Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 344

The Israeli military has said it is investigating after a unit dropped unauthorised leaflets on a border area in southern Lebanon ordering residents to leave, Reuters reports.

Lebanon’s state-run national news agency reported that Israel had dropped leaflets ordering residents out of the Wazzani area.

The Israeli military said dropping the leaflets was an unauthorised action by a unit that had not sought appropriate approval and that there was no evacuation underway.

After months of denial, the Israeli army has confirmed that Gaza captives Ron Sherman, Nick Beiser, and Elia Toledano were killed in an Israeli strike in December 2023, Al Jazeera reports according to Israeli media.

At the time, it was reported that the pathological examination could not definitively determine the cause of death for two of the captives.

The military told the families of the captives there was no intelligence suggesting their presence in the underground area targeted during the operation, which resulted in the death of commander Ahmed Ghandour.

Israeli soldiers discovered the captives’ bodies during subsequent searches of the tunnels, and had no prior knowledge of their location, the army told the families.

The forensic report showed no signs of trauma or gunshot wounds, suggesting the captives were not killed by direct impact from the strike. Due to the condition of the remains, the exact cause of death could not be determined.

An Israeli attack destroyed the home of Palestinian Civil Defence officer, Zaki Emad al-Din, in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Al Jazeera reports.

His daughter and one of his sons were killed in the attack, according to reports from our colleagues in Gaza. Fifteen people were wounded in the attack.

This marks the third time his home has been hit. In the first attack, his wife and other children were killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said “we are exacting a heavy price for any attempt to harm us”, Al Jazeera reports.

He added that the current situation in northern Israel, along the border with Lebanon, “will not continue” and that he was determined to do everything possible to return northern evacuees to their homes.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire on the Israel-Lebanon border since the war on Gaza began about a year ago.

It says in a statement the missile launched by the Houthis early at Israeli territory “most likely fragmented in mid-air”, Al Jazeera reports.

Several interception attempts were made by the Arrow and Iron Dome Aerial defence systems, it said, with their “results” and the entire incident currently under review.

The army said fragments from the missile and interceptors were found in open areas and at the Paatei Modi’in railway station. It added that firefighters were working to extinguish a fire caused by the missile near Kfar Daniel.

Badriya al-Kilani, an 80-year-old Palestinian woman from northern Gaza, has been displaced and forced to seek refuge in the central Gaza Strip.

“I left my home barefoot, with nothing, and walked among the corpses,” she told Al Jazeera.

The heavy bombardment forced her and her family to flee, but she said her frail body was unable to keep up.

“You go ahead and leave me here to die, save yourselves,” she told her family at one point.

Currently residing in a makeshift camp in Deir el-Balah, al-Kilani – also known as Umm Wissam – recalls being displaced to the same area during the 1948 Nakba, when she was just four.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to expand a military operation on the northern front with Lebanon, an Israeli media outlet said, Anadolu reports.

Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu made the statement during a strategic dialogue session on Thursday to discuss the escalation on the northern front, without specifying the parties involved in the session.

Israel is “on the verge of a broad and strong operation on the northern front,” he said.

The channel quoted an unnamed senior official from Netanyahu’s office who said, “No date has yet been set” for the escalation “but it is expected in the near future.”

It added that the Cabinet is scheduled to meet next week to discuss the escalation.

The report noted that unnamed Israeli security officials said expanding the conflict on the northern front would require reducing the country’s military presence in the Gaza Strip at the same time.

Families of Israeli captives said that expanding a military operation in northern Israel without finalising a hostage swap deal with Hamas is “a death sentence” for the hostages in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.

“As long as Netanyahu is in power, the war will go on forever,” the families said at a rally in Tel Aviv, according to the Haaretz newspaper.​​​​​​​

“Expanding the war in the north without a deal is a death sentence for them (hostages),” they said. “Netanyahu decided to shift the focus to the north and abandon all the hostages in the death tunnels.”

Illegal Israeli settlers and soldiers stormed several villages and towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, leading to confrontations with Palestinian residents, Anadolu reports.

Palestinian Television reported that one person was injured during a raid by settlers who were protected by the army in the village of Umm Safa in northern Ramallah.

The report did not specify the nature or source of the injury.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa indicated that dozens of illegal settlers entered Umm Safa, firing live bullets at homes.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan called the governing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “zero government” that is dragging the country to an “endless war”, Anadolu reports.

At least nine people were injured after a ballistic missile from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

In a statement on X, Golan, who heads the Labor Party, called on the Israelis to stage daily protests against the Israeli government.

“Only continuous popular pressure will bring down this government,” he added. The opposition leader said Sunday’s missile attack was a “reminder of the right-wing government’s ongoing failure.”

At least 10 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, Palestinian media reported, and the Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas commander, Reuters reports.

The strike hit a residential housing unit in the Al Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Israeli military said it “struck the commander of a Hamas terrorist cell … who was involved in the planning and execution of terrorist activities.”

It said it was aware of reports that several civilians were killed in the strike.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the United Nations General Assembly this month, his office said according to Reuters.

The Iran-aligned Houthis who control northern Yemen fired a surface-to-surface missile that reached central Israel for the first time, hitting an unpopulated area and causing no injuries, Reuters reports.

Air raid sirens had sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel moments before the missile landed at around 6:35 am local time (0335 GMT), sending residents running for shelter. Loud booms were heard, which the military said came from missile interceptors.

“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in central Israel, a surface-to-surface missile was identified crossing into central Israel from the east and fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said.

The deputy head of the Houthi’s media office, Nasruddin Amer, said in a post on X on Sunday that a Yemeni missile had reached Israel after “20 missiles failed to intercept” it, describing it as the “beginning”.

In a statement on Telegram, the group said its military spokesman would soon give details about a “qualitative operation that targeted the depth of the Zionist entity”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Yemen’s Huthi rebels of retaliation after the group claimed a missile attack on central Israel, AFP reports.

“This morning, the Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory. They should have known by now that we charge a heavy price for any attempt to harm us,” Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting, according to a statement from his office.

The Gaza Media Office warned about a humanitarian disaster facing 2 million displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip ahead of winter, Anadolu reports.

74 per cent of the tents for the displaced people are no longer suitable for use, according to government field assessment teams, it said in a statement.

The teams said, as reported by the office, that “100,000 out of 135,000 tents need immediate replacement due to wear and tear” because they “are made of wood, nylon, and fabric, and have deteriorated due to the sun’s heat and the harsh climate conditions in Gaza. After 11 continuous months of displacement, they are now completely unusable under these inhumane conditions.”

The Office warned of a “real humanitarian disaster with the arrival of winter, which threatens to leave 2 million people homeless.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced preparations to file a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the killing of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Anadolu reports.

Eygi was shot in her head and killed last week by Israel in the occupied West Bank.

The announcement came during a telephone call Abbas made to Eygi’s father, Mehmet Suat Eygi, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Abbas extended condolences to the Turkish people for the killing of Eygi, whom he described as the “brave daughter of Palestine and Turkey who was assassinated at the hands of the Israeli occupation” and an “honest symbol of the solidarity between the brotherly Turkish and Palestinian peoples.”

“The Palestinian leadership was engaged with the US and Turkish authorities to ensure conducting a fair investigation into her killing and that work was underway to file a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the crime of her assassination,” he said.

The health ministry in Gaza said that at least 41,206 people have been killed in the Israeli bombardment, now in its 12th month.

According to AFP, the toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 95,337 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

Israel is recruiting asylum seekers from Africa to take part in military operations in Gaza in exchange for residency rights, Israeli media outlet Haaretz reports.

The report is based on testimonies of asylum seekers who were offered permanent residency status in exchange for joining the war effort in Gaza.

Haaretz quoted unnamed military officials saying the programme was being carried out in an “organised manner” under the supervision of “defence establishment” legal advisers.

So far, none of the asylum seekers involved in the offensive effort has been granted official status, the report said, adding that about 30,000 asylum seekers reside in Israel.

Nasruddin Amer, in a post on X, appears to claim the missile attack on central Israel earlier this morning, saying Israeli air forces shot 20 interceptors at the Yemeni projectile but failed to take it down.

“It’s the beginning,” the Houthi spokesperson wrote.

“The air defences failed and the Yemeni missile reached, thanks be to God,” he said in a separate post. “Previously drones and now the missiles, all of which reached without any obstacles. The future holds much much more.”

Amer added that he was waiting for a statement from the Houthi armed forces.

Palestinians displaced from Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood told Al Jazeera they returned to find “dead bodies all over the place” and destruction everywhere.

Samira Abu Negela said Israel’s goal was ethnic cleansing.

“We don’t know what to do, there’s massive destruction everywhere,” she told Al Jazeera. “The area was wiped out. I can’t understand the behaviour of the Israeli forces.”

Israeli settlers and soldiers stormed several villages and towns in the occupied West Bank overnight Saturday, leading to confrontations with Palestinian residents, TRT World reports.

Palestinian Television reported that one person was injured during a raid by settlers who were protected by the army in the village of Umm Safa in northern Ramallah.

The report did not specify the nature or source of the injury.

Palestinian news agency Wafa indicated that dozens of illegal settlers entered Umm Safa, firing live bullets at homes.

The head of the local village council, Marwan Sabah, said settlers positioned at Jabal al-Ras attacked the village and fired live ammunition at homes, with the backing of the Israeli army.

The Israeli military said a missile fired from Yemen crossed into central Israel and “fell in an open area”, AFP reports.

It said in a statement that “a surface-to-surface missile was identified crossing into central Israel from the East and fell in an open area. No injuries were reported.”

“The missile was fired from Yemen,” it added in a subsequent statement sent just before 7am (0400 GMT).

It said explosions “heard in the last few minutes” were from air-defence interceptors.

“The result of the interception is under review,” the military said.

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that the Israeli military is blowing up residential buildings in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces are also bombing buildings in the al-Mawasi area, west of Rafah city, Al Jazeera Arabic said.

US President Joe Biden said Washington and the United Kingdom will continue to work together to address “the urgent need for a ceasefire deal that will free the hostages and enable increased relief in Gaza”, Al Jazeera reports.

He issued the statement on X after meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House.

Earlier on Friday, Starmer had also described the need for a ceasefire deal as “urgent”.