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Israel says it has killed a Hezbollah commander inside Lebanon
In a message on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed to have killed a Hezbollah commander who it names as Abu Ali Rida. It said he commanded the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon.
The IDF described him as being “responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF troops.”
In the operational update, Israel said:
IDF troops continue to conduct limited, localised, targeted raids in southern Lebanon, dismantling terrorist infrastructure, locating weapons, and eliminating terrorists.
Huge swathes of Lebanon’s population have been displaced from their homes by Israel’s military action against Hezbollah. According to Lebanese authorities, more than 2,800 people have been killed inside Lebanon by Israeli attacks. Tens of thousands of Israelis in the north of the country have also been displaced from their homes by near constant rocket frie from Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces inside Lebanon.
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Reporting for Haaretz, Bar Peleg writes that another arrest has been made on Monday in Israel after a joint investigation by the police, internal security services and the army into a suspected “breach of national security.”
Peleg writes:
An Israeli Court ruled on Sunday evening that the leak of military intelligence from the IDF to the prime minister’s office, and subsequently to foreign media outlets, could have harmed the security services’ ability to secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
The court allowed the publication of the name of Eli Feldstein, the spokesperson in Netanyahu’s circle who is suspected in the case. It was also revealed that the three other detainees being questioned are members of the security establishment.
Peleg says that the Shin Bet have made a further arrest today.
Israel claims to have killed another senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon
Israel’s military has issued a statement in which it claims to have killed “a commander in the Hezbollah Radwan force’s anti-tank missile system.”
Naming him as Riad Rida Ghazzawi, the IDF claimed he “planned and executed a significant amount of terrorist attacks, including firing anti-tank missiles at Israeli civilians and at IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon.”
Israel’s military has been staging incursions inside Lebanon since 1 October, claiming to be targeting Hezbollah.
Lebanese authorities have reported over 2,800 dead in Israeli attacks on Lebanon in the past month.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to leave their homes in northern Israel due to repeated rocket fire from inside Lebanon. At least 50 rockets have been fired so far today according to IDF statements. A large number of people have also been displaced from their homes in Lebanon by the fighting.
Earlier today Israel also stated it had killed a Hezbollah commander in the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, who it named as Abu Ali Rida. The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s military has claimed to have intercepted “a number of suspicious aerial targets that approached Israeli territory from east” on Monday.
33 killed and 156 injured by Israeli strikes on Gaza in last 24 hours – ministry
Gaza’s Hamas-led health ministry has issued updated casualty figures, reporting that 33 Palestinians were killed and 156 more injured by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
The ministry claims this takes the total death toll in the Gaza Strip since Israel began its military campaign against Hamas in October last year to 43,374 killed with 102,261 wounded.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Germany has called on Israel to let more humanitarian aid into north Gaza, where a lack of supplies has led to a “desperate” and “unbearable” situation, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said on Monday.
“We call on the Israeli government urgently to meet its responsibilities under international law,” Reuters reports the spokesperson told a regular news conference in Berlin, adding “Israel has the right to self defence against Hamas within the framework of humanitarian international law.”
Earlier on Monday Israel announced that it had formally instructed the UN that it would be banning the Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa from operating inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that thousands of people in Halhul, north of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, gathered today for the funeral of a 14-year-old child shot by Israeli security forces.
Wafa reported that a general strike spread through Halhul during the funeral for Naji Nidal Al-Baba.
Some news sources have given the child’s age as 16.
In a statement the UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) group has said that all three hospitals in northern Gaza are under attack.
In the statement is said:
All three remaining hospitals in northern Gaza are under attack. Kamal Adwan hospital has come under direct artillery fire, resulting in the serious injury of a child. Al Awda hospital has also been shelled, and Indonesian hospital hit by drone strikes. The Israeli military is killing and injuring hundreds of Palestinians a day and the patients in need of lifesaving care in northern Gaza are now left helpless under siege.
These latest attacks by Israeli forces are part of a sustained assault on Gaza’s health system, amounting to war crimes and the crime of extermination. Israel is making Palestinian survival in northern Gaza impossible as part of a policy of sustained pressure and forcible expulsion. The international community must not allow this brutality to go unchallenged.
An earlier statement today by the Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza said that all three hospitals had been put out of operation.
The statement from the Gaza’s government media office, reported by Al Jazeera and Israeli media, said the “northern district is devastated due to the ongoing Israeli aggression.”
It claimed that about 1,800 Palestinians had been killed and about 4,000 others wounded as a result of IDF operations in the north of the Gaza Strip over the past three weeks. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
It accused the Israeli army of “continuing to destroy civilian infrastructure”, and halting the vaccination campaign for children in northern Gaza “as part of its destruction plan.”
It described the area as “disaster-stricken”. The claims have not been independently verified.
A statement on Friday signed by the heads of UN agencies, including the UN children’s agency Unicef and the World Food Programme, and other aid groups, warned that “The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”
Israeli media is reporting that about 50 rockets have been fired into Israel from the direction of Lebanon so far on Monday. A barrage of 20 rockets was aimed at Western Galilee, with 30 aimed at Upper Galilee. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel, with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government setting their ability to return safely as a war aim for its campaign in Lebanon which it says targets Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s News Agency is reporting new Israeli air strikes on the south of the country.
Israel’s military has issued further details of the interceptions carried out this morning. It says that “four UAVs fired from both Lebanon and the east were intercepted by the IAF,” stating that two were intercepted outside of Israel.
Here are some of the latest images sent over the news wires from Gaza, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
