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Israel in 'Offensive Action' in South Lebanon

Lebanese villagers flash victory signs from their house which was hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Kfar Kila, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Lebanese villagers flash victory signs from their house which was hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Kfar Kila, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
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Israel in 'Offensive Action' in South Lebanon

Lebanese villagers flash victory signs from their house which was hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Kfar Kila, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Lebanese villagers flash victory signs from their house which was hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Kfar Kila, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Israel said Wednesday its forces were carrying out "offensive action" in Lebanon after launching cross-border strikes targeting Hamas ally Hezbollah as Israeli aircraft and tanks pounded the Gaza Strip.
Since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7, Lebanon's powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group and Israeli forces have traded near-daily fire, heightening fears of a wider conflict breaking out, said AFP.
In war-battered Gaza, there has been mounting concern over Israeli plans to launch an assault on the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where 1.5 million people have sought refuge, many in makeshift encampments.
Aid groups warn any invasion would create catastrophic conditions for civilians. However, government spokesman David Mencer said Israel was "moving ahead" with its operation in Rafah, which Israeli officials have described as the "last" major Hamas stronghold where militants may be holding hostages.
Hamas meanwhile released a video of an Israeli-American man who was one of the 129 hostages Israel estimates remain in Gaza, a figure that includes 34 presumed dead.
Also on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden signed a bill authorizing $13 billion in military aid to close ally Israel.
The bill also included $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza, which Biden demanded Israel allow reach Palestinians "without delay".
Middle East tensions remain high more than 200 days into the devastating war, which has also seen rising violence between Israel and Iran's proxies and allies in the region.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that "many forces are deployed" along Israel's northern border, claiming the military has eliminated "half of Hezbollah's commanders in southern Lebanon" over months of violence.
Israel has struck increasingly deeper into Lebanon, while Hezbollah has stepped up rocket fire and drone attacks on Israeli military bases across the border.
Israeli forces are “currently carrying out offensive action throughout southern Lebanon", Gallant said, without specifying whether ground troops had crossed the border.
A spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, told AFP that "we didn't detect any ground crossing today."
The Israeli army had earlier said its forces struck around 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, with Lebanese official media reporting at least 13 strikes on several villages.
The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,262 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

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With Nowhere Else to Hide, Gazans Shelter in Former Prison

24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
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With Nowhere Else to Hide, Gazans Shelter in Former Prison

24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)

After weeks of Israeli bombardment left them with nowhere else to go, hundreds of Palestinians have ended up in a former Gaza prison built to hold murderers and thieves.

Yasmeen al-Dardasi said she and her family passed wounded people they were unable to help as they evacuated from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis towards its Central Correction and Rehabilitation Facility.

They spent a day under a tree before moving on to the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room. It offers protection from the blistering sun, but not much else.

Dardasi's husband has a damaged kidney and just one lung, but no mattress or blanket.

"We are not settled here either," said Dardasi, who like many Palestinians fears she will be uprooted once again.

Israel has said it goes out of its way to protect civilians in its war with the Palestinian group Hamas, which runs Gaza and led the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the latest conflict.

Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced several times, say nowhere is free of Israeli bombardment, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.

An Israeli air strike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in the Al-Mawasi area on July 13, the territory's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas' elusive military chief Mohammed Deif.

On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis had killed 14 people.

Entire neighborhoods have been flattened in one of the most densely populated places in the world, where poverty and unemployment have long been widespread.

According to the United Nations, nine in ten people across Gaza are now internally displaced.

Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family that they should flee for safety as tanks were on their way, she said. The family had no time to change so they left in their prayer clothes.

After sleeping outside on sandy ground, they too found refuge in the prison, among piles of rubble and gaping holes in buildings from the battles which were fought there. Inmates had been released long before Israel attacked.

"We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, with children walking with us," she said, adding that many of the women had five or six children with them and that water was hard to find.

She held her niece, who was born during the conflict, which has killed her father and brothers.

When Hamas-led gunmen burst into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 they killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the air and ground offensive Israel launched in response, Palestinian health officials say.

Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived at the prison after being displaced six times.

If Egyptian, US and Qatari mediators fail to secure a ceasefire they have long said is close, she and other Palestinians may be on the move once again. "Where should we go? All the places that we go to are dangerous," she said.