US Cautions Against Escalating Tensions Between Israel, Hezbollah

A man checks the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Jibshit on February 27, 2024. (Photo by MAHMOUD ZAYYAT / AFP)
A man checks the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Jibshit on February 27, 2024. (Photo by MAHMOUD ZAYYAT / AFP)
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US Cautions Against Escalating Tensions Between Israel, Hezbollah

A man checks the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Jibshit on February 27, 2024. (Photo by MAHMOUD ZAYYAT / AFP)
A man checks the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Jibshit on February 27, 2024. (Photo by MAHMOUD ZAYYAT / AFP)

The United States does not want to see tensions rise further between Israel and Hezbollah, the US State Department said on Tuesday.

It said Israel has assured Washington it wants a diplomatic solution to the issue.

Hezbollah said it had launched a volley of rockets at an Israeli aerial surveillance base earlier on Tuesday in response to the Israeli military's deepest attack yet into Lebanese territory, with no immediate reports of casualties from the rockets.

The army said it detected a total of 20 launches from Lebanon on Tuesday. It said some were intercepted by air defense systems while others landed in open areas.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.