• Surgeon detained in raid
• Six health workers killed in southern Lebanon
• Netanyahu says ceasefire deal must guarantee Israel’s security

CAIRO/BEIRUT: At least 39 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.

Israeli airstrike on two houses in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza strip killed at least nine Palestinians, medics said.

In Lebanon, 47 people were killed in Israeli attacks on what it called Hezbollah positions in the country’s south and east. The dead included six health workers.

Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled Hamas’ command structure, is currently the main focus of the military’s assault in the enclave. Earlier this month it sent tanks into Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya to flush out militants it said had regrouped in the area.

Eid Sabbah, director of nursing at Kamal Adwan — which is in Beit Lahiya — told Reuters some staff had suffered minor burns after the Israeli strike hit the third floor of the hospital.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation”.

Medical charity Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained by Israeli forces. It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who “are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care”.

Ceasefire deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US envoys on Thursday that Israel’s ability to counter threats to its security from Lebanon and return displaced people to the north were key elements of any ceasefire deal with Lebanon.

He was speaking shortly after a Hezbollah attack on northern Israel’s Metula killed five people including an Israeli farmer and four foreign workers, while two more civilians were killed from shrapnel near the town of Kiryat Ata, Israeli authorities said.

“The main issue is not the paperwork of this or that agreement, but Israel’s ability and determination to enforce the agreement and thwart any threat to its security from Lebanon,” Netanyahu’s office cited him as telling the two US envoys.

Resolution 1701

Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein were in Israel on a new push to secure ceasefires in both Lebanon and Gaza. Sources told that talks were centred on a 60-day pause to allow for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which would entail Hezbollah withdrawing its armed presence from south of the Litani River.

The diplomatic push comes amid intensifying fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which has run in parallel to Israel’s conflict in Gaza against Hamas that has left the tiny enclave in ruins and has caused a humanitarian crisis.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister accused Israel of perpetrating a form of “genocide” with its grinding assault on northern Gaza — a charge it denies — and called on Lebanon to solve its long-running political crisis.

Bombardment

Israel bombarded areas around the eastern city of Baalbek on Thursday for a second consecutive day after issuing evacuation notices. On Wednesday it had conducted heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in and around the city, which is famed for its Roman temples.

Dozens of cars could be seen speeding out of the area after Thursday’s warning, with wafts of black smoke still visible emanating from the town of Douris, where an Israeli strike the previous day destroyed Hezbollah fuel stocks, according to the Israeli military and a Lebanese security source.

Thousands fleeing the violence have sought shelter in the nearby Christian-majority town of Deir al Ahmar, where local official Jean Fakhry said authorities were struggling to cover even a fraction of their needs and some people had to spend the night in their cars. “We cannot continue this way,” Fakhry said.

The killing of six Lebanese health workers and wounding of four others in three separate strikes across south Lebanon on Thursday brought the total toll of health workers killed and wounded in over a year of Israeli strikes to 178 and 279 respectively, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Hezbollah said it had launched several rocket and artillery attacks against Israeli forces near the southern town of Khiyam. It marked the fourth straight day of fighting in and around the strategic hilltop town.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2024