AP has provided updated death tolls for the Israeli strikes on Gaza and Lebanon overnight and today.
The death toll from strikes in the central Gaza Strip rose to 25, including five children, as more bodies were recovered, while officials said that 13 people were killed in airstrikes in Lebanon on Friday.
Sixteen people had initially been reported killed in two strikes on Thursday on the Gaza Strip’s central Nuseirat refugee camp, but officials from the Al-Aqsa hospital said bodies continued to be brought in.
Overall, the hospital said they had received 21 dead from the strikes, including some transferred from the Awda hospital, where they had been brought the day before.
One of the strikes killed an 18-month-old and his 10-year-old sister — the children’s mother was missing as of today, while the father was killed by an Israeli airstrike four months ago, the family told an AP journalist at Al-Aqsa hospital.
Strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and on a house in Deir al-Balah today killed four more people, hospital officials said, bringing the overall toll to 25.
The Israeli military told AP that it had hit a Hamas infrastructure site and a militant who was operating in the area of Nuseirat, but did not comment on the other strikes. It said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was investigating.
Israel is ramping up defence spending as its cabinet passed the budget for 2025, AP reports.
The budget, which must still be approved by Israel’s parliament before taking effect, increases defence spending to at least $27.2bn (£21bn), Israeli media reported, though that could increase to $40 billion pending further cabinet discussions.
In the last year, Israel spent $27.5 billion on defence, according to the the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The budget has been mired in controversy in Israel, with the destruction caused by conflicts on two fronts driving up government expenditures and debt, a mass call-up of reservist soldiers hurting families and small businesses, and international credit ratings being downgraded.
Economists have called for an end to the war with Hamas in Gaza and for far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich to construct a budget that reduces the country’s deficit — something that would require unpopular decisions such as raising taxes or cutting spending.
Opposition politicians criticised the budget for allocating funds to government ministries — run by Netanyahu’s far-right and ultranationalist coalition partners — which they described at superfluous. Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition in Israel, wrote on X that the budget “distributes billions of shekels to 10 unnecessary government ministries. They’ve lost their shame.”
AP has provided updated death tolls for the Israeli strikes on Gaza and Lebanon overnight and today.
The death toll from strikes in the central Gaza Strip rose to 25, including five children, as more bodies were recovered, while officials said that 13 people were killed in airstrikes in Lebanon on Friday.
Sixteen people had initially been reported killed in two strikes on Thursday on the Gaza Strip’s central Nuseirat refugee camp, but officials from the Al-Aqsa hospital said bodies continued to be brought in.
Overall, the hospital said they had received 21 dead from the strikes, including some transferred from the Awda hospital, where they had been brought the day before.
One of the strikes killed an 18-month-old and his 10-year-old sister — the children’s mother was missing as of today, while the father was killed by an Israeli airstrike four months ago, the family told an AP journalist at Al-Aqsa hospital.
Strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and on a house in Deir al-Balah today killed four more people, hospital officials said, bringing the overall toll to 25.
The Israeli military told AP that it had hit a Hamas infrastructure site and a militant who was operating in the area of Nuseirat, but did not comment on the other strikes. It said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was investigating.
The World Health Organization said on Friday that a second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza would begin on Saturday, after Israeli bombing in the area halted the drive.
“Polio vaccination in northern Gaza is ready to resume tomorrow,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, adding: “We are assured of the necessary humanitarian pause in Gaza City to conduct the campaign.”
“@WHO and @Unicef urge for the humanitarian pauses to be respected. However, what the children in northern Gaza and across the whole Strip really need is peace.”
#Polio vaccination in northern #Gaza is ready to resume tomorrow. We are assured of the necessary humanitarian pause in Gaza City to conduct the campaign. Unfortunately, the area covered is substantially reduced compared to the first round of vaccination, which will leave some…
Israeli commentator and analyst Akiva Eldar has told Al Jazeera that there are no signs that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is either ready or willing to reach a ceasefire deal with Lebanon before the US election next Tuesday.
“He is praying and putting his bets on the victory of former president Trump, and he believes that once this happens, he will be able to manipulate the president,” Eldar told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv. “There is another deadline for Netanyahu, and this is [in] the first week of December when he will have to start testifying in his corruption trial, and he will do anything to avoid it,” Eldar added.
The UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon said the country’s cultural heritage was being endangered by Israeli strikes on the ancient Lebanese cities of Tyre and Baalbek, home to Unesco-designated Roman ruins, according to AFP.
“Ancient Phoenician cities steeped in history are in deep peril of being left in ruins,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a social media post, adding that “Lebanon’s cultural heritage must not become yet another casualty in this devastating conflict”.
The Roman triumphal arch at the Al Bas necropolis Unesco World Heritage Site in Tyre. Photograph: Getty Images/Robert Harding World Imagery
10 Palestinians reportedly killed in school in refugee camp in Gaza
At least 10 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli strike targeting the entrance of a school sheltering displaced people in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, Reuters reports, citing medics on the ground.
The UN humanitarian aid coordination agency is pointing to a new “wave of displacement” in Lebanon after the Israeli army issued new orders for people to leave areas it is targeting, AP reports.
Spokesperson Jens Laerke of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, citing local officials, said new displacement orders for Beiruts southern suburbs were followed shortly afterward by heavy airstrikes.
He told reporters in Geneva that other recent displacement orders from the Israeli military spurred an estimated 50,000 people to leave the eastern city of Baalbek and head mostly toward the northern Bekaa Valley.
“We are working to access civilians who remain in hard to reach areas. To date, 15 convoys have successfully been organised to reach areas” in four Lebanese cities, including Baalbek, Laerke said. “But the insecurity has an impact on what we can do.”
The office of Lebanese caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati denied an earlier report by Reuters that the US had asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire, after two sources told Reuters that a US envoy had made the request to inject momentum into stalled talks on a deal to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
In a statement to Reuters, Mikati’s office said the government’s stance was clear on seeking a ceasefire from both sides and the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between the two foes in 2006.
Gaza death toll reaches at least 43,259, says health ministry
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reports that at least 43,259 people have been killed in the year-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry.
Lebanon state news agency reports that another Israeli strike has hit the city of Baalbek.
The National News Agency said Israeli “enemy aircraft launched a raid on the Zahraa neighbourhood in the city of Baalbek,” home to ancient Roman ruins designated a Unesco World Heritage site.
Israel put the city under an evacuation order yesterday – causing a mass exodus of people – as it carried out strikes in the region.
The World Health Organisation is deeply concerned about rising attacks on health care workers and facilities in Lebanon, a WHO official said.
Margaret Harris said at a UN briefing that while 55 attacks on health care workers have been verified, the actual number of incidents is likely to be significantly higher.
AFP reports on the destruction of homes in border towns in Lebanon by Israel.
According to Lebanon’s official National News Agency, Israeli troops dynamited buildings in at least seven border villages in Lebanon last month, AFP reports.
Earlier this week Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast footage appearing to show one of its presenters blow up a building while embedded with soldiers in the village of Aita al-Shaab.
On 26 October, the NNA said Israel “blew up and destroyed houses... in the village of Odaisseh”.
That day, Israel’s military said 400 tonnes of explosives detonated in a Hezbollah tunnel, which it said was about a mile long.
Lebanon’s National Human Rights Commission has said “the ongoing destruction campaign carried out by the Israeli army in southern Lebanon is a war crime”.
Israel’s military used “air strikes, bulldozers, and manually controlled explosions” to level entire neighbourhoods - homes, schools, mosques, churches, shrines, and archaeological sites, the commission said.
The tweet below shows the Channel 12 segment where one of its journalists participated in the demolition of homes in Lebanon.
An Israeli “senior journalist” from Israel’s channel 12 just blown up a house in southern Lebanon on camera. Nothing more to add here… pic.twitter.com/nPm9JVoQHO
US asked Lebanon to declare unilateral ceasefire with Israel
A US envoy this week asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire with Israel as part of an effort to help negotiations to reach a resolution for the more than year-long conflict, a senior Lebanese political source and a senior diplomat said, Reuters reports.
The sources said the effort was communicated by US Lebanon envoy Amos Hochstein to Lebanese caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati.
But such an announcement was seen as a non-starter in Lebanon, the sources said, where it would likely be equated with a surrender.
Mikati said Israel’s expanded strikes on Lebanon last night indicated a rejection of efforts to broker a truce.
