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A recent Israeli airstrike on Sunsay has hit and destroyed a mosque in central Gaza and Palestinian officials said at least 19 people were killed early Sunday. Israeli planes also lit up the skyline across the southern suburbs of Beirut, striking what the military said were Hezbollah targets.
The strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. Another four people were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people near the town.
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The Israeli military said both strikes targeted militants, without providing evidence.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead from the strike on the mosque were all men, while another man was wounded.
In Beirut, the strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport and another formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
The Israeli military is setting up a forward operating base close to a U.N. peacekeeping mission on the border in southern Lebanon, a U.N. official told The Associated Press.
The base — just south of the U.N.-mandated Blue Line’s close proximity to a UNIFIL position — puts peacekeepers there at risk, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Israel launched its ground incursion into Lebanon last week, where they have clashed along the border with militants from the powerful Hezbollah group.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, in a statement said it was concerned about “recent activities” by the Israeli military southeast of the Lebanese border town of Maroun al-Ras.
It did not give any details on what Israel was doing, but said it was close to point 6-52 — where Irish peacekeepers are positioned.
This, meanwhile, comes days after UNIFIL refused the Israeli military’s request to vacate some of its positions ahead of the ground incursion.
