Israel strikes kill over 30 in Gaza, strikes on Lebanon continue

At least 33 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks throughout the Gaza Strip since dawn on Monday, international media reports have quoted medical sources as saying, including 18 in Jabalia refugee camp as the forced expulsion of residents by Israeli troops in the north continues.

Al Jazeera has quoted medical sources as saying at least 640 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its military operations in northern Gaza 17 days ago.

The UN Human Rights Office has expressed concern that Israel “may be causing the destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza’s northernmost governorate through death and displacement”.

In Gaza, at least 42,603 people have been killed and 99,795 wounded in Israeli attacks since 7 October 2023, the day Hamas-led attacks killed an estimated 1,139 people in Israel, with more than 200 taken hostage.

The Israeli army has also claimed that about 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon to Israel on Monday afternoon. A military statement said aerial warning sirens were heard in the Upper Galilee and Central Galilee areas. Some of the rockets were intercepted while others crashed in uninhabited areas, and there were no casualties, the army said.

Al Jazeera also reports that speaking at a 'preparing to resettle Gaza' rally, Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir encouraged Palestinians to "voluntarily" leave the Gaza Strip. “We will encourage voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens. We will offer them the opportunity to move to other countries because that land belongs to us,” Al Jazeera quoted Ben-Gvir as saying.

Israel withdrew all military personnel and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the country does not intend to maintain a permanent presence again, but that Israel would "maintain security control for an indefinite period", even as several countries including the United States have said Gaza should be governed by Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the BBC has reported that the US has been strengthening diplomatic efforts to revive ceasefire talks in both Gaza and Lebanon, and has quoted the US President's special envoy to Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, as saying that all parties are working on producing a formula that brings an end to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict "once and for all".

"The United States wants to end this conflict absolutely as soon as possible," the envoy reportedly said in Lebanon's capital Beirut, where he has reportedly been meeting senior Shia leader Nabih Berri, who is negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah.

The BBC had also cited Lebanese state media as reporting that after a wave of Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah-linked banks across Lebanon last night, further strikes have apparently targeted southern Lebanon in the last few hours.

Lebanon's health ministry has said several people have been killed in attacks across the country and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it is conducting "limited, localised, targeted" raids in southern Lebanon.

Six people were killed and eight others injured in an Israeli drone attack on a house in the eastern Lebanon city of Baalbek, according to official Lebanese sources. An Israeli drone raided the house in the Nabi Inaam neighbourhood of central Baalbek, Lebanon's official National News Agency said, adding women and children were among the dead, Xinhua news agency reported. Civil defence teams retrieved the bodies, while the Lebanese Red Cross transferred the casualties to nearby hospitals, it said.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said in a statement that it had downed an Israeli Hermes-900 drone on Sunday evening during an exchange of shelling with the Israeli army in southern Lebanon. The group noted that this was the ninth drone it had shot down in southern and eastern Lebanon since 8 October 2023.

In separate statements, Hezbollah said it had launched rocket salvos on Monday targeting Israeli forces in Khallet Wardeh, opposite the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab and in the village of Maroun al-Ras, and an Israeli artillery position in Israel's moshav of Beit Hillel.

On the other hand, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) on Monday claimed it conducted a series of targeted, intelligence-based strikes against dozens of facilities and sites allegedly used by Hezbollah's military arm to finance its activities against Israel.

"These funds, which Hezbollah used for terror activities, were stored by the Al-Qard al-Hassan Association, which directly funds Hezbollah's terror activities, including the purchase of weapons and payments to operatives in Hezbollah's military wing," the IDF said in a statement. "Hezbollah stores billions of dollars in the association's branches, including money that was directly held under the name of the terrorist organization."

The IDF mentioned that, prior to launching strikes, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including advance warnings issued via different platforms to the civilian population in the area. These strikes, it said, are part of the IDF's ongoing efforts to degrade Hezbollah's infrastructure, its military capabilities and ability to rebuild.

Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces claim to have destroyed infrastructure and tunnel shafts in the Jabaliya area and eliminated "dozens of terrorists" in 36 hours. "During the activity of the forces, the fighters of the 401st TDF eliminated a number of terrorists who posed a threat to the forces by firing tanks, in skirmishes and by directing air force strikes," the IDF said.

Israeli forces of the Gaza division also reportedly destroyed infrastructure and a weapons warehouse in the centre of the Gaza Strip, while in southern Lebanon, the IDF claims to have destroyed stockpiles of weapons used by Hezbollah, including anti-tank missiles, launchers, cartridges, charges, grenades and other equipment.

With agency inputs