Israeli Strikes Kill 20 Palestinians in Gaza, Medics Say

29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)
29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)
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Israeli Strikes Kill 20 Palestinians in Gaza, Medics Say

29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)
29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)

A series of Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 20 people on Wednesday, medics said.

Eight people were killed in a strike in the Salateen area of Beit Lahia in the north, close to where the Gaza health ministry said at least 93 were killed or missing in an Israeli airstrike that struck a multi-floor house on Tuesday.

The United States called that attack "horrifying".

There was no immediate Israeli comment on either strike.

Gaza's emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the more than three-week Israeli assault into northern Gaza. Israel says its campaign is to destroy Palestinian armed group Hamas, whose fighters had regrouped to the area in the year-long war.

The Israeli army sent tanks into Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of Gaza's eight historic camps and the focus of the new military offensive.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in southern and central Gaza killed at least seven Palestinians earlier on Wednesday, medics said. In Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, an Israeli strike killed five people and wounded others near a clinic, medics and residents said.

Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and more than 250 hostages were captured and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

The death toll from Israel's retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has exceeded 43,000, the Gaza health ministry says.



Sistani Calls for Limiting Possession of Weapons to the Iraqi State

This handout picture released by the media office of Iraq's top Shiite authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani shows him (L) during a meeting with the new representative of the United Nations secretary general for Iraq and head of the UN Assistance Mission to the country (UNAMI), Mohamed al-Hassan of Oman (C), in the central Iraqi city of Najaf on November 4, 2024. (Photo by Sistani's Media Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the media office of Iraq's top Shiite authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani shows him (L) during a meeting with the new representative of the United Nations secretary general for Iraq and head of the UN Assistance Mission to the country (UNAMI), Mohamed al-Hassan of Oman (C), in the central Iraqi city of Najaf on November 4, 2024. (Photo by Sistani's Media Office / AFP)
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Sistani Calls for Limiting Possession of Weapons to the Iraqi State

This handout picture released by the media office of Iraq's top Shiite authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani shows him (L) during a meeting with the new representative of the United Nations secretary general for Iraq and head of the UN Assistance Mission to the country (UNAMI), Mohamed al-Hassan of Oman (C), in the central Iraqi city of Najaf on November 4, 2024. (Photo by Sistani's Media Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the media office of Iraq's top Shiite authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani shows him (L) during a meeting with the new representative of the United Nations secretary general for Iraq and head of the UN Assistance Mission to the country (UNAMI), Mohamed al-Hassan of Oman (C), in the central Iraqi city of Najaf on November 4, 2024. (Photo by Sistani's Media Office / AFP)

Iraq's top Shiite authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani announced seven factors that would achieve Iraq’s stability.

He made his remarks shortly after Israeli television reported that he was among a list of assassination targets alongside leader of the Houthis in Yemen Abdulmalek al-Houthi, Lebanon’s Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem, commander of Iran’s Quds Forces Esmail Qaani and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Sistani received on Monday new representative of the United Nations secretary-general and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Dr. Mohamed al-Hassan of Oman.

A statement from Sistani’s office called on Iraqis to “derive lessons from the past and to work tirelessly to overcome setbacks and work on building a better future where everyone can live in security, stability and prosperity.”

Sistani has since 2015 been refusing to meet with Iraqi officials in protest over rampant corruption in the country and over how his recommendations have been ignored.

Overcoming corruption demands drafting a practical plan to run the country that relies on competency and integrity and that prevents foreign meddling in Iraq, he added.

It also called for imposing the rule of law and limiting the possession of weapons to the state, he stressed.

“The Iraqis have a long path ahead of them,” he said.

The Iraqi government had protested against the Israeli assassination target list, specifically Sistani’s inclusion in it, calling on the international community to condemn attempts to attack figures who enjoy influence and international respect.

Sistani also said he was “deeply pained by the ongoing tragedies in Lebanon and Gaza,” noting that it was “deeply unfortunate” that the international community and its institutions “have been incapable of imposing effective solutions” to end them or at least protect civilians from Israel’s assaults.

For his part, al-Hassan said he reached an agreement with Sistani to bolster Iraq’s regional and international standing.