Hezbollah rescue workers search for victims on the rubble of destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in NAbatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
BY WAFAA SHURAFA AND SAMY MAGDY
October 13, 2024
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli strike on the central Gaza Strip killed a family of eight, Palestinian medical officials said Sunday, as Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants in the territory’s north and airstrikes destroyed a century-old market in southern Lebanon.
The strike in Gaza late Saturday hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing parents and their six children, who ranged in age from 8 to 23, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.
It said a further seven people were wounded, including two women and a child in critical condition. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.
A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza nearly every day. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas. In recent months, it has repeatedly struck schools being used as shelters by displaced people, accusing militants of hiding among them.
Israel is waging air and ground campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when. Iran supports both militant groups and has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.
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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli strike on the central Gaza Strip killed a family of eight, Palestinian medical officials said Sunday, as Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants in the territory’s north and airstrikes destroyed a century-old market in southern Lebanon.
The strike in Gaza late Saturday hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing parents and their six children, who ranged in age from 8 to 23, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.
It said a further seven people were wounded, including two women and a child in critical condition. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.
A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza nearly every day. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas. In recent months, it has repeatedly struck schools being used as shelters by displaced people, accusing militants of hiding among them.
Israel is waging air and ground campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when. Iran supports both militant groups and has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.
RELATED STORIES
A Hamas official is killed in an Israeli strike on a refugee camp
Israel expands its bombardment in Lebanon as thousands flee widening war
Israel intensifies bombardment of Gaza, Lebanon on eve of Oct. 7
Bodies rot in the streets as fighting rages in northern Gaza
In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and other areas.
Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the opening weeks of the war. The Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there. The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.
The military confirmed Saturday that hospitals were included in the evacuation orders but said it had not set a specific timetable. It said a medical convoy scheduled to transfer patients from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in recent days was canceled for security reasons — without elaborating — but that the convoy had delivered fuel to the hospital on Saturday.
Dr. Mohamed Salha, director of the Awda hospital, said it was among three hospitals in the north, including Kamal Adwan, that had received small shipments of fuel that would only last for a matter of days. He said they also need medicine and medical supplies.
He said casualties are still streaming in and his hospital alone is doing 12 to 15 operations a day.
Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said there are a “large number of martyrs” still uncollected from the streets and under the rubble.
“We are unable to reach them,” he told The Associated Press, adding that street dogs are eating some of the remains
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and ground invasions of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. Palestinian medical officials do not say whether those killed by Israeli forces are militants or civilians, but say women and children make up over half the fatalities. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israeli airstrikes destroy Ottoman-era market in Lebanon
Israeli airstrikes destroyed an Ottoman-era market in the southern city of Nabatiyeh overnight, killing at least one person and wounding four more. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said it battled fires in 12 residential buildings and 40 shops in the market, which dates back to 1910.
“Our livelihoods have all been leveled to the ground,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose corner shop was destroyed.
Rescuers were searching for survivors and remains in the pancaked buildings early Sunday as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Nabatiyeh was one of dozens of communities across southern Lebanon that Israel has warned people to evacuate, even as the city hosts people who have already fled.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas, began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict dramatically escalated in September with a wave of Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation into southern Lebanon earlier this month.
In a separate incident, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in the wreckage of a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances.
It said the rescue operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israeli forces have repeatedly fired upon first responders and U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation. The military has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to ferry fighters and weapons and says Hezbollah operates in the vicinity of the peacekeepers, without providing evidence.
At least 2,255 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,400 people since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 54 people have been killed in the rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.
Iran, which supports Hezbollah and Hamas, launched around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel to avenge the killing of Nasrallah; an Iranian general who was with him; and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, who died in an explosion in Iran’s capital in July that was widely blamed on Israel.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
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In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and other areas.
Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the opening weeks of the war. The Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there. The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.
The military confirmed Saturday that hospitals were included in the evacuation orders but said it had not set a specific timetable. It said a medical convoy scheduled to transfer patients from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in recent days was canceled for security reasons — without elaborating — but that the convoy had delivered fuel to the hospital on Saturday.
Dr. Mohamed Salha, director of the Awda hospital, said it was among three hospitals in the north, including Kamal Adwan, that had received small shipments of fuel that would only last for a matter of days. He said they also need medicine and medical supplies.
He said casualties are still streaming in and his hospital alone is doing 12 to 15 operations a day.
Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said there are a “large number of martyrs” still uncollected from the streets and under the rubble.
“We are unable to reach them,” he told The Associated Press, adding that street dogs are eating some of the remains
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and ground invasions of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. Palestinian medical officials do not say whether those killed by Israeli forces are militants or civilians, but say women and children make up over half the fatalities. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israeli airstrikes destroy Ottoman-era market in Lebanon
Israeli airstrikes destroyed an Ottoman-era market in the southern city of Nabatiyeh overnight, killing at least one person and wounding four more. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said it battled fires in 12 residential buildings and 40 shops in the market, which dates back to 1910.
“Our livelihoods have all been leveled to the ground,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose corner shop was destroyed.
Rescuers were searching for survivors and remains in the pancaked buildings early Sunday as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Nabatiyeh was one of dozens of communities across southern Lebanon that Israel has warned people to evacuate, even as the city hosts people who have already fled.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas, began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict dramatically escalated in September with a wave of Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation into southern Lebanon earlier this month.
In a separate incident, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in the wreckage of a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances.
It said the rescue operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israeli forces have repeatedly fired upon first responders and U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation. The military has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to ferry fighters and weapons and says Hezbollah operates in the vicinity of the peacekeepers, without providing evidence.
At least 2,255 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,400 people since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 54 people have been killed in the rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.
Iran, which supports Hezbollah and Hamas, launched around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel to avenge the killing of Nasrallah; an Iranian general who was with him; and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, who died in an explosion in Iran’s capital in July that was widely blamed on Israel.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
___
A beating heart silenced: south Lebanon's Nabatiyeh market
Nabatieh (AFP) – Rubble and plumes of smoke were all that was left Sunday of Nabatiyeh marketplace, once the beating heart of the city in south Lebanon where Israel has intensified its bombardment.
Issued on: 13/10/2024 -
Nabatieh (AFP) – Rubble and plumes of smoke were all that was left Sunday of Nabatiyeh marketplace, once the beating heart of the city in south Lebanon where Israel has intensified its bombardment.
Issued on: 13/10/2024 -
Devastation the day after Israel attacked the iconic marketplace in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh © Abbas FAKIH / AFP
Late Saturday, state media reported Israeli air strikes on the marketplace of the major city some dozen kilometres (miles) from the border with Israel.
The health ministry said the attack wounded eight people. Israel's military has not commented.
"It's as if an earthquake shook the Nabatiyeh market. It's been completely destroyed," said resident Tarek Sadaka.
"Even the street corner where we used to sit and drink coffee in the morning was destroyed."
The air strike badly damaged the buzzing market, which was home to shops selling everything from clothing and jewellery to sweets, as well as to small restaurants.
"Words can't express what I feel," Sadaka said, holding back the tears
Late Saturday, state media reported Israeli air strikes on the marketplace of the major city some dozen kilometres (miles) from the border with Israel.
The health ministry said the attack wounded eight people. Israel's military has not commented.
"It's as if an earthquake shook the Nabatiyeh market. It's been completely destroyed," said resident Tarek Sadaka.
"Even the street corner where we used to sit and drink coffee in the morning was destroyed."
The air strike badly damaged the buzzing market, which was home to shops selling everything from clothing and jewellery to sweets, as well as to small restaurants.
"Words can't express what I feel," Sadaka said, holding back the tears
.
Market buildings shattered by the Israeli air strike on Nabatiyeh
© Abbas FAKIH / AFP
"I'm staying here and I will not leave Nabatiyeh -- Nabatiyeh is our motherland. It's heartbreaking to see people's livelihoods gone," he said.
A few metres (yards) away, flames still licked at chipped masonry on Sunday as black smoke rose from the ruins.
Electrical wiring hung from the shattered facade of a three-storey building, its walls blackened.
A bulldozer worked to clear scattered debris which had blocked the streets.
Just one tree remained standing, unscathed, amid the widespread destruction.
'Scorched earth'
Nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza war escalated into all-out conflict on September 23.
Since then, Israel's intense military campaign of bombardment has killed more than 1,260 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
It has also displaced upwards of one million people, Lebanese officials said.
Since last October, Israel has launched limited strikes on Nabatiyeh, but the damage was nothing compared with the destruction caused by the air strikes.
Nabatiyeh is home to major public institutions, public and private hospitals and several universities.
"I'm staying here and I will not leave Nabatiyeh -- Nabatiyeh is our motherland. It's heartbreaking to see people's livelihoods gone," he said.
A few metres (yards) away, flames still licked at chipped masonry on Sunday as black smoke rose from the ruins.
Electrical wiring hung from the shattered facade of a three-storey building, its walls blackened.
A bulldozer worked to clear scattered debris which had blocked the streets.
Just one tree remained standing, unscathed, amid the widespread destruction.
'Scorched earth'
Nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza war escalated into all-out conflict on September 23.
Since then, Israel's intense military campaign of bombardment has killed more than 1,260 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
It has also displaced upwards of one million people, Lebanese officials said.
Since last October, Israel has launched limited strikes on Nabatiyeh, but the damage was nothing compared with the destruction caused by the air strikes.
Nabatiyeh is home to major public institutions, public and private hospitals and several universities.
The morning after. "This was the most beautiful area and the best market"
© Abbas FAKIH / AFP
Helmi Jaber slowly made his way around the dilapidated market on Sunday, walking with a cane.
The elderly man said he lived nearby but his room was flooded when a water tank leaked after being damaged in the strike.
"This was the most beautiful area and the best market" in the city, Jaber said.
"We are scared... We fear there may be new strikes. They (the Israelis) do not spare anyone and want to turn Nabatiyeh into scorched earth," he added.
He said he wanted to leave, "but who will take me in now? I can barely move" he said, squeezing his cane.
"Who will look after us? Lawmakers who can afford to travel and stay in hotels? Will any of them check on us?" he asked of a country reeling from five years of economic crisis widely blamed on a corrupt governing elite.
'Nabatiyeh is my soul'
Every day for years, Mahmoud Kharabzeit, 69, would have coffee with his friends at the marketplace.
He said he was in shock after this fixture in his life disappeared in the blink of an eye -- but he also insisted that the city would overcome the destruction.
Nabatiyeh "has been through many wars -- it has been bombed, but we are still standing our ground", he said.
"I will stay here. My home is here, my family house is here, and that of my siblings," Kharabzeit said.
"I cannot leave Nabatiyeh. Nabatiyeh is my soul."
Ali Taha, a 63-year-old local imam, felt the loss of the market keenly.
"It's as if my home has been bombed. This is where we grew up and where everyone got to know each other," he told AFP.
In the streets on Sunday and in social media posts, residents and others originally from the city expressed their grief at the loss of Nabatiyeh's iconic market.
Writer Badia Fahs listed the shops and their owners in a Facebook post ... a bookstore, a shop selling sweets, a clothing and shoe store, a falafel and spice shop -- and a music store filling the streets with Arabic melodies...
"It is our heart that has been burnt, not just a square made of cement," she wrote.
© 2024 AFP
Helmi Jaber slowly made his way around the dilapidated market on Sunday, walking with a cane.
The elderly man said he lived nearby but his room was flooded when a water tank leaked after being damaged in the strike.
"This was the most beautiful area and the best market" in the city, Jaber said.
"We are scared... We fear there may be new strikes. They (the Israelis) do not spare anyone and want to turn Nabatiyeh into scorched earth," he added.
He said he wanted to leave, "but who will take me in now? I can barely move" he said, squeezing his cane.
"Who will look after us? Lawmakers who can afford to travel and stay in hotels? Will any of them check on us?" he asked of a country reeling from five years of economic crisis widely blamed on a corrupt governing elite.
'Nabatiyeh is my soul'
Every day for years, Mahmoud Kharabzeit, 69, would have coffee with his friends at the marketplace.
He said he was in shock after this fixture in his life disappeared in the blink of an eye -- but he also insisted that the city would overcome the destruction.
Nabatiyeh "has been through many wars -- it has been bombed, but we are still standing our ground", he said.
"I will stay here. My home is here, my family house is here, and that of my siblings," Kharabzeit said.
"I cannot leave Nabatiyeh. Nabatiyeh is my soul."
Ali Taha, a 63-year-old local imam, felt the loss of the market keenly.
"It's as if my home has been bombed. This is where we grew up and where everyone got to know each other," he told AFP.
In the streets on Sunday and in social media posts, residents and others originally from the city expressed their grief at the loss of Nabatiyeh's iconic market.
Writer Badia Fahs listed the shops and their owners in a Facebook post ... a bookstore, a shop selling sweets, a clothing and shoe store, a falafel and spice shop -- and a music store filling the streets with Arabic melodies...
"It is our heart that has been burnt, not just a square made of cement," she wrote.
© 2024 AFP
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