Israel’s capital of Tel Aviv. Since late September Israel has been engaged in full-scale war against Hezbollah in Lebanon while fighting continues against the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza. Israel’s military on Saturday said dozens of fighters were killed around Jabalia “in aerial and ground activity”. Troops were also operating in central Gaza and Rafah in the territory’s far south, it added, while witnesses said Israeli drones and boats opened fire on Al-Mawasi in south Gaza. Medics and Gaza’s civil defence rescuers on Saturday reported three people killed in a strike on Nuseirat, in central Gaza, a day after images showed the blood-stained shrouds of several people killed there in an Israeli strike. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that at least 43,314 people have been killed in the year-long war between Israel and Palestinian fighters.

The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,019 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, 2023. The Israeli military said on Saturday that two more Israeli soldiers had been killed in the southern Gaza Strip, increasing the total number of soldiers killed in combat in the Palestinian enclave and Lebanon since October 2023 to 780. The war has threatened to spiral even further after Israel and Iran attacked each other over the past few months. Iran’s supreme leader vowed on Saturday a further response to attacks against the Islamic republic and its allies. “The enemies, both the USA and the Zionist regime, should know that they will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response to what they are doing against Iran, the Iranian nation, and the resistance front,” supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. He was referring to Iran-aligned groups which also include those in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan