Middle East latest: Fireballs light up Beirut sky during Israeli attacks as Haifa hit by rockets

At least 41,870 Palestinians have been killed and 97,166 others injured in Israel‘s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry has said.

The health system in Lebanon is starting to collapse, according to the UN.

“Throughout the past days we have been witnessing an alarming increase in attacks against healthcare,” Imran Riza, the UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, said in a post on X.

“Health workers are paying the heaviest price with their lives. The health system is on the brink of collapsing,” Mr Riza said.

The UN called on the international community to protect healthcare workers and civilians and establish an immediate ceasefire.

Amid Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and strikes on Beirut, US vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris announced that the country would provide nearly $157m in additional assistance to the people of Lebanon.

Ms Harris said the aid would address “essential needs such as food, shelter, water, protection, and sanitation to help those who have been displaced by the recent conflict.”

“I am concerned about the security and well-being of civilians suffering in Lebanon and will continue working to help meet the needs of all civilians there,” she said.

“This additional support brings total US assistance to Lebanon over the last year to over $385 million,” the vice president added.

X users were quick to criticise the move by the US, which accounts for nearly 70 per cent of Israel’s arms imports.

Since Israel invaded Gaza, the US has approved billions of dollars in weapons sales to Israel over the past months.

“I’m no military expert, but lying awake that night in Beirut, you wonder whether the value of the US-produced bombs and aircraft in use here, in the competition between destruction and aid, doesn’t far exceed that sum,” Beirut-based journalist Karim El-Gawhary posted on X.

Thousands of people in major cities worldwide took to the streets on Saturday, demanding an end to Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon.

Nearly 40,000 people marched through central London, with thousands more in Paris, Cape Town, and New York City, calling for a free Palestine and a swift end to the conflict in the Middle East.

Protesters in New York City gathered at Times Square, shouting slogans like “Gaza, Lebanon, you will rise, the people are by your side”.

Many wore black-and-white keffiyeh scarves and held banners calling for an arms embargo against Israel.

An Israeli airstrike on a mosque in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday killed at least 24 people and wounded nearly 100 others, according to the Gaza government's media office. The airstrike, near Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, comes as Israel's invasion of Gaza approaches its first anniversary.

The Israeli military said that the attack was a “precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded in a structure that previously served as the ‘Shuhada al-Aqsa’ Mosque in the area of Deir al-Balah”.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 2.3 million people displaced since the start of Israel’s invasion.

The potential successor to Hezbollah’s slain leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has been unreachable since Friday after Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, Reuters reported, citing a Lebanese security source.

Israel has been conducting large-scale strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs since Thursday, causing thousands to flee their neighbourhoods.

One of the attacks targetted Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor to Hezbollah’s leadership, who was believed to be in an underground bunker.

Rescue workers are reportedly searching the site of the attack, but Hezbollah has not commented on his whereabouts.

Fire and smoke rise at areas targeted by Israel in southern Beirut early Sunday