Gaza, Gaza Strip — Israel launched strikes overnight and early Friday on the Beirut suburbs, causing heavy damage and loss of life as a U.S.-led effort to restart cease-fire talks in Lebanon and Gaza is underway.
In the first attacks of its kind in more than a week, Israel airstrikes pounded the southern Lebanon suburb of Dahiyeh and other areas early Friday after issuing evacuation orders to residents. Video from the scene showed some buildings in rubble as smoke rose above the skyline.
The Associated Press, citing Lebanon's state National News Agency , or NNA, reported 24 people were killed in Friday's strikes in the Beirut area. Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, is reporting seven people were killed in northern Israel by cross-border rocket attacks from Hezbollah.
In statement posted to its X social media account, the IDF said during the night Thursday into Friday, its fighter jets "attacked with precise intelligence" sites for weapons production, as well as what it said were Hezbollah central headquarters and other "military infrastructures" in the Beirut area.
The IDF said its fighter jets also attacked overnight what it described as Hezbollah's "southern front" headquarters throughout Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon. They said advance warnings were given to the population in the area to mitigate the risk to civilians.
NNA reported Lebanon's acting prime minister, Najib Mikati, said Friday the overnight strikes and the "expansion of Israeli aggression" in Lebanon show that Israel "rejects all efforts" to reach a cease-fire. Earlier this week he had expressed hope for the possibility of such an agreement.
In Gaza, doctors and local sources report more than 30 people killed in Israeli strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza overnight Thursday into Friday. Officials at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, told The Washington Post that 26 bodies arrived at the hospital, including 21 from Nuseirat refugee camp.
The IDF said in a statement its troops had identified and eliminated "several armed terrorists" in central Gaza and had eliminated "dozens of terrorists" in targeted raids in northern Gaza's Jabalia area. They also told the AP they had hit a Hamas infrastructure site and had targeted a militant who was operating in the Nuseirat area.
Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats remain in the region pushing for cease-fires in both Lebanon and Gaza.
U.S. CIA Director William Burns met Thursday with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi, one of the mediators of the suspended cease-fire negotiations. A statement from Sissi's office said the two discussed ways to de-escalate tensions in Gaza, advance cease-fire talks, release hostages and improve access to humanitarian aid.
His visit came as U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein and U.S. Middle East adviser Brett McGurk met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to discuss efforts to craft a cease-fire on both fronts. Netanyahu said any cease-fire deal with Hezbollah would have to guarantee Israel's security.
At a news conference Friday in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he remains optimistic regarding peace and cease-fire efforts on both fronts.
Regarding Lebanon, Blinken said once again, the basis of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis would be the effective implementation of the 2006 U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah to withdraw its armed presence from an area south of the Litani River and for Israeli forces to get out of Lebanon.
Blinken made the comments at a joint briefing with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The two held talks Friday with their South Korean counterparts in Washington.
Blinken was asked about a letter he and Austin sent to Israel, calling on Tel Aviv to take steps to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza or face possible restrictions on U.S. military aid.
The secretary of state said their teams are tracking "very carefully" Israel's response and efforts regarding humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Blinken said, there has been "progress" but added it has been insufficient.
"We're working on a daily basis to make sure that Israel does what it must do to ensure that this assistance gets to people who need it inside of Gaza," Blinken said." It's not enough to get trucks to Gaza; it's vital that what they bring with them can get distributed effectively inside of Gaza."
Blinken also mentioned the World Health Organization's successful initial polio vaccination campaign for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. He said for that campaign to be concluded, there must be a second round of vaccinations completed quickly, and he called on Israel to facilitate that effort.
The WHO said Friday the next phase of the polio vaccination campaign will begin Saturday after being postponed from October 23 due to a lack of access and a lack of humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza.
The war in Lebanon erupted late last month, nearly a year after Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border fire into Israel in support of Hamas.
Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated as terror groups by the United States, the U.K. and other Western countries.
The conflict in the region began when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in their October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. Israel says it believes Hamas is still holding 101 hostages, including 35 the military says are dead.
Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 43,259 Palestinians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, with Israel saying the death toll includes thousands of militants. The Israeli campaign has devastated much of the Gaza Strip, while the fighting and Israeli evacuation orders have displaced about 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people.
The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters provided some information for this story.
