Israel pummels Lebanon and Gaza, killing dozens in latest waves of deadly airstrikes

Civil defence workers extinguish a fire as smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

BEIRUT -

Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes across Lebanon's northeast that killed at least 45 people on Friday, authorities said, and transformed once-bustling neighbourhood blocks in Beirut's southern suburbs into smouldering ruins.

Meanwhile in central Gaza, Palestinians recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli aerial attacks that began Thursday, hospital officials said. Israel said it targeted Hamas infrastructure near the Nuseirat refugee camp.

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The latest violence comes against the backdrop of the Biden administration's renewed diplomatic push, days before the U.S. election, to reach temporary ceasefire deals. Israel has stepped up its offensive against Hamas' remaining fighters in Gaza, pulverizing areas in the north and raising fears of worsening humanitarian conditions for civilians still there.

Israel has broadened its strikes in Lebanon to bigger urban hubs, like Baalbek, in recent weeks after initially targeting smaller border villages in the south, where Hezbollah draws deep support. Iran-backed Hezbollah doubles as a major political party and provider of social services in Lebanon.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. This yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to full-blown war on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

In Lebanon's northeast -- where small farming villages nestled between the country's mountain ranges had largely been spared the worst of Israeli bombardment until last month -- Israel conducted a series of heavy airstrikes Friday, killing at least 45 people, driving more families to flee with whatever they could carry and sending thick plumes of smoke over the horizon.

Intensified Israeli airstrikes on and around the northeastern city of Baalbek this week have prompted 60,000 people to flee their homes, emptying many small villages in the area, said Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region.

Rescuers searched for survivors after airstrikes killed seven people in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, said Governor Bachir Khodr, and brought down a building believed to be housing 20 people. Further Israeli strikes in the northeast killed 11 people in the village of Amhaz, five people in the town of Nahleh and 14 others across the Bekaa Valley, Khodr added.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency also reported four others killed in the small village of Ollak, bringing the total death toll from Friday's attacks on the Bekaa Valley to 45. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the deadly strikes.

In Lebanon's capital, Israeli planes pounded the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight and early Friday for the first time in four days, spreading panic after a rare lull. The Israeli military, which warned residents to evacuate at least nine locations in Dahiyeh, said it hit Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites and command centers.

There were no reports of casualties from Dahiyeh, where fears of Israeli bombings drive a mass outflow of residents each night.

Bulldozers rumbled through clouds of dust and smoke Friday, clearing rubble from the pulverized roads where Israeli warplanes had reduced dozens of buildings to their skeletal remains.

Formerly home to families and businesses, mid-rise apartment blocks were left open to the breeze, walls blown off and furniture buried. Hezbollah supporters in several locations raised the group's bright yellow banner atop the rubble.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted last year, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports, not including Friday's toll. Health authorities say that a quarter of those killed were women and children.

Overall, UN agencies estimate that Israel's ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon has displaced 1.4 million people. Residents of Israel's northern communities near Lebanon, roughly 60,000 people, have also been displaced for more than a year.

Hezbollah has continued firing rockets into northern Israel, with projectiles launched from Lebanon on Thursday carshing into agricultural areas and killing seven people, including four Thai farm workers.

Medic Abed Al Aziz Bardini mourns next to the body of his mother on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Deir al-Balah on the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Abed Al Kareem Hana)

Israel is also pressing on with its bombardment of Gaza on Friday, where a barrage of airstrikes hit central Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp and killed at least 21 Palestinians -- including an 18-month-old and his 10-year-old sister -- according to health officials at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Israeli strikes also hit a motorcycle in Zuwaida and a house in Deir al-Balah, killing four more people, hospital officials said, bringing the overall death toll in Gaza to 25 on Friday.

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The Israeli military did not comment on the strikes outside Nuseirat camp. It said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was investigating. In a separate announcement, the army said an airstrike on a vehicle in Gaza's southern town of Khan Younis killed a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, Izz al-Din Kassab, and his assistant, Ayman Ayesh.

Hamas confirmed the death of Kassab, who was not well known to the public. Israel alleged he was a coordinator between militant groups in Gaza.

As U.S. diplomats left the region this week after a flurry of meetings with Israeli officials, there were no signs of a breakthrough on a ceasefire in either Lebanon or Gaza.

Hamas on Friday doubled down on its longstanding demands for a permanent ceasefire and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, saying Israel offered only a temporary pause in the war and an increase in aid shipments in the latest negotiations. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

"The proposals do not meet the comprehensive needs of the Palestinian people in terms of security, stability, relief, and reconstruction," said senior Hamas official Bassem Naem, speaking first to the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV before confirming the group's position to The Associated Press.

Israel's blistering war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and took some 250 hostages back to Gaza.

Health officials inside Hamas-run Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of the dead in the enclave are women and children.

Israeli forces have recently shifted their attention to Hamas militants that they say have regrouped in northern Gaza, renewing an offensive that has trapped tens of thousands of people under intense bombardment without enough food or water.

Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly delayed an emergency polio vaccination campaign, which the World Health Organization announced it planned to finally launch on Saturday -- but only in Gaza City. Towns further north, like Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, remain inaccessible as Israel tightens its siege.

The UN and other humanitarian organizations warned on Friday that "the situation unfolding in north Gaza is apocalyptic," citing Israel's denial of humanitarian aid to the area, military raids on hospitals, air strikes on shelters and obstruction of Palestinian rescue teams who struggle to help survivors after Israeli attacks.

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Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Bassem Mroue in Beirut, David Rising in Bangkok, Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Edith Lederer in New York and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this story.