What to Know About Fighting in Lebanon and Gaza

Relentless Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs overnight and closed off the main highway linking Lebanon with Syria, forcing fleeing civilians to cross the border by foot.
The airstrikes came as the supreme leader of Iran, which backs the anti-Israel militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, praised the country’s recent missile strike on Israel and said Friday it was ready to do it again if necessary.
Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel almost exactly a year ago, killing 1,200 Israelis, taking 250 people hostage, and setting off a war with Israel that has shattered much of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since then in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. It says more than half were women and children, The Associated Press said.
In late September, Israel shifted some of its focus to Hezbollah, which holds much of the power in parts of southern Lebanon and some other areas of the country, attacking the militants with exploding pagers, airstrikes and, eventually, incursions into Lebanon.
Here’s what to know:
What is the latest on Israel’s operations in Lebanon? Israel said it targeted the crossing with Syria because Hezbollah militants were using it to bring in weapons, and that its jets had also struck a smuggling tunnel. Much of Hezbollah's weaponry is believed to come from Iran through Syria.
Tens of thousands of people fleeing war in Lebanon have crossed into Syria over the past two weeks.
Israeli officials said they were targeting Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in the Beirut suburb airstrikes. It did not say if any militants were killed, but it says it has killed 100 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours.
Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed in a Thursday drone attack in northern Israel, military officials said. An umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it carried out three drone strikes Friday in northern Israel.
The Israeli military launched a ground incursion into Lebanon earlier this week and has been fighting Hezbollah militants in a narrow strip of land along the border. A series of attacks before the incursion killed some of the group’s key members, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah, in a display of solidarity, began launching rockets into northern Israel just after Hamas' Oct. 7 cross-border attack.
On Thursday, Israel extended its evacuation warnings to communities in southern Lebanon, including and beyond an area that the United Nations had declared a buffer zone after Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief 2006 war.
Lebanese officials say nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes because of the fighting.
What happened in the airstrike on a West Bank cafe? A Thursday airstrike on a West bank cafe, which Israeli officials said had targeted Palestinian militants, also killed a family of four, including two young children, relatives said.
The Palestinian health ministry said at least 18 Palestinians had been killed.
The Israeli military said the airstrike in the Tulkarem refugee camp killed several militants, including Hamas’ leader in the camp, whom it accused of involvement in multiple attacks on Israeli civilians, and of planning an attack on Israel on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 assault.
Tulkarem, a militant stronghold, is frequently targeted by the Israeli military.
Airstrikes used to be rare in the Palestinian territory, but they have grown more common as Israeli forces clamp down, saying they want to prevent attacks on their citizens.
Israeli fire has killed at least 722 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, Palestinian health officials say. In that time, Palestinian fighters have launched a number of attacks on soldiers at checkpoints and within Israel.
What is Iran saying? A top Iranian official warned Friday that it would harshly retaliate if Israel attacks Iran.
“If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in Beirut after meeting Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Araghchi's visit came three days after Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel, the latest in a series of rapidly escalating attacks that threaten to push the Middle East closer to a regionwide war.
What did Biden say about Netanyahu? President Joe Biden said he couldn't say if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was holding up a Mideast peace deal to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden told reporters Friday, using the Israeli leader's nickname. “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”
Biden, who has long pushed for a diplomatic agreement, and whose relationship with Netanyahu has grown increasingly complicated, was responding to comments made by one of his allies, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
“I don’t think you have to be a hopeless cynic to read some of Israel’s actions, some of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions, as connected to the American election,” Murphy said on CNN.
A peace deal would help smooth divisions in the Democratic Party and could increase electoral support for Vice President Kamala Harris. Netanyahu, though, worries his far-right coalition would stop supporting him if he signed an agreement, leaving him out of power and facing his own legal problems.
Netanyahu has a markedly closer relationship with former President Donald Trump than he does with Biden.

In the small fishing village of Beddouza in western Morocco, locals have turned to the Atlantic to quench their thirst, using mobile desalination stations to combat the kingdom's persistent drought.

Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units that have come as a boon against the increasingly tangible effects of climate change.

The potable water is distributed with tanker trucks to remote areas in the country, currently grappling with its worst drought in nearly 40 years.

"We heard about desalinated water in other villages, but we never expected to have it here," said Karim, a 27-year-old fisherman who did not give his last name, gathered among dozens with jerrycans to collect his share of water.

Hassan Kheir, 74, another villager, described the mobile stations as a godsend, as groundwater in the region "has dried up".

Some 45,000 people now have access to drinking water directly from the ocean in Beddouza, about 180 kilometres (112 miles) northwest of Marrakesh, as a result of three monobloc desalination stations.

These units can potentially cover a radius of up to 180 kilometres, according to Yassine Maliari, an official in charge of local water distribution.

With nearly depleted dams and bone-dry water tables, some three million people in rural Morocco urgently need drinking water, according to official figures, and the kingdom has promised to build 219 more desalination stations.

Monobloc stations can produce up to 3,600 cubic metres of drinking water per day and are "the best possible solution" given the ease of distributing them, said Maliari.

For cities with greater needs, like Casablanca, larger desalination plants are also under construction, adding to 12 existing national plants with a total capacity of nearly 180 million cubic metres of drinking water per year.

By 2040, Morocco is poised to face "extremely high" water stress, a dire prediction from the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research organisation.

With coasts on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the North African country has banked on desalination for water security.

In Beddouza, the population is relatively better off than those in remote areas further inland.

About 200 kilometres east, in Al-Massira, the country's second-largest dam has nearly dried up.

The dam has filled up to an alarmingly meagre 0.4 percent, compared to 75 percent in 2017, Abdelghani Ait Bahssou, a desalination plant manager in the coastal city of Safi, told AFP.

The country's overall dam fill rates currently average 28 percent but are feared to shrink by 2050 as drought is expected to persist, according to the agriculture ministry.

Over that same period, official figures project an 11-percent drop in rainfall and a rise in temperatures of 1.3 degrees Celsius.

As the country grapples with the increasingly volatile effects of climate change, King Mohammed VI has pledged that desalination will provide more than 1.7 billion cubic metres per year and cover more than half of the country's drinking water needs by 2030.

The lack of water also threatens Morocco's vital agriculture sector, which employs around a third of the working-age population and accounts for 14 percent of exports.

Cultivated areas across the kingdom are expected to shrink to 2.5 million hectares in 2024 compared with 3.7 million last year, according to official figures.

In 2023, 25 percent of desalinated water was alloted to agriculture, which consumes more than 80 percent of the country's water resources.

Against this backdrop, authorities in Safi were in a "race against time" to build a regular desalination plant which now serves all of its 400,000 residents, said Bahssou.

The plant is set to be expanded to also provide water by 2026 for Marrakesh and its 1.4 million residents, some 150 kilometres east of Safi, Bahssou added.

What to Know About Fighting in Lebanon and Gaza