Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 407

Israel has condemned the United Nations for what it described as “anti-Israel fabrications” after a UN committee said Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, Al Jazeera reports.

“The UN is breaking its own record when it comes to biased reports, singling out Israel and anti-Israel fabrications,” the foreign ministry said.

The UN special committee said in a report that Israel was “intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury” in the Gaza Strip, accusing it of “using starvation as a method of war”.

But the ministry dismissed the accusations as “false claims”.

“The … report is an appalling example of the transformation of the UN into an organisation which is used as a pawn by terrorists who attack civilians in a democratic state,” it said in a statement shared by spokesman Oren Marmorstein on X.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has said that a peacekeeping patrol was fired upon “about 40 times” a day earlier, with the culprit “likely from non-state actor members”.

“A group of individuals”, at least one armed, sought to prevent the patrol from passing in south Lebanon on Saturday, but it continued and was later “fired upon about 40 times from behind, likely from non-state actor members”, Unifil said in a statement, adding that no peacekeepers were injured though “some patrol vehicles had bullet impacts”.

A Lebanese security source has said that Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was killed in an Israeli strike in central Beirut which hit the Lebanese branch of the Syrian Baath party, AFP reports.

“The strike on Ras al-Nabaa killed Hezbollah media relations official Mohammed Afif,” the security source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media.

Ali Hijazi, secretary-general of the Lebanese branch of the Baath party, “confirmed the death of Hezbollah media official” Afif, the official National News Agency reported.

The Israeli army declined to comment.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the strike killed one person and wounded three others, adding that the toll was provisional and that work was ongoing to remove rubble from the site of the strike.

Israeli police has announced that it detected two flares fired near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea in northern Israel, Anadolu reports.

“Around 19:30 Tel Aviv time (1730GMT), two flares were detected that were fired near the Prime Minister’s house in Caesarea, where they fell in the yard of the house,” said police.

“Forces from the police and the Shin Bet security service (Shabak) are present at the scene of the incident,” it added. Netanyahu and his family members were not home at the time of the incident, noted police.

Police said they had “opened a joint investigation with the Shabak, as this is a serious incident that represents a significant escalation, and necessary investigative actions will be taken.”

The official Israeli Army Radio reported that the flares did not cause damage. Neither police nor Army Radio noted the source of the flare.

Pope Francis has suggested the global community should study whether Israel’s military campaign in Gaza constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people, in some of his most explicit criticism yet of Israel’s conduct in its year-long offensive, Reuters reports.

In excerpts published from a new forthcoming book, the pontiff said some international experts say “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide”.

“We should investigate carefully to assess whether this fits into the technical definition (of genocide) formulated by international jurists and organisations,” the pope said in the excerpts, published by Italian daily La Stampa.

Israel has denied all accusations of genocide. The Israeli foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the pope’s remarks.

Israel has carried out at least 27 air attacks on civilian and religious sites in Lebanon, Al Jazeera reports citing Lebanese state media.

One of the air attacks targeted the vicinity of Our Lady of Salvation Church near Saint George Hospital in the Hadath area of Beirut’s southern suburb, while another strike targeted a 12-story residential building near the Mar Michael Church in the Chiyah neighbourhood of southern Beirut.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, but the attacks caused extensive damage to nearby structures.

The health ministry in Gaza has said that at least 43,846 people have been killed in more than 13 months of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, AFP reports.

The toll includes 47 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 103,740 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the invasion began on October 7, 2023.

Gaza’s Government Media Office says the strike, which we reported earlier, hit a residential tower in the north of Gaza housing six Palestinian families.

Dozens more are wounded, Al Jazeera reports.

The damage to transportation and communications infrastructure across the Palestinian territory has reached $4.8bn as a result of direct Israeli attacks, Wafa news agency reported Palestine’s Minister of Transport and Communications Tariq Zourob as saying.

At least 300,000 tonnes of “solid waste” are reportedly on the roads across the Gaza Strip, Zourob said according to Al Jazeera during a meeting with private sector representatives from the Strip at the Palestinian embassy in Cairo.

In June, UNRWA reported waste of an estimated 100,000 tonnes building up near people’s tents in central Gaza alone.

The Israeli military issued call-up notices to more members of the ultra-Orthodox community to bolster its forces as it fights on its southern and northern borders, a move that may further inflame tensions between religious and secular Israelis, Reuters reports.

As Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon continues, it’s defence ministry has said 7,000 members of the community would gradually receive notices, starting today.

Gaza’s civil defence has said Israeli air strikes killed at least 20 people, including four women and three children, across the war-torn Palestinian territory, Al Jazeera reports.

“The deadliest strike killed 10 people in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza,” said civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal.

At least one woman was killed and 10 were wounded in another strike on a house in the same camp, he added.

Five other people were killed and 11 wounded by a missile launched by an Israeli drone in the morning in the southern city of Rafah, Bassal said.

Gaza Health Ministry’s Director-General Munir al-Bursh has given Al Jazeera an update on the latest developments:

• Israeli forces deliberately bomb civilians late at night so that no one could save them, al-Bursh said.
• Yesterday, Israelis prevented the entry of a UN humanitarian convoy carrying medicines to Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
• Almost 30 per cent of the victims of the Beit Lahiya massacre today are children.
• There are between 20 and 30 people under the rubble in Beit Lahiya who cannot be reached.
• More than 12,000 wounded people are in urgent need of treatment abroad, but Israeli forces are preventing them from travelling.
• They deliberately target doctors, even while they are in their homes, to prevent them from providing their services.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee has ordered residents residing in Beirut’s southern suburb area, specifically in certain buildings in Haret Hreik, to evacuate, adding without evidence that the area hosts “Hezbollah facilities and interests”, Al Jazeera reports.

These are just the latest in a series of evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army on areas of southern Beirut this morning. Strikes typically follow the issuance of these orders.

“In the central area, the explosions did not stop. There are explosions happening in the background and in the Nuseirat and Bureij areas,” Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reports from Deir el-Balah, Gaza.

“Here where we are at Al-Aqsa Hospital, there are 17 killed Palestinians in the morgue; they’re waiting for coffins to bury them, but there is a shortage of coffins across the Gaza Strip.

“The Israeli forces targeted a house in Nuseirat, where at least six Palestinians were killed, among them are four women and a child.

“According to civil defence teams, there are members of the same family still trapped under the rubble.

Israeli forces targeted another house in Bureij, where at least 10 Palestinians were killed. The families say there are more family members trapped under the rubble, Kkhoudary says.

“There was another air strike in Beit Lahiya. According to medical sources, 15 Palestinians have been killed, dozens are wounded.”

Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Gaza rescue organisation, says it cannot reach the site of an attack on Beit Lahiya, north Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

“The department received appeals from residents of a house bombed by the Israeli occupation in Beit Lahiya, but we cannot move to rescue them,” he said.

Two bombs hit a five-storey residential tower in the northern Gaza city, killing “tens” of people, according to medics.

The Palestinian media report that Israeli forces are in the process of demolishing tens of residential buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp, Al Jazeera reports.

Reports of mass demolition of buildings have been coming throughout Israel’s siege of northern Gaza, continuing for more than a month.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza today included an assault on the UN-run Abu Assi school in the Shati refugee camp in the north, Al Jazeera Hind Khoudary reports.

“Medical sources say at least 10 Palestinians were killed and 20 others injured. Among them were several women and children,” Khoudary said, adding that the school was sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians.

“Most of them had fled areas in the north, including Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabalia,” she added.

Israeli police said they have arrested three people after two flares were fired at the Israeli prime minister’s private residence in the northern town of Caesarea, The Times of Israel reports.

There were no additional details.

Earlier, the Israeli police said the flares fell in the garden and that Netanyahu and his wife were not at home at the time.

They described the incident as “a dangerous escalation”.

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that an Israeli bombing has killed five Palestinians in the eastern neighbourhoods of the city in the south of the Gaza Strip.

It’s been more than six months since Israeli ground forces invaded Rafah, promising a “limited” operation against Hamas fighters in the city where more than 1 million Palestinians had been sheltering.

The Israeli President’s Office said Isaac Herzog is cancelling his planned trip to the UN’s climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, citing “security considerations”, according to the Times of Israel, Al Jazeera reports,.

The Israeli daily did not elaborate but said that several Israeli ministers and officials would still be attending the meeting.

It added that “Israel’s delegation is taking place under tight security, given the country’s proximity to Iran, though Azerbaijan itself is seen as an ally of Israel.”

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that the death toll from an Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp has risen to 10 people.

Photos published by the Anadolu news agency showed several people with head injuries and covered in dust being taken to hospital after the attack. The wounded included children.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that the seven victims were all from the same family.

They were killed in an Israeli attack in the village of Arab Salim, in the Nabatieh governorate of southern Lebanon, the agency reported.

The Israeli military issued a statement saying its forces carried out a fourth wave of attacks on Beirut’s Dahiye on Saturday evening and that in the last week alone, it has bombed 50 “targets” in the neighbourhood, Al Jazeera reports.

The statement came as Israeli forces continued to pound cities and towns across southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli air raids and shelling in the town of Khiam in the Nabatieh governorate as well as bombings in Blat in South Lebanon governorate.

Earlier, NNA reported Israeli attacks on the southern city of Tyre, and on several towns and villages in Nabatieh, including Deir Antar, Henin, Tebnine, Habbush and Deir al-Zahrani.

Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat with a number of drones, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised speech, Reuters reports.