Israel-Lebanon latest: 19 dead and thousands trapped as Israeli forces strike Jabalia refugee camps

The leaders of nine southern European Union countries on Friday pledged support for Lebanon’s armed forces to reassert control over the country’s southern territory in hopes of bringing peace to an area plagued by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

In a joint declaration, the leaders of the so-called MED9 — Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia — said they would “continue advocating for further support to Lebanon and its people, including to the Lebanese Armed Forces which are called to play a critical stabilizing role.”

“The unfolding situation in the Middle East is gravely alarming,” the declaration said. “In light of the reverberations of the Gaza conflict on the wider region, we express our extreme concern with the escalation of the military confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah.”

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Hours after an Israeli strike destroyed a three-story building in Beirut, killing at least 10 people, Maggie Sharawi received a telephone call from a person living nearby saying that the attack had killed a cat that had several kittens.

While civil defense members were combing through the rubble for human victims or survivors, Sharawi and other members of Animals Lebanon, an animal protection organization, also rushed to the scene in Beirut’s central Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood Friday.

They began climbing through rubble, twisted metal and collapsed walls to reach the kittens. The animals, just a few days old, were pulled out, put in a plastic carrier and taken away as the rescuers continued searching for other cats whose cries could be heard emerging from under the debris.

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Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines.

It’s not the first time the national army has found itself watching war at home from the discomfiting position of bystander.

Lebanon’s widely beloved army is one of the few institutions that bridge the country’s sectarian and political divides. Several army commanders have become president, and the current commander, Gen. Joseph Aoun, is widely regarded as one of the front-runners to step in when the deadlocked parliament fills a two-year vacuum and names a president.

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As the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies, Lebanese civilians are increasingly paying the price – and this dangerous reality often becomes clear in the middle of the night: That’s when the Israeli military typically warns people to evacuate buildings or neighborhoods to avoid airstrikes.

Moein Shreif was recently awakened at 3 a.m. by a neighbor calling to alert him that Israel planned to strike a nearby building in his middle-class suburb south of Beirut where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Shreif, his wife and their three children quickly fled their multi-story apartment building and drove away. Within minutes, explosions rang out, he said later that day upon returning to see the smoldering ruins of his building and the one next door.

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Donald Trump’s family business tried to open a luxury hotel in Jerusalem, Israel, according to a report.

The Trump Organization sought a deal last year to open a Trump-branded hotel on the former site of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The New York Times reported.

The former president’s company also looked into transforming a developing skyscraper — near the Israel Defense Forces headquarters — in Tel Aviv into another hotel. Once completed, that building will house the most hotel rooms in the country, the outlet noted.

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UN humanitarian officials say aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months and warn that critical lifelines in the territory’s north, where Israel has renewed its military offensive, have been cut off.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq delivered the grim news Friday, saying the main crossings into northern Gaza have been closed and no food or other essential supplies have entered since Oct. 1. More than 400,000 people who remain in the north are under increasing pressure to move south, he said.

“The situation is terrible” across northern Gaza, Haq said, adding that the entire territory faces insecurity.

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The European Union has said it is deeply concerned about draft Israeli legislation that would ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel and likely scale back aid distribution across war-ravaged Gaza.

Earlier this week, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved a pair of bills this week that would ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and end all contact between the government and the U.N. agency. The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

“If adopted, (the bill) would have disastrous consequences, preventing the U.N. agency from continuing to provide its services and protection to Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and Gaza,” the EU said in an online statement.

Israel has alleged that some of UNRWA’s thousands of staff members participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.

The UN has since fired more than a dozen staffers after internal investigations found they may have taken part in the attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel.

The UN agency has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to Palestinian civilians during the 12 month conflict in Gaza.

Israel’s military ordered residents of 23 southern Lebanese villages on Saturday to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River, which flows from the western Bekaa Valley into the Mediterranean.

The order, communicated via a military statement, mentions villages in southern Lebanon that have been recent targets of Israeli attacks, many of which are already almost empty.

The Israeli military stated that evacuations were necessary for the safety of residents due to increased Hezbollah activities, claiming the group is using sites to conceal weapons and launch attacks on Israel.

Hezbollah denies concealing weapons among civilians.

Another member of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, UNIFIL, was struck by gunfire on Friday, it said in a statement on Saturday, adding that the man was now stable after undergoing surgery to remove the bullet.

In a statement on Saturday, Hamas said Israel’s “massacre against the civilians” aimed to punish the residents of Jabalia for refusing to leave their homes. It also said it was a sign of Israel’s military failure to defeat the group.

Israel has denied it targets civilians.

The armed wings of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and smaller other factions said their fighters attacked Israeli forces in Jabalia and nearby areas with anti-tank rockets, and mortar fire.