Scores killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Lebanon

GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight, including women and children, while the Israeli military said it had eliminated dozens of militants in the territory’s north.

In another attack in Lebanon, the health ministry confirmed “Israeli enemy raids targeting the Baalbek-Hermel region killed 31 people, including 11 in the Knaissseh locality”.

An air strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Yunis, killing at least nine people, including children and women, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital.

A second air strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when “Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah school,” which had been turned into a shelter for “thousands of displaced people” in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, Bassal said.

The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.

In recent months, the military has struck several schools-turned-shelters where Israel has said Palestinian militants are operating.

Unicef said Friday that “at least 64 attacks against schools -- almost two every day -- were registered in the Gaza Strip last month”.

It said Gaza schools “largely serve as shelters for displaced children and families,” adding that since the start of the war “more than 95 percent of schools in Gaza have been partially or completely destroyed”.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said Saturday its troops killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, where it has been conducting a sweeping air and ground operation for more than a month to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

Israeli forces also killed several militants in the area of Rafah in the territory’s south, the military added. The military is currently engaged in a two-front war, with troops fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. “Over the past day, the IAF (air force) struck over 50 terror targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement. “Among the targets struck were military structures, weapons storage facilities and launchers,” it added.

On Friday, UN rights chief Volker Turk said “this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians (in Gaza) is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law”.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s health ministry said Saturday 31 people including two children were killed in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre a day earlier, with rescuers still searching for missing people under the rubble.

“Israeli enemy strikes on the city of Tyre killed 31 people including two girls, and injured 14 others,” the ministry said, adding that body parts had been found and will be “identified with DNA testing,” the health ministry in Beirut said in a statement.

It said “Israeli enemy raids targeting the Baalbek-Hermel region killed 31 people, including 11 in the Knaissseh locality.

It added that rubble was being cleared following the strikes as part of ongoing efforts to locate missing persons.

Earlier on Saturday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency had said the deadly strikes targeted three buildings in the coastal city, causing “massive damage to dozens of homes”.

The NNA also said “enemy fighter jets” destroyed two heritage houses in the southern city of Nabatiyeh.

Hezbollah said on Saturday it targeted Israeli troops, locations and military sites including a base and an area north of Haifa, in addition to downing an Israeli Hermes 450 drone over a south Lebanon village.

Israel intensified its air campaign on Lebanon in September and later sent in ground troops after a year of cross-border clashes.