16 killed including children in Israeli strike on school in Nuseirat – reports
16 people have been killed by an Israeli strike on a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, Reuters reports.
Earlier Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least nine people had been killed, including four children. The Al-Shuhada school was sheltering displaced Palestinians.
More details soon …
Key events
Iranian and Chinese presidents meet at Brics summit
Iran’s Tasnim news agency has reported that president Masoud Pezeshkian met with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping directly during the Brics summit in Kazan.
It reports Pezeshkian told Xi that Iran does not seek clashes and believes that wars do not benefit anybody, but that Tehran would give a firm and decisive response to any act of aggression against it.
Israel is believed to be planning retaliatory strikes for two waves of missiles launched at it by Iran on 1 October. That attack was in turn a response to Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.
Pezeshkian reportedly told Xi that Israel is the main threat to regional peace, and denounced the unconditional support Israel receives from the US and other western governments.
Reporting on an Israeli strike on a school in Nuseirat in Gaza which is believed to have killed at least 16 people including children, Al Jazeera states the school “was hosting hundreds of internally displaced families when it was directly hit.”
It says “More than one missile was used in the area, which was close to the local market,” and that the injured are being taken to two nearby hospitals.
Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, but still has correspondents in neighbouring Gaza and Lebanon.
More details soon …
Gaza’s civil defence agency says it can no longer provide first responder services in north of territory
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Thursday it can no longer provide first responder services in the north of the territory, accusing Israeli forces of threatening to “bomb and kill” its crews.
AFP reports Mahmud Bassal, the agency’s spokesperson, said “We are unable to provide humanitarian services to citizens in the northern governorate of the Gaza Strip due to threats from Israeli occupation forces, who have threatened to kill and bomb our teams if they remain inside Jabalia camp.”
He told AFP first responders had been “targeted” by Israeli forces on several occasions, leaving “several members injured, and others are left bleeding on the streets with no one able to rescue them.”
16 killed including children in Israeli strike on school in Nuseirat – reports
16 people have been killed by an Israeli strike on a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, Reuters reports.
Earlier Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least nine people had been killed, including four children. The Al-Shuhada school was sheltering displaced Palestinians.
More details soon …
Hezbollah has claimed to have hit two Israeli tanks in clashes in southern Lebanon, AFP reports.
The agency states Hezbollah said its fighters were engaged in “heavy clashes in the village of Aita al-Shaab” at close range, adding that they hit a Merkava tank that came to assist the troops after earlier saying it had “destroyed” another tank.
The claims have not been independently verified. There has been no immediate comment on the claims from Israel.
Israel’s military has reported that 95 rockets have been launched aimed at Israel from inside southern Lebanon so far today.
The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza has issued new casualty figures from the conflict, claiming that 42,847 Palestinians have been killed and 100,544 wounded in Gaza since Israel launched its military offensive last year.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed that during its operations inside southern Lebanon it has “discovered an underground hideout” said to contain “bunk beds, storage cabinets, food supplies, infrastructure for long-term stay, a large amount of equipment, weapons, and launch positions” which it says were left behind by Hezbollah, and were intended for use in an attack on Israel.
The claims have not been independently verified.
AFP reports that a German foreign ministry statement has said it is pledging €96m (£80m / $103m) in aid to Lebanon at today’s international conference on the crisis being hosted by Emmanuel Macron in Paris.
The ministry said the money will “reach the internally displaced” and be used to “ensure social, economic and institutional stability in Lebanon.”
The Lebanese government has stated that over 2,500 people have been killed, more than 12,000 wounded, and 1.2 million people displaced since Israel stepped up its aerial attacks and staged an incursion into southern Lebanon.
Lebanese media is now reporting that two people were killed in an Israeli strike on a vehicle on the main road from Beirut to the east of the country.
More details soon …
At least one person is reported to have been killed by an Israeli strike inside Lebanon on a vehicle on the main road that links Beirut with the east of the country and Damascus in Syria.
Zeina Khodr, at the scene for Al Jazeera, described it as looking like “yet another targeted assassination”. She reported that the Lebanese army and forensics teams were on the site.
More details soon …
Speaking at an international conference organised by France in Paris, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati has said his country still supports the 21-day ceasefire proposal on the table that was brokered by the US and France.
Neither Israel or the Iranian-backed Hezbollah have accepted the proposal.
Mikati said that the Lebanese army had begun recruitment, and could deploy additional troops in the south of the country to help enforce a ceasefire, but said that the armed forces needed financial and training support from the international community.
Mikati also said that UN security council resolution 1701, which was intended to resolve the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, should form the basis of any settlement. The resolution calls for a buffer zone between the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon up to the Litani River where only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces would be allowed to operate. The result would effectively force Hezbollah back about 30km (18 miles) from northern Israel, while removing any Israeli presence inside southern Lebanon.
Macron: international conference will support strengthening of Lebanese armed forces
Emmanuel Macron has called for an end to fighting in Lebanon, criticising Israel’s incursion into the south of the country, and calling on Hezbollah to stop its operations.
Speaking at an international conference in Paris to rally humanitarian and military aid for Lebanon which is being attended by about 70 nations and international groups, including Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati, Macron said that the conference would support the recruitment of 6,000 new troops for the Lebanese army. The French president said it would also provide key supplies.
Speaking about the UN peacekeeping force, Unifil, which has been operational in Lebanon since 1978, Macron said it needed to adapt its role to the circumstances, and said that attacks on it by Israeli forces were not justified.
Macron announced that France would be supplying €100m (£83m / $108m) in humanitarian aid.
He said “in the immediate term, massive aid is needed for the Lebanese population, both for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war and for the communities hosting them.”
Earlier, France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot described Lebanon as being “on the edge of the abyss.”
Describing Lebanon, a country that France held a mandate over in the aftermath of the first world war, as “France’s friend”, Barrot added “It is our duty to act and that’s why France has taken this initiative.”
Neither Iran or Israel have been invited to the conference.
France is hosting an international conference today for Lebanon to rally military and humanitarian aid. Emmanuel Macron is speaking to open it. We will bring you the key lines that emerge.
Speaking at the Brics summit in Kazan, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has warned that the Middle East is on the brink of a full-scale war.
State-owned news agency Tass quotes Putin saying that the Russian Federation’s position was that it opposes any terrorist acts on any side of the conflict.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Lebanon.
