Middle East latest: Attacks on Beirut and Gaza intensify with Israel on high alert for 7 October anniversary
Israel authorities said they were on the lookout for attacks timed to coincide with the October 7 anniversary
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Israel has been on high alert in anticipation of possible attacks on the one-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel.
“We are ready with increased forces in anticipation for this day,” said military spokesperson Admiral Daniel Hagari, adding that there could be "attacks on the home front".
Israel’s military today revealed that 726 of their soldiers had been killed in a year of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Gaza. Of those, 380 died in the 7 October attacks last year and 346 in Gaza combats.
Israel intensified its airstrikes on Gaza and Lebanon on the eve of the anniversary, bombing with large fireballs and loud booms over the darkened skyline.
Palestinian officials said a strike on a mosque in Gaza earlier in the day killed at least 19 people.
Rocket sirens and blasts were also heard in Haifa in northern Israel late on Sunday, with Hezbollah claiming the attack which injured at least 10. Israel’s military said at least five projectiles were identified coming from Lebanon in the incident.
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Israeli bombardment kills 29 people in Gaza while militants renew rocket fire into Israel
Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 29 Palestinians on Friday, medics said, and sirens blared in southern Israel in response to renewed rocket fire from militants in the Palestinian enclave.
The new rocket salvoes indicated that Hamas-led militant factions in Gaza are still able to fire projectiles into Israel despite a year-long Israeli aerial and ground offensive that has turned wide areas of the enclave into wasteland.
On Friday, the Israeli military said sirens sounded in southern Israel for the first time in around two months.
"Almost a year after 7 October, Hamas is still threatening our civilians with their terrorism and we will continue operating against them," it added, referring to the anniversary of Hamas' cross-border attack that touched off the Gaza war.
In Gaza City in north Gaza, Palestinian health officials said one Israeli aerial strike on a house killed at least seven people. Four people including two women and a baby were killed in the bombing of a home in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The rest were killed in airstrikes on several areas across the densely populated coastal enclave. Residents said Israeli forces operating in Gaza City's Zeitoun suburb and in Rafah, near the southern border with Egypt, blew up clusters of homes.
Israel's military says Hamas combatants use crowded, built-up residential neighbourhoods as cover. Hamas denies this.
Israel media, reporting on the rocket fire, said one rocket was intercepted by air defence and another crashed in an open area. There were no reports of casualties or notable damage.
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