Middle East latest: 3 young siblings killed in Gaza as Israeli strikes in Lebanon kill 6

An Israeli strike on a home in northern Gaza killed three siblings aged 6 and under, among at least six people killed in airstrikes in the war-ravaged territory, Palestinian medics said. In Lebanon, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building south of Beirut on Wednesday killed at least six people and wounded 15, the Health Ministry said.

Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated the Gaza Strip's northernmost areas for the past month, saying Hamas militants have regrouped. Experts on hunger say famine is imminent or may already be happening there. Israel has also been striking deeper inside Lebanon since September as it escalates the war against Hezbollah.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. The officials do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.

The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Lebanon's Hezbollah group began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wounded, the country's Health Ministry reported. In Israel, 76 people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.

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Here's the latest:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military says it has conducted several days of strikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The strikes included U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft, including the Navy’s F-35C stealth fighter jet, it said Thursday.

The military also released video showing a strike by an MQ-9 Reaper drone on a mobile missile launcher placed on the back of what appeared to be a truck. A person standing next to the launcher is seen running away after the strike.

“This targeted operation was conducted in response to the Houthi’s repeated and unlawful attacks on international commercial shipping, as well as U.S., coalition and merchant vessels in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden,” the U.S. military’s Central Command said. “It also aimed to degrade the Houthi’s ability to threaten regional partners.”

The strikes happened Saturday and Sunday.

The Houthis launched an attack this week targeted two U.S. Navy destroyers entering the Red Sea. The Americans said they “engaged and defeated” eight bomb-carrying drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and four cruise missiles that the Houthis used to target the vessels.

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. humanitarian office says Israel blocked six attempts to deliver life-saving food and other humanitarian assistance to besieged Palestinians in northern Gaza in the last two days.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, tried unsuccessfully to send three missions with food and water on Tuesday to Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya – and three more on Wednesday, including one with psycho-social support for children in Jabaliya.

Dujarric reiterated that “every attempt by the U.N. to access these areas with food, water and health missions this month was either denied or impeded.”

“We have submitted four additional requests to the Israeli authorities to reach these areas tomorrow (Thursday) with life-saving assistance,” he said.

On Tuesday, eight international aid groups said Israel failed to meet U.S. demands for greater humanitarian access to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where hunger experts say the north may already be experiencing famine.

However, the Biden administration said later Tuesday it won’t limit weapons transfers to Israel because the U.S. says its key ally has made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Dujarric said OCHA also reports that across Gaza strip, “Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea continues to be reported, causing further death, displacement and destruction.”

As of Tuesday, he said, 79% of the Gaza Strip remains under Israeli evacuation orders and OCHA warns that repeated displacements are leaving Palestinians “increasingly vulnerable, as critical resources are continuing to be exhausted.”

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council is condemning “incidents” that injured U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and impacted their positions along the U.N.-drawn boundary between Lebanon and Israel.

The statement was agreed to by all 15 council members, including the United States, and issued late Wednesday. The Security Council urged all parties — never naming Israel or the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — to take measures to respect the safety and security of personnel and premises of the peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL.

Israel forces invaded south Lebanon on Oct. 1, causing widespread destruction in border villages but making little advances on the ground inside the country.

UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and a number of peacekeepers have been injured amid the fighting. Israel has called for peacekeepers to pull back 5 kilometers (3 miles) for their safety, but the U.N. force has stayed to monitor the escalating conflict.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix is currently in Lebanon and visited the UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura and a peacekeeping position on Wednesday, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Lacroix also spoke to peacekeepers who had been injured in direct attacks and exchanges of fire between Israeli and Hezbollah forces.

Council members called on “the parties” to abide by international humanitarian law. They also called for full implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. That resolution also calls for the Lebanese army to deploy throughout the south, which Hezbollah mainly controls, and for all armed groups including Hezbollah to be disarmed.

The fighting since October 2023 has killed more than 3,200 people in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry, and in Israel, 76 people have been killed including 31 soldiers.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a street in a refugee camp in central Gaza killed five people and injured two others on Wednesday, according to Palestinian health officials and Associated Press journalists.

The corpses were taken from Maghazi urban refugee camp by ambulance to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah, where they were counted by AP staff. All of the dead were men.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the strike.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities that do not distinguish between civilians and militants in their count but say more than half the dead are women and children. Israel says it targets Hamas militants who hide among civilians.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said six soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.

It was one of the deadliest days for the Israeli military inside Lebanon during its current ground invasion, and came just one day after Israel's new foreign minister said there was " certain progress " in efforts to end the fighting with Lebanon's Hezbollah.

More than 370 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza and Lebanon in the past year. The army did not provide details on how the six soldiers died Wednesday.

Israel forces invaded south Lebanon on Oct. 1, causing widespread destruction in border villages but making little advances on the ground inside the country. Israel says it is destroying Hezbollah weapons and command centers near the border, including an extensive tunnel system built by Hezbollah.

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, 3,243 people have been killed in Lebanon in a year of fighting and more than 1.2 million have been displaced.

BEIRUT — Several Israeli airstrikes targeted a city in western Syria near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday, Syrian state media said.

Israel's warplanes hit bridges and military checkpoints in the area around al-Qusayr and led to the activation of air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition war monitor.

There was no immediate word on casualties, and the Israeli military did not comment on the strikes.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. The strikes often target Syrian forces or Iranian-backed groups.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is believed to have received much of its weaponry through Syria from Iran, its main backer.

UNITED NATIONS – The head of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees is accusing Israel of refusing repeated requests to turn over evidence that some of its staff members work for Hamas so it can investigate the allegations.

But Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the agency known as UNRWA, told a U.N. General Assembly committee Wednesday that Israel continues to use the allegations “to undermine the agency.”

Calling UNRWA “a soft target” for the warring parties in Gaza, Lazzarini said Hamas also has repeatedly accused the agency and its senior management “of colluding with the Israeli occupation.” And Hamas has for many years opposed UNRWA’s education program and challenged its commitment to gender equality and neutrality, he said.

Lazzarini again urged all nations to prevent Israel from implementing legislation that prohibits the agency’s operations in the Palestinian territories. The laws, adopted by Israel’s parliament last month, take effect in 90 days.

Israel alleges that around a dozen of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. It recently provided the U.N. with over 100 names of UNRWA staff it claims have militant ties – but Lazzarini said he has received no response to repeated requests for evidence, including proposing how sensitive information could be shared.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon — with the mother of a young Israeli kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, allegedly by an UNRWA employee who was a Hamas member, seated by his side — responded to Lazzarini saying: “We have a video of this terrorist. You don’t need more evidence than that.”

“If you have any decency, resign in shame,” Danon told the UNRWA chief, accusing the agency of trading “humanity for bloodshed.”

At the meeting of the General Assembly’s decolonization committee, speaker after speaker supported UNRWA, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ repeated statements that the agency is essential and irreplaceable, and Lazzarini’s warning that implementation of the Israeli laws would be a catastrophe for millions of Palestinians.

WASHINGTON — A man who worked for the U.S. government has been charged with leaking classified information assessing Israel's earlier plans to attack Iran, according to court papers filed Wednesday.

The man, identified as Asif William Rahman, was arrested by the FBI this week in Cambodia and was due to make his first court appearance in Guam.

He was indicted last week in U.S. court in Virginia on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information — felony charges that can can carry significant prison sentences.

It was not immediately clear whether Rahman had a lawyer or which federal agency employed him, but officials say he had top secret security clearance.

The charges stem from the documents, attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, appearing last month on a channel of the Telegram messaging app. The documents noted that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran's blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1.

Israel carried out a retaliatory attack on multiple sites in Iran in late October.

The documents were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The New York Times was first to report his arrest.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Israeli military acknowledged Wednesday it was building along the Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria.

The acknowledgment comes after an Associated Press report on Monday published satellite images of the work. On Tuesday, United Nations peacekeepers there warned there had been "severe violations" by Israel of the cease-fire between it and Syria over the construction.

In a statement, the Israeli military told the AP on Wednesday it remains in “close contact with U.N. officials who are familiar with the threats in the region.”

The Israeli military “is working to establish a security barrier on Israeli territory exclusively in order to thwart a possible terrorist invasion and protect the security of Israel’s borders,” it said in a statement. It did not elaborate.

Israel seized control of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 — a move criticized by a U.N. resolution declaring Israel’s action as “null and void and without international legal effect.”

In 2019, President Donald Trump unilaterally announced that the United States would “fully recognize” Israel’s control of the territory, a decision that has been unchanged by the Biden administration. However, it’s the only other country to do so, as the rest of the world views it as occupied Syrian territory.

BRUSSELS — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is urging Israel to allow displaced Palestinians and aid back into Gaza and says it should end the war against Hamas now that it’s achieved its main security aims.

“The situation is so difficult and so dramatic that to fully redress it, to fully answer the needs of people, the best way to do that is to end the war,” Blinken told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.

He said that Israel has accomplished its goals of dismantling the military wing of Hamas and ensuring that an attack like the one the militant group launched on Oct. 7 last year cannot happen again.

“Israel, by the standards it set itself, has accomplished the strategic goals it set for itself,” Blinken said. “So this should be a time to end the war.”

He said that hundreds of aid trucks in Gaza are unable to distribute relief supplies due to looting and other crime. “It’s imperative that that be addressed. Israel has responsibilities to do that. We’re also working with Egypt,” he said.

Blinken called for “real and extended pauses” in the fighting in much of Gaza “so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it.”

CAIRO — The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has released a new video showing an Israeli hostage who has been held in Gaza for over a year.

The video shows Sasha Troufanov, likely speaking under duress, describing the harsh conditions inside Gaza, warning against military operations to free him and calling on Israelis to protest for his release.

It was the first such video to be released in several weeks. It was not clear when it was filmed, but Troufanov appeared to refer to Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and its recent exchange of fire with Iran, which occurred in October.

Islamic Jihad took part in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 people hostage. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Islamic Jihad released two previous videos of Troufanov earlier this year. He turned 29 on Monday, marking his second birthday in captivity. His mother, grandmother and girlfriend were also taken captive, but they were released during a November 2023 cease-fire. His father was killed in the Oct. 7 attack.

The U.S., Egypt and Qatar have spent most of this year trying to broker a cease-fire and the release of the remaining hostages.

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for a lasting cease-fire, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retain Israeli control over parts of Gaza and to continue the war until "total victory" over Hamas and the return of the remaining captives.

BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in the town of Aramoun, just south of Beirut, killed at least six people and wounded 15 others Wednesday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

The state-run National News Agency reported that there were children missing after the strike and it wasn't clear if they are under the rubble or were transferred to a hospital.

There was no warning issued before the strike, and it was not clear what the target was. There was no immediate statement from the Israeli military.

Also Wednesday morning, the Israeli military struck several sites in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area known as Dahiyeh, after issuing evacuation warnings. It said the strikes were targeting “Hezbollah facilities and interests.” There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have been clashing since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began launching rockets across the border in support of its ally, Hamas, in Gaza. The conflict escalated beginning in mid-September. Israel has launched a widespread aerial bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion that it said is intended to push Hezbollah back from the border.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medics say an Israeli strike on a home in northern Gaza killed three siblings aged 6 and under.

They were among at least six people killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday in the war-ravaged territory, where Israel has been at war with Hamas for more than 13 months.

The Gaza Health Ministry's emergency service says the three children were killed in a strike on a home near a clinic in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, where Israel has been waging an offensive for over a month.

In the central city of Deir al-Balah, a strike hit a tent in the western side of the city, killing at least two people, including a 15-year-old boy, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said. Another strike on a tent in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp killed a man, the hospital said. An Associated Press journalist counted the three bodies at the hospital.

Israel says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It accuses Hamas militants of hiding among civilians in homes and shelters.

The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 people hostage. Around 100 captives are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. They do not distinguish between militants and civilians in their count but say women and children make up more than half of those killed.

WASHINGTON — U.S. forces conducted strikes in Syria against Iranian-aligned militia groups for a second day in a row Tuesday in response to further attacks on U.S. personnel, U.S. Central Command said late Tuesday.

In the latest retaliatory strikes, U.S. forces hit a weapons storage and logistics facility after militia groups launched a rocket attack on U.S. personnel at Patrol Base Shaddadi in eastern Syria.

Earlier Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that over the weekend the militias had also targeted U.S. personnel with a drone attack and indirect fire at another base, Green Village, where U.S. troops are operating — which prompted the U.S. to strike nine militia targets on Monday in self-defense.

There are about 900 U.S. troops deployed in Syria. No U.S. troops were wounded in either attack.

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