GAZA/BEIRUT: Genocidal Zionist strikes on Sunday killed dozens of people in Gaza, civil defense rescuers said, most of them in northern Gaza where the UN and others have decried disastrous humanitarian conditions. In Lebanon, the Zionist entity’s second war front, a Lebanese source reported the death of Hezbollah’s spokesman in one Zionist raid.
The Zionist entity on Oct 6 began its air and ground operation in the already war-ravaged north Gaza’s Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia. On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said 34 people were killed including children, and dozens were missing, after a Zionist air strike hit a five-storey residential building in Beit Lahia overnight. The Gaza government media office put the number of those killed at 72.
"The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. Jaber Ghabayen, who was staying elsewhere but whose family lived in the razed building, said "the whole area was shaking” and "we all thought that death was near”.
In other deadly strikes, Bassal said attacks on refugee camps in central Gaza killed 15 people, and a Zionist drone strike on the southern city of Rafah killed five. Also in the south, in the Khan Yunis area, civil defense said a Zionist drone targeted a group of unarmed people securing an aid delivery, killing six. Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846. The majority of the dead are civilians.
A Lebanese security source said Sunday Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was killed in a strike on central Beirut’s Ras Al-Nabaa district, one of relatively few attacks outside the group’s strongholds. Previous strikes claimed by the Zionist entity have killed senior Hezbollah officials including its leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September. Afif was part of Nasrallah’s inner circle and for years was responsible for Hezbollah’s media relations, providing information to journalists, often under the cover of anonymity.
The security sources said it struck a building where the offices of the Baath Party are located, and the head of the party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif was in the building. The broadcaster later also said Afif had been killed. It showed footage of a building whose upper floors had collapsed onto the first storey, with civil defense workers at the scene.
Further south, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported seven strikes on Jibsheet village in less than two hours, with more attacks on villages closer to the Zionist border. Lebanon’s army, which is not a party to the conflict, said the Zionist entity "directly targeted” an army center in south Lebanon, killing two soldiers.
The Zionist army said about 20 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into the Zionist entity on Sunday, and some were intercepted. The United Nations force in south Lebanon said peacekeepers were fired upon around 40 times on Saturday, probably by "non-state actor” individuals who tried to prevent a patrol from passing in the south. No injuries were reported.
Several Zionist strikes in recent weeks on Baalbek in Lebanon’s east and Tyre in the south — both Hezbollah strongholds — hit close to ancient Roman ruins designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites. A petition published Sunday, the day before a crucial UNESCO meeting, was signed by 300 prominent cultural figures, including archaeologists and academics. It called on the United Nations to safeguard Lebanon’s heritage and establish "no-target zones”. Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September. The Zionist entity says 48 soldiers have been killed fighting Hezbollah.
A UN-backed assessment on Nov 9 warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, amid the increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid. Jordan and Qatar urged "immediate” action to "end the unprecedented humanitarian disaster in northern Gaza”, their foreign ministers said in a joint statement Sunday, blaming "(the Zionist entity’s) failure to allow aid to enter”.
The United States, the Zionist entity’s top military supplier, last week said the Zionist entity was not violating US law on the level of aid entering Gaza but called for further progress. In the Zionist entity, police said they arrested three suspects over two flares that landed near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the town of Caesarea while he was away.
The speaker of the Zionist parliament, Amir Ohana, accused anti-government protesters of being behind the incident. Protesters had gathered again in Tel Aviv, about 40 km south of Caesarea, late Saturday to reiterate demands that the government reach a deal to free dozens of hostages still held in Gaza. Qatar last week said it had suspended its mediator role until Hamas and the Zionist entity show "seriousness” in truce and hostage-release talks. – Agencies