Israeli strike kills dozens in Gaza’s Beit Lahiya
Hezbollah’s spokesman assassinated by Israel
An Israeli attack on a residential tower in Beit Lahiya, north Gaza, killed at least 72 people, Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Sunday. The civil defense said its teams are unable to reach the area, and that dozens more are wounded and trapped under the rubble.
The Israeli strikes also hit a central Beirut district where a Lebanese source reported the death of Hezbollah’s spokesman in one raid.
A Lebanese security source said Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was killed in a strike on Beirut’s Ras al-Nabaa district, one of relatively few attacks outside the group’s strongholds. Israel’s military declined to comment, AFP reported.
A year after the Gaza war began in last October, Israel launched a major assault in the north of the Palestinian territory which it claimed was meant to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping there.
Gaza’s civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said three separate attacks on refugee camps in central Gaza also killed 15 people, and an Israeli drone strike on the southern city of Rafah killed five.
Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.
The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.
Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide, according to excerpts released Sunday from an upcoming new book ahead of the pontiff’s jubilee year.
It’s the first time that Francis has openly urged for an investigation of genocide allegations over Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. In September, he said Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, and that its military has gone beyond the rules of war.
Attacks on Lebanon
On Israel’s second front in the north, the Lebanese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hezbollah’s Afif was killed in a strike on a central Beirut building which houses the office of the Lebanese branch of Syria’s ruling Baath party.
Lebanese state media earlier said the Israeli strike on Ras al-Nabaa district killed at least one person and wounded three.
Previous strikes claimed by Israel have killed senior Hezbollah officials, including its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in late September.
AFPTV footage showed several strikes hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold earlier, after the Israeli military warned people to evacuate.
The Israeli army said about 20 projectiles were seen crossing from Lebanon into Israel on Sunday, and that some were intercepted.
Israel has escalated its bombing of Lebanon since September 23 and has since sent in ground troops, following almost a year of limited exchanges of fire with Hezbollah fighters.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.
Israel says 48 soldiers have been killed fighting Hezbollah.
In Israel, police said they arrested three suspects over flares shot near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the central city of Caesarea, while he was away.