HOME
MIDDLE EAST
LIVE
Live: Strike hits outskirts of southern Lebanese city after Israeli evacuation order
MIDDLE EAST
Smoke billowed from the outskirts of Tyre, a coastal city in southern Lebanon on Thursday, hours after the Israeli military issued an evacuation order telling residents to leave the area and an adjacent town. Follow our liveblog for the latest developments in the Middle East.
Issued on: 17/10/2024 – 02:28
Modified: 17/10/2024 – 14:32
By:
FRANCE 24
Follow
FRANCE 24
Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre was also hit by an Israeli air strike yesterday on October 16, 2024.
Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre was also hit by an Israeli air strike yesterday on October 16, 2024. © Kawnat Haju, AFP
SUMMARY
Strike hits near south Lebanon city after Israel evacuation order
Iran Revolutionary Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets
Israeli airstrike hits Syrian port city of Latakia, says Syria state media
US forces hit Houthi weapons storage sites in Yemen
Hezbollah missile destroyed Israeli tank close to Lebanon border, group says
42,438 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive since Oct 7, 2023, health ministry says
6 minutes ago
Palestinian Hamas group denies using school in Jabalia for fighting purposes
Palestinian Hamas group denied on Thursday using Abu Hussein school in Jabalia for fighting purposes, after Israeli military said it targeted militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups who operated from within the school that had been serving as a shelter for displaced people.
SHARE
18 minutes ago
Scholz says Germany will supply Israel with weapons to defend itself
Germany will continue to help Israel defend itself by supplying weapons, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday, adding that Israel must abide by international law and that a two-state solution was the ultimate goal.
“For me, however, it is clear that supporting Israel also means that we are constantly ensuring Israel‘s defence capability, for example by supplying military goods or weapons,” said Scholz on the sidelines of an EU leaders’ summit.
Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth around 31 million euros ($34 million) in the past eight weeks, more than twice as much as in the first seven and a half months of this year, DPA news agency reported on Wednesday, citing the economy ministry.
SHARE
31 minutes ago
345,000 Gazans face ‘catastrophic’ hunger this winter, UN says
Some 345,000 Gazans face “catastrophic” levels of hunger this winter after aid deliveries fell, a UN-backed assessment said Thursday, warning of the persistent risk of famine across the Palestinian territory.
This is up from the 133,000 people currently categorised as experiencing “catastrophic food insecurity”, according to a classification compiled by UN agencies and NGOs.
SHARE
32 minutes ago
Qatar’s Al Jazeera says Beirut office evacuated after warnings
Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV said on Thursday its office in Beirut had been evacuated after the
building received several warnings.
The broadcaster did not say who issued the warnings.
SHARE
an hour ago
Hezbollah MP says Israel has not captured any villages in southern Lebanon
A Hezbollah member of Lebanon’s parliament said on Thursday the Israeli military had not so far captured any villages in southern Lebanon.
Hassan Fadlallah also told reporters that Hezbollah’s leadership was carefully coordinating with the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Nabih Berri, in efforts to secure a ceasefire in the fighting with Israeli forces.
SHARE
an hour ago
Israel stops processing key commercial food imports to Gaza, sources say
Israel has stopped processing requests from traders to import food to Gaza, according to 12 people involved in the trade, choking off a track that for the past six months supplied more than half of the besieged Palestinian territory’s provisions.
Since October 11, Gaza-based traders who were importing food from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have lost access to a system introduced in spring by Cogat, the Israeli government body that oversees aid and commercial shipments, and have received no reply to attempts to contact the agency, the sources said.
The shift has driven the flow of goods arriving in Gaza to its lowest level since the start of the war, a Reuters analysis of official Israeli data shows. The details of the halt in commercial goods into Gaza have not been previously reported.
Cogat did not respond to Reuters’ questions about commercial food imports and aid to Gaza. The agency says it does all it can to ensure that enough aid enters the coastal enclave, and that Israel does not prevent the entry of humanitarian aid. It rejects allegations Israel has blocked supplies.
SHARE
2 hours ago
Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza kills at least 19, local health official says
At least 19 Palestinians including children were killed on Thursday after an Israeli strike hit a school in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip that is sheltering displaced people, a Gaza health ministry official told Reuters.
Dozens were also injured in the strike, said the official, Medhat Abbas, adding: “There is no water to extinguish the fire. There is nothing.”
SHARE
2 hours ago
Yemen’s Houthis say US strikes ‘will not pass without response’
Yemen’s Houthi rebels vowed to retaliate on Thursday after the United States conducted multiple strikes with heavy B-2 bombers on weapons storage facilities in areas controlled by the Iran-backed group.
“We confirm that the American aggression will not pass without a response,” said a statement from the Iran-backed Houthis’ political bureau.
SHARE
2 hours ago
Strike hits near south Lebanon city after Israel evacuation order
A strike hit near the south Lebanon coastal city of Tyre on Thursday, AFPTV images showed, as official media reported an Israeli raid shortly after the Israeli military issued an evacuation call.
AFPTV footage captured smoke billowing after the Israeli military on X warned residents in and near a building in Al-Hawsh, just south of Tyre, to evacuate, while Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that “enemy aircraft launched a strike that targeted” the Al-Hawsh area.
SHARE
3 hours ago
42,438 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive since Oct 7, 2023, health ministry says
More than 42,438 Palestinians have been killed and 99,246 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
SHARE
3 hours ago
Hezbollah says it hit two Israeli tanks with guided missiles
Hezbollah said it hit two Israeli tanks in south Lebanon near the border with guided missiles on Thursday, as the Israeli army battles the Iran-backed group in the area.
Hezbollah fighters targeted “two Merkava tanks” near the border village of Labbouneh “with guided missiles”, causing a fire and casualties, the Iran-backed group said in a statement.
SHARE
3 hours ago
German warship shot down drone off coast of Lebanon, defence ministry says
A German warship operating as part of the United Nations’ UNIFIL mission brought down an unmanned flying object off the coast of Lebanon on Thursday, a spokesperson for the German defence ministry told Reuters.
The dpa news agency first reported on the incident.
SHARE
4 hours ago
‘Important for the UN flag to fly in Lebanon’, UNIFIL spokesperson tells FRANCE 24
UN peacekeepers in Lebanon said Wednesday they had once again come under fire from Israeli forces, with a watchtower targeted in a “direct and apparently deliberate” manner. It was the latest in a string of similar incidents in recent days that have sparked international outrage, while Israel has called on UN’s UNIFIL force to withdraw from southern Lebanon as it battles Hezbollah.
Speaking to FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris Trent in Beirut, UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said the safety of peacekeepers is “paramount” but that it is “important for the UN flag to fly in the region” as hostilities escalate.
Watch the full interview below:
SHARE
4 hours ago
EU foreign policy chief criticises US decision to give Israel one month to improve Gaza aid
The EU’s foreign policy chief on Thursday appeared to criticise the United States giving Israel one month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying that during that time, too many people would die.
“The US has been saying to Israel that they have to improve humanitarian support to Gaza, but they gave one month delay. One month delay at the current pace of people being killed. It’s too many people,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels, adding that the situation was a “catastrophe”.
Israel must take steps over the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid, US officials said on Wednesday, in the strongest such warning since Israel’s war with Hamas began a year ago.
SHARE
4 hours ago
Israeli strikes kill at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza City
Israeli airstrikes killed 11 Palestinians in Gaza City on Thursday, medics said, while Israeli forces sent tanks into Jabalia in the north, where Palestinians and United Nations officials expressed alarm over shortages of food and medicine.
Residents of Jabalia said Israeli forces blew up clusters of houses from air, by tank shells and by placing bombs in buildings before blowing them up remotely. Gaza’s civil emergency service said it evacuated several wounded people from a school sheltering displaced Palestinians that caught fire after being hit by Israeli tank shells.
Residents said Israeli forces had effectively isolated Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya in the far north of the enclave from Gaza City, blocking movement except for those families with permission to heed evacuation orders and leave the three towns.
SHARE
5 hours ago
Gaza unemployment rate surges to 80 percent amid economic collapse, UN agency says
Unemployment in Gaza has soared to nearly 80 percent since the Israel-Hamas war erupted, with the devastated enclave’s economy in almost total collapse, the International Labour Organization said on Thursday.
Economic output has shrunk by 85 percent since the conflict with Israel began a year ago, plunging almost the entire 2.3 million population into poverty, the United Nations agency said.
The conflict has caused “unprecedented and wide-ranging devastation on the labour market and the wider economy across the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, the ILO said, referring to Gaza and the West Bank.
SHARE
5 hours ago
Israel issues a new evacuation order in the Bekaa region of east Lebanon
The Israeli military on Thursday ordered residents to leave part of the Bekaa region in eastern Lebanon, warning that the area would again be targeted by Israeli forces.
“Urgent warning to the residents of the Bekaa region, specifically those located in the building marked on the map in the Tamnine area,” military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X. “You are located near facilities and interests that belong to Hezbollah, which will be targeted by the Defense Forces (army) in the near future.”
SHARE
6 hours ago
Iran Revolutionary Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami warned Thursday of further retaliation against Israel if it attacks Iranian targets, which Israel has vowed to do after Iran’s missile attack on October 1.
“If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in Iran, we will strike you again painfully,” Salami said at the funeral of a Guards general killed in an Israeli strike alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last month.
SHARE
6 hours ago
Hungry, displaced Palestinians queue for food in Gaza Strip
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned Wednesday of the risk of famine in Gaza, a day after the United States said Israel had been warned to improve aid deliveries to the territory.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a press conference in Berlin that “there is a real risk today… that we enter a situation where famine or acute malnutrition is unfortunately again a likelihood,” pointing to the upcoming winter and the weakened immune systems of Gaza’s population.
Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 attack last year by Hamas. And with Israel intensifying its operations in the north of the besieged Palestinian territory, hundreds of thousands are trapped, the UN warned.
Watch FRANCE 24 journalist Emerald Maxwell’s report below:
SHARE
8 hours ago
US forces hit Houthi weapons storage sites in Yemen
The United States conducted precision strikes on Wednesday against five underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
“US forces targeted several of the Houthis’ underground facilities housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region,” Austin said.
SHARE
12 hours ago
Israeli airstrike hits Syrian port city of Latakia, says Syria state media
An Israeli strike targeting Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday resulted in fires breaking out there, Syrian state news agency SANA reported. Two civilians were injured in the attack and a military post was damaged.
Firefighters are working on extinguishing the fires, SANA added.
Syrian state television reported the country’s air defences had confronted Israeli targets over Latakia.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years, but has ramped up such raids since last year’s October 7 attack by armed group Hamas on Israeli territory.
SHARE
12 hours ago
Hezbollah missile destroyed Israeli tank close to Lebanon border, group says
Hezbollah said early Thursday it had destroyed another Israeli tank near the Lebanese border with a “guided missile”, after close combat with Israeli troops staging incursions in the area.
The Iran-backed movement had said on Wednesday that it targeted another tank in a similar strike near a border village, as attacks escalated after Israel intensified bombing of the country last month.
SHARE
13 hours ago
Pentagon chief spoke to Israel about Lebanon, Gaza humanitarian crisis
“The Secretary encouraged the Government of Israel to continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation, noting the recent action by Israel to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance entering Gaza,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Austin wrote to Israeli officials on Sunday demanding concrete measures to address the worsening situation in the Palestinian enclave, or face potential restrictions on US military aid. The Pentagon readout after the Wednesday call did not mention the letter.
Austin and Gallant also discussed an advanced US anti-missile system that Washington has deployed to bolster Israel’s air defenses, the Pentagon said.
“Austin and Minister Gallant discussed the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel,” the Pentagon said.
SHARE
13 hours ago
Welcome to our live blog, where we provide the latest coverage on the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. To read about yesterday’s developments, click here.
SHARE
Yesterday’s key developments:
UN said Israel fired at its peacekeeping post in south Lebanon.
Authorities said Israeli airstrikes killed 27 across Lebanon in 24 hours, including 16 in an attack on a Hezbollah stronghold of the city of Nabatieh.
150,000 Gaza children given second polio vaccine dose, the WHO said.
Gaza death toll reached 42,409 since October 7, 2023
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, and Reuters)
