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Dozens killed in Israel’s new strikes on Gaza, Lebanon
The strikes killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in the north of the Palestinian territory on Tuesday.
Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for more than 10 days, with troops returning to areas of the north that came under heavy bombardment in the early months of the year-long war.
The operation has raised concerns among Palestinians and UN agencies that Israel wants to clear residents from the north of the crowded territory. Residents said Israeli forces destroyed dozens of houses in the past 10 days.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that 41 people had been killed in Israeli strikes a day earlier, more than half of them in a northern Christian village outside Hezbollah’s strongholds.
“Forty-one people have been killed and 124 injured” the ministry said, in “Israeli strikes on Lebanon yesterday,” including 21 in the northern village of Aito. The latest figures bring the overall death toll since Israel on September 23 launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon to 1,356.
The Middle East director of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Rema Jamous Imseis, also said new Israeli evacuation orders for 20 villages in southern Lebanon mean more than one-quarter of the country is now affected.