“Dozens of people were killed or unaccounted for after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip,” a hospital director and the Civil Defence Agency said Thursday (November 21, 2024).

One strike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the territory left “dozens of people” dead or missing, the facility’s director Hossam Abu Safiya told AFP.

The process of retrieving the bodies and wounded continues, he said, adding: “Bodies arrive at the hospital in pieces.”

Another strike was reported in a neighbourhood of Gaza City.

“We can confirm that 22 martyrs were transferred (to hospital) after a strike targeted a house” in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, Civil Defence Spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

“There is a headless body. We don’t yet know who this is,” Moataz al-Arouqi, who lives in the area, told AFP.

Since Hamas conducted its October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, Israel has been fighting a war in Gaza, which the militant group rules.

It vows to crush Hamas and to bring home the hostages seized by the group during the attack.

Israel is also fighting Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both groups are backed by Israel’s arch-foe Iran.

On Thursday (November 28, 2024), U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek a truce in the war in Lebanon.

Hochstein’s meetings in Lebanon this week appeared to indicate some progress in efforts to end that war.

On the Gaza front, the United States vetoed on Wednesday (November 20, 2024) a United Nations Security Council push for a ceasefire that Washington said would have emboldened Hamas.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza said the death toll from the resulting war has reached 44,056 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.

‘Freedom to act’

Following the October 7 attack, Hezbollah began launching cross-border strikes on Israel in support of its ally Hamas.

In September, Israel expanded the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon, vowing to fight Hezbollah until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by the cross-border fire are able to return home.

On Thursday (November 21, 2024), rocket fire from Lebanon hit a playground in northern Israel, killing one man, Israeli first responders said.

With Hochstein in Lebanon, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Wednesday (November 20, 2024) said that any ceasefire deal must ensure Israel still has the “freedom to act” against Hezbollah.

In a defiant speech, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem threatened to strike Israeli commercial hub Tel Aviv in retaliation for attacks on Lebanon’s capital.

“Israel cannot defeat us and cannot impose its conditions on us,” Mr. Qassem said in his televised address.

In Lebanon, Hochstein met with officials, including parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah.

On Tuesday (November 19, 2024), Hochstein said the end of the war was “within our grasp”, and on Wednesday (November 20, 2024), he said the talks had “made additional progress”.

Since expanding its operations from Gaza to Lebanon in September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds.

More than 3,558 people in Lebanon have been killed since the clashes began, authorities have said, most since late September. Among them were more than 200 children, according to the United Nations.

Israel has also intensified strikes on neighbouring Syria, the main conduit of weapons for Hezbollah from its backer Iran.

In the latest attack, a Syria war monitor said 71 pro-Iran fighters were killed in strikes on Palmyra in the east of the country.

“Those killed in Wednesday’s (November 20, 2024) strikes included 45 fighters from pro-Iran Syrian groups, 26 foreign fighters, most of them from Iraq, and four from Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” the monitor said.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.

Strikes in Lebanon

On Thursday (November 21, 2024), strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah’s main bastion, following evacuation calls by the Israeli military.

One post on X by Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said the military targeted “terrorist command headquarters and Hezbollah military infrastructure” in the area.

Strikes also hit south Lebanon, including the border town of Khiam where Israeli troops are pushing to advance, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency.

On Wednesday (November 20, 2024), Israel said three soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon — bringing the total fallen to 52 since the start of ground operations on September 30.

A total of 82 Israeli soldiers and 47 civilians have died since hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel began 13 months ago.

Hezbollah was the only armed group in Lebanon that did not surrender its weapons following the 1975-1990 civil war.

It has maintained a formidable arsenal and holds sway not only on the battlefield but also in Lebanese politics.

The United States, Israel’s top military and political backer, has been pushing for the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006 to form the basis of a new truce.

Under Resolution 1701, Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers should be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.

Two separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Gaza. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Two separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people, including women and children, in Gaza on Saturday (November 9, 2024), Palestinian medical officials said, as Israel announced the first delivery of aid in weeks to the war-battered northern Gaza.

One of the strikes hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City’s eastern Tufah neighborhood, killing at least six people, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. Two local journalists, a pregnant woman and a child were among the dead, the ministry said. The Israeli army said the strike targeted a militant belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, offering no evidence or further detail.

Also Read: Over 50 killed as Israel pummels Lebanon and Gaza in fresh waves of airstrikes

Another seven people were killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis where displaced people were sheltering, according to Nasser Hospital. It said the dead included two women and a child. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the blast.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said Saturday that 11 aid trucks containing food, water and medical equipment reached the far north of the enclave, including the urban refugee camp at Jabaliya. It is the first time any aid has reached the far north of the enclave since Israel began a fresh military campaign there last month.

The announcement comes days ahead of a U.S. deadline demanding that Israel improve aid deliveries across Gaza. Experts have said there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza.

Israel’s new offensive has focusing on Jabaliya, a densely populated refugee camp where Israel says Hamas had regrouped. Other areas affected by the new campaign include Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, situated just north of Gaza City.

The U.N. estimates that tens of thousands of people remain in the area. Earlier this week, the Gaza Health Ministry said that there were no ambulances or emergency crews currently operating north of Gaza City.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli army has struck several schools and tent camps, packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. The conflict has left 90% of Palestinians in Gaza displaced, according to U.N. figures.

The military has continually accused Hamas of operating from within civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, U.N. facilities and hospitals. The contesting narratives over the use of schools and hospitals go to the heart of 13 month conflict.

In July, Israeli airstrikes hit a girls’ school in Gaza’s central city of Deir al-Balah, killing at least 30 people sheltering inside. Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against its troops and store “large quantities of weapons.”

People inspect inside a church within the premises of Al-Ahli hospital where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other, on October 18, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Hamas-controlled interior ministry said several displaced people who had taken shelter at a church compound in the Gaza Strip have been killed and injured after an Israeli strike late Thursday.

The strike left a “large number of martyrs and injured” at the compound of a Greek Orthodox church, the ministry said.

Follow Israel-Hamas war, Day 13 LIVE updates here

Witnesses told AFP the strike appeared to have been aimed at a target close to the place of worship where many Gaza residents had taken refuge as the war raged in the Palestinian enclave.

The Israeli army when contacted told AFP it was checking the reported strike.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel on Thursday before heading to other countries in the region in an effort to deescalate the Israel-Gaza conflict, his office has said.

“The attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict,” Mr. Sunak said in a statement.

“I will ensure the U.K. is at the forefront of this effort.”

Follow Israel-Hamas war, Day 12 LIVE updates here

Mr. Sunak will stress the international community must “not let Hamas’ barbaric terrorism and disregard for human life become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region”, the statement said.

Expected in Israel early on Thursday morning, Mr. Sunak is due to meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

He is also expected to insist that humanitarian aid, which London recently announced would be increased for the Palestinians, be allowed to arrive at a time when Israel has authorised the entry of aid into Gaza from Egypt, and that Britons stranded in Gaza be allowed to leave.

Alongside the British prime minister’s trip, his Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is due to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar “in the coming days”, according to Downing Street.

London has pledged its support for Israel following the bloody attacks by Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 people, and has announced that the U.K.’s humanitarian aid to the Palestinians will be increased by a third — an extra £10 million pounds ($12 million).

Israel is relentlessly bombing the small, crowded territory of Gaza, where more than 3,400 people have been killed, most of them Palestinian civilians, according to the local authorities.