5 medics killed in Israeli airstrike on civil defense center in southern Lebanon

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli airstrike hit a Lebanese civil defense center in the southern Lebanon city of Dardghaya on Wednesday, killing five members stationed there, civil defense spokesman Elie Khairallah told The Associated Press.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry also confirmed the news in a statement, saying Israel had “renewed its attacks on rescue and ambulance teams this evening, disregarding international laws, norms and humanitarian conventions.”

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Abdullah Al-Moussawi, head of the Tire regional center in the Lebanese Civil Defense, was among the victims, Khairallah said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said teams were continuing to search for survivors in the rubble.

This is a recent update. AP’s earlier story follows below.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense minister warned Wednesday that his country’s retaliation for a recent Iranian missile attack will be “lethal” and “surprising” as the Israeli military presses ahead with a large-scale operation in the northern Gaza Strip and a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah -Fighter.

On the diplomatic front, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden held their first phone call in seven weeks. A White House press secretary said the call included discussions about Israel’s thinking about how it would respond to Iran’s attack.

“It was direct, it was productive,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the 30-minute call.

The Israeli operation in northern Gaza killed dozens of people and threatened to close three hospitals after more than a year the war with HamasPalestinian officials and residents said.

The ongoing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, comes as Israel expands a week-long ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon is considering a major retaliatory strike against Iran after the rocket fire from Iran on October 1st.

“Our attack will be deadly, precise and, above all, surprising. You won’t understand what happened and how. You will see the results,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a speech to troops. “Those who attack us will suffer harm and pay a price.”

Iran fired dozens of rockets at Israel on October 1, which were repelled by the US. Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory strike against Tehran-related websites Nuclear program.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack that killed two people in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona. The city’s acting mayor, Ofir Yehezkeli, said the two people killed were a couple who were walking their dogs.

Dozens dead in Gaza and survivors fear displacement

In northern Gaza, heavy fighting broke out in Jabaliya, a period urban refugee camp the 1948 war over the creation of Israelwhere Israeli forces conducted several major operations over the course of the war and then returned when militants regrouped. The entire north, including Gaza City, has been heavily damaged and has been largely isolated from Israeli forces since late last year.

In Gaza, residents of Jabaliya said that since the operation began on Sunday, thousands of people have been trapped in their homes as Israeli jets and drones buzzed overhead and troops battled militants in the streets.

“It’s like hell. We can’t get out,” said Mohamed Awda, who lives with his parents and six siblings. He said there were three bodies lying on the street in front of his house that could not be recovered due to the fighting.

“The quadcopters are everywhere and they shoot at everyone. You can’t even open the window,” he told The Associated Press by telephone, above the sound of explosions.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said it recovered 40 bodies from Jabaliya and another 14 from communities further north between Sunday and Tuesday. There are likely more bodies under rubble and in areas that are inaccessible, they said.

The residents of Jabaliya fear that Israel wants to depopulate the north and turn it into a military exclusion zone or a Jewish settlement. According to local residents, Israel has closed all roads except the main road leading south from Jabaliya.

“We are concerned about displacement to the south,” Ahmed Qamar, who lives in Jabaliya with his wife, children and parents, said in a text message. “The people here are saying clearly that they will die here in northern Gaza and will not go to southern Gaza.”

Hospitals are under threat

Fadel Naeem, the director of Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it had received dozens of wounded and bodies from the north. “We have declared a state of emergency, suspended planned surgeries and discharged patients whose condition is stable,” he told the AP in a text message.

The Israeli offensive has destroyed the health sector in the Gaza Strip, with most hospitals forced to close and the remaining hospitals only partially functioning.

Naeem said three hospitals further north – Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian Hospital – had become almost inaccessible due to the fighting. Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Israeli army had ordered all three to evacuate staff and patients. Meanwhile, according to the UN, no humanitarian aid has reached the north since October 1st.

Israel’s Authority for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian Territories said Israel “has not stopped the importation or coordination of humanitarian assistance from its territory to the northern Gaza Strip.”

Israel says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because it fights in residential areas.

Israel ordered a wholesale evacuation of the northern Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, in the early weeks of the war, but hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have remained there. Israel repeated those instructions over the weekend, urging people to flee south to a humanitarian zone where hundreds of thousands are already crammed into shabby tent camps.

The war began just over a year ago when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250. They are still holding about 100 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 42,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive. How many of them were fighters is not mentioned. It is said that more than half of the dead were women and children. The offensive also caused excitement shocking destruction throughout the area and around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people displaced, often multiple times.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the fight until “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all hostages.

Israel warns Lebanon it could end up like Gaza

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said Lebanon would suffer the same fate as Gaza if its people did not rise up against Hezbollah.

Video confirmed by The Associated Press shows a group of Israeli soldiers raising an Israeli flag in a village in southern Lebanon.

In the video, which appears to have been filmed in Maroun A-Ras, three soldiers can be seen raising a flag on a pile of rubble. A soldier off camera speaks in Hebrew, referring to the nearby Israeli village of Avivim. The date it was filmed was not immediately known.

The video follows other similar acts that took place during Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Four people were killed and another 10 injured in an Israeli attack on Wednesday at a hotel housing displaced people in the southern Lebanese town of Wardaniyeh, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

An Associated Press reporter in a nearby town heard two sonic booms from Israeli fighter jets before the attack. After the explosion, clouds of smoke rose from the building.

In recent weeks, Israel has carried out a heavy airstrike across much of Lebanon, reportedly targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and other militant sites. A series of attacks resulted in deaths Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that Hezbollah fired more than 12,000 rockets, missiles and drones into Israel last year.

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Shurafa from Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

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