Israeli strike on Gaza mosque kills 19 as battle widens in Lebanon : NPR

Smoke billows from the location of an Israeli air strike that focused a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Oct. 6, 2024. Israel unleashed intense strikes concentrating on Hezbollah on Sunday virtually a 12 months for the reason that assault by Palestinian Hamas militants that sparked the battle in Gaza.

Anwar Amro/AFP through Getty Pictures/AFP

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Anwar Amro/AFP through Getty Pictures/AFP

Israel has intensified its strikes in Gaza and Lebanon, because the increasing battle within the Mideast approaches one full 12 months for the reason that Hamas assaults on Israel on Oct. 7.

Israeli airstrikes this weekend have killed scores of individuals, based on well being officers in Gaza and Lebanon, as Israel’s authorities continues to mull a response to almost 200 Iranian missiles concentrating on Israel final week.

In northern Gaza, the Israeli army dropped leaflets warning of a “new section of battle,” as commanders issued recent evacuation orders for the a number of hundred thousand residents that stay within the northern a part of the strip.

Within the Jabaliya space of northern Gaza, Israeli floor troops have encircled a sizeable swathe of territory, the place they are saying they’ve launched a large-scale assault in opposition to Hamas fighters for the primary time in months, forcing civilians as soon as extra to flee.

In the meantime, simply days after sending troopers into southern Lebanon, the Israeli army has struck buildings and different targets it hyperlinks to Hezbollah throughout Lebanon in a single day.

Israel says its current operations inside Lebanon are a part of an try to stop Hezbollah rockets which have landed in northern Israel for the previous 12 months, forcing tens of 1000’s of Israeli civilians to evacuate cities and cities within the area.

Strike on mosque in Gaza kills 19

Not less than 56 folks have been killed in Gaza this weekend, based on the native well being authorities there, prompting a seemingly limitless sequence of funerals after a strike on a mosque Sunday. The constructing was so near a close-by hospital morgue that no ambulances have been required, with our bodies of the at the least 19 lifeless merely carried by hand from one compound to the subsequent.

Israel mentioned it had been a “precision strike” on the mosque, concentrating on Hamas militants inside, however mourners mentioned the approaching one-year mark of the combating in Gaza was a horrible reminder of the prices households there have confronted, with greater than 41,000 deaths recorded previously 12 months.

“Sufficient, world, sufficient, tomorrow might be an entire 12 months,” mentioned Hakima Al Jamal, as she watched her dying father be carried out of the mosque. “We’re drained. By God, we’re so drained.”

Extra Israeli troops are being moved to the border with Gaza to guard one-year commemoration ceremonies in communities affected by Hamas’ Oct. 7 assaults final 12 months that killed some 1,200 folks and noticed greater than 200 hostages taken into Gaza. 

On the eve of these ceremonies, a knife and gun assault within the southern metropolis of Beersheba has left one particular person lifeless and 10 others wounded, based on Israeli emergency providers.

Police haven’t but recognized the attacker, who launched the rampage on the metropolis’s central bus station. However officers mentioned they have been treating it as a terror incident, with the nation at the moment on excessive alert after a number of stabbing, taking pictures and ramming assaults previously 12 months, together with one in Tel Aviv final week that noticed seven shot inside and round a transportation hub.

Israel launches focused strikes in Lebanon in a single day

In southern Lebanon, the Israeli army says it has misplaced as least 9 of its troops and killed greater than 400 Hezbollah fighters, because it ramped up harmful strikes on the capital Beirut. The strikes have been concentrated within the metropolis’s southern suburbs which have traditionally served as a hub for Hebzollah, an Iran-backed militant group designated as a terrorist group by america and different nations.

Israel says its newest strikes focused “weapons storage services and infrastructure websites,” however previously two weeks related strikes have additionally killed civilians, together with kids. The overall demise toll in Lebanon has now topped 1,000, and the Israeli assault has displaced greater than one million folks — round a fifth of the nation’s inhabitants.
 

Within the northern Lebanese metropolis of Tripoli, new arrivals from the nation’s south — a few of them refugees from Syria pressured to maneuver on as soon as extra by one other spherical of battle — have seen their lives shattered in a brief time period.

Whereas native residents sit on blue plastic benches — younger males sharing movies on their telephones, older {couples} whiling away the time — the Israeli airstrikes penetrate additional north into the nation, leaving few safe areas for civilians.

One man, Riqad, who solely gave his first title out of considerations for his security, had arrived 4 days in the past together with his household from the southern suburbs of Beirut, after earlier fleeing Israeli assaults close to their dwelling within the southern metropolis of Tyre.

“There isn’t a protected place” Riqad mentioned Saturday. “The Israelis are bombing in all places.” As he spoke, two younger kids in his household requested an grownup relative if the bombs would attain them on the lodge the place a politician affiliated with Hezbollah had granted shelter to them and different displaced households.

A couple of hours earlier, Israeli jets had fired on a close-by refugee camp for Palestinians, near Tripoli. The assault focused a commander linked to the militant group Hamas, in addition to members of his household, and represented essentially the most northerly assault by Israel for the reason that battle started in Gaza, 200 miles to the south.

The devastating influence on Lebanese society has been shockingly swift. One pre-med scholar, who gave solely her first title Yasmin, had began faculty solely a month earlier.

“I believed it will be probably the greatest years of my life. I’ve labored a lot to get to the college I’m in,” she mentioned. “Now, all I miss is my college days … the espresso there, my buddies, finding out within the library. That is all I need now.”

NPR producer Anas Baba contributed to this story from Gaza.