Israeli Strike Kills 3 Hezbollah Fighters in Lebanon

A view shows an Israeli tank and military vehicles near Israel's border with Lebanon in northern Israel, October 9 - REUTERS
A view shows an Israeli tank and military vehicles near Israel's border with Lebanon in northern Israel, October 9 - REUTERS
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Israeli Strike Kills 3 Hezbollah Fighters in Lebanon

A view shows an Israeli tank and military vehicles near Israel's border with Lebanon in northern Israel, October 9 - REUTERS
A view shows an Israeli tank and military vehicles near Israel's border with Lebanon in northern Israel, October 9 - REUTERS

An Israeli drone strike killed three Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon on Saturday, security sources in Lebanon said, the latest to die in months of cross-border hostilities that have been fought in parallel to the Gaza war.

The men were killed when the car they were in was targeted on a coastal road near the town of Naqoura, the sources said. The Israeli army said it was checking reports on the incident, The Associated Press reported.

Israeli strikes since October have killed more than 200 Hezbollah fighters and some 50 civilians in Lebanon, while attacks from Lebanon into Israel have killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and five civilians. Tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have fled villages on both sides of the frontier.

Hezbollah signalled this week that it would halt its attacks if Israel's Gaza offensive stops, but it is also ready to keep on fighting if the Gaza war continues. On Friday, Hezbollah announced the deaths of four members killed in Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last Sunday indicated that Israel planned to increase attacks on Hezbollah in the event of a Gaza ceasefire, but was open to a diplomatic deal to withdraw Hezbollah fighters from the border.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati told Reuters on Thursday a halt to fighting in Gaza as early as next week would trigger indirect talks to end hostilities at the border.



Palestinians Say Israeli Strikes Kill 45 in Gaza

Mourners at the funeral of Al-Quds Today journalists killed in a strike in central Gaza, which Israel says targeted militants - AFP
Mourners at the funeral of Al-Quds Today journalists killed in a strike in central Gaza, which Israel says targeted militants - AFP
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Palestinians Say Israeli Strikes Kill 45 in Gaza

Mourners at the funeral of Al-Quds Today journalists killed in a strike in central Gaza, which Israel says targeted militants - AFP
Mourners at the funeral of Al-Quds Today journalists killed in a strike in central Gaza, which Israel says targeted militants - AFP

Palestinian sources said that Israeli strikes in Gaza on Thursday killed at least 45 people including hospital workers and journalists.

Five staff at one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals were among those killed, the facility's director said, more than two months into an Israeli operation in the area.

Hossam Abu Safiya, head of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, said "an Israeli strike resulted in five martyrs among the hospital staff" -- a pediatrician, a lab technician, two ambulance workers and a member of maintenance staff. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel has been pressing a major offensive in northern Gaza since October 6, saying it aims to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping, according to AFP.

At the other end of the Palestinian territory, the chief paediatric doctor at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said three babies had died from a "severe temperature drop" this week as winter cold set in.

Doctor Ahmed al-Farra said the most recent case was a three-week-old girl who was "brought to the emergency room with a severe temperature drop, which led to her death".

A three-day-old baby and another "less than a month old" died on Tuesday, he said.

Meanwhile, in central Gaza, a Palestinian TV channel affiliated with a militant group said five of its journalists were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Gaza, with Israel's military saying it had targeted a "terrorist cell".

Witnesses said a missile struck the van while it was parked outside Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat.

- 'Extremely cold' -

The three-week-old girl, Sila al-Faseeh, was living in a tent in Al-Mawasi, an area designated a humanitarian safe zone by the Israeli military that is home to huge numbers of displaced Palestinians.

"The tents do not protect from the cold, and it gets very cold at night, with no way to keep warm," said Farra.

He said many mothers were suffering from malnutrition which affected the quality of their breast milk and compounded the risks to newborns.

Sila's father Mahmoud al-Faseeh said it was "extremely cold, and the tent is not suitable for living. The children are always sick."

The United Nations and other organizations have repeatedly decried the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, particularly in the north, since Israel began its latest military offensive in early October.

Also on Thursday, Gaza's civil defense agency said tens of other people were killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza, including 13 in a house that was home to "numerous displaced families" in the west of Gaza City.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said two soldiers aged 27 and 35 were killed in the Gaza Strip. That brought to 391 the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in the Palestinian territory.

- 'Journalists are civilians' -

The journalists' employer Al-Quds Today said in a statement that a missile hit their broadcast van while it was parked in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The channel is affiliated with Islamic Jihad, whose militants have fought alongside Hamas in the Gaza Strip and took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.

The station identified the five staffers as Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jadi, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed al-Ladaa.

They were killed "while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty", the statement said.

The Israeli military said it had conducted a "precise strike" and that those killed "were Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists".

The Committee to Protect Journalists' Middle East arm said in a statement it was "devastated by the reports".

"Journalists are civilians and must always be protected," it added.

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7 attack last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,399 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.