Several dead in Israeli attacks on houses in Gaza Strip

The death toll from an Israeli airstrike on a house in Beit Lahia has risen to at least 15 as rescue workers continue to search for bodies under the rubble.

Palestinian media reported that more than 40 people were in Abu Awad’s house at the time of the attack.

Casualties were also reported in attacks in other parts of Gaza – in the districts of Al Zeitoun, Sabra and Tal Al Hawa – but exact numbers were not given.

Heavy shelling was also reported from Khan Younis and the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps.

During the night, heavy fighting broke out in Rafah between Hamas and Israeli forces. Military tanks are advancing ever deeper into the southern part of the enclave.

The Israeli army said its forces had killed a Hamas fighter responsible for smuggling weapons across the Rafah-Egypt border.

The Gaza Strip’s Civil Defense Department said on Wednesday that its teams had rescued 13 people from the rubble of their homes following an Israeli attack in the Gaza district of Daraj.

At least 37,718 Palestinians have been killed and 86,377 injured in Israel’s war against Gaza since October 7, the enclave’s health ministry said on Wednesday.

In the last 24 hours, 60 people were killed and 140 injured, the ministry added.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Wednesday that it had received six trucks carrying medical aid from Morocco via the Karam Abu Salem border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip.

The supplies will be distributed to several hospitals where there is a severe shortage of medical supplies and medicines, the aid organization said on the social media page X.

Jamie Prentis Reports:

Canada has repeatedly urged its citizens to leave Lebanon due to the deteriorating security situation, with daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said the security situation was becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable due to the “persistent and escalating violence” between Hezbollah and Israel and could “deteriorate further without warning.”

“My message to Canadians has been clear since the crisis in the Middle East began: now is not the time to travel to Lebanon. And for Canadians currently in Lebanon, it is time to leave the country while commercial flights are still available.”

Since October, when clashes broke out in parallel with Israel’s war on Gaza, many countries have called on their citizens to leave Lebanon.

Although the exchanges of fire generally remained limited to the border region, they increasingly spread to both countries.

Israel’s attacks extend as far as Hermel in the northeastern border region of Lebanon with Syria.

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A merchant ship was the target of a suspected Houthi attack in the Gulf of Aden, a British maritime authority said on Wednesday.

The ship’s captain reported that a rocket had hit the water nearby, 96 kilometers south of Aden.

The attack came several hours after the Houthis claimed to have hit the Liberian-flagged MSC Sarah V in the Arabian Sea with a new ballistic missile, labelling the ship as “Israeli”. The attack was reported on Monday.

The Houthis have not claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, but it usually takes hours or days for them to do so.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said a drone was intercepted over the Red Sea near Eilat before it could enter Israeli territory.

A secret group backed by Iran calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack.

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In view of the increasing tensions with Israel, Turkey stands in solidarity with Lebanon, said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr Erdogan called on other countries in the region to support Beirut.

“It seems that Israel, which destroyed Gaza, is now turning its attention to Lebanon,” he told the Turkish parliament on Wednesday.

The Turkish president accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of planning to expand the war to the region and warned that this would lead to a “major catastrophe”.

Israeli forces arrested 20 people in night raids across the occupied West Bank. The majority of the arrests took place in Hebron and Jenin.

Among those detained are former prisoners who were recently released, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Since October 7, more than 9,400 people have been arrested in the West Bank.

The Israeli military has released footage of fighter jets carrying out nighttime attacks on Hezbollah positions in the Lebanese areas of Matmoura and Shebaa Farms.

Israeli forces arrested six young men in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Wednesday morning.

The military encountered resistance when storming the city, which led to heavy violence, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli forces searched and stormed several houses.

Israeli forces stormed several towns in the occupied West Bank overnight and arrested numerous people.

Violence broke out in Issawiya in East Jerusalem, where the military used tear gas.

According to local media, eleven people were arrested in Hebron, one in Qalqilya and two in Hebron.

In the town of Za’atara in Bethlehem, Israeli forces attacked civilians in their homes during raids, the Wafa news agency reported.

At least four people were killed and twelve injured in overnight Israeli attacks on a house in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

The military also attacked houses in the Al Zeitoun district of Gaza city and in Rafah, Wafa news agency reported.

Heavy shelling was reported from Khan Younis, Deir Al Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp, but there was no information on casualties.

Clashes between Hamas and the Israeli military also occurred in the Tal Al Sultan district of Rafah.

According to the British Maritime Trade Operations, a missile hit the water near a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden.

Reports of the attack, which took place 52 nautical miles south of Aden, Yemen, were received early Wednesday morning.

The crew is safe and on its way to the next port of call, the agency said.

The reported attack came several hours after the Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile attack on the ship MSC Sarah V in the Arabian Sea.

While US soldiers are within shouting distance of the bombed-out coast of the Gaza Strip, the American military is making another attempt to send aid to starving Palestinians by sea.

After several attempts, a $230 million pier is back in operation.

The US military invited reporters to tour the facility on Tuesday, marking the first time that international media witnessed its operations first-hand.

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, international journalists have no longer been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip independently.

The project, which first launched in mid-May, resumed operations last week after recently being suspended due to rough seas.

On Tuesday, US soldiers with machine guns monitored operations at the pier. US ships with trucks full of humanitarian aid docked at the pier.

Israeli and Cypriot drivers drove the trucks off the ships and drove down the 400-meter-long causeway to the beach, where they unloaded pallets of relief supplies.

The trucks then returned to the ships to be transferred and reloaded onto large cargo ships sailing from Cyprus across the Mediterranean.

–AP

Houthi rebels in Yemen said they attacked the Israeli ship MSC Sarah V in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday with a new ballistic missile that they had only recently put into service.