Hezbollah claims drone strike in northern Israel; Israeli army withdraws from Khan Younis: Day 152 of the Gaza war

This concludes our coverage for today. Be sure to return tomorrow for more live coverage of the war in Gaza and its regional impact.

Goodnight!

The United States said it will continue to hold Yemen's Houthi rebels "accountable" after a deadly attack in the Gulf of Aden, as the Iranian-backed group stepped up missile and drone strikes in the area, according to AFP.

"We will continue to hold them accountable. We call on governments around the world to do the same," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

Here is what happened on the Lebanese-Israeli border during the past hour:

- According to a security source, an Israeli drone struck the area of Labbouneh on the outskirts of Naqoura (Sour).

- An Israeli jet targeted a house in Dhairah (Sour), residents told L'Orient Today. Rescue teams are currently searching for a missing person following the strike.

- According to a security source, Israeli jets targeted a three-story building in the vicinity of the villages of Tayr Harfa and Jibbayn (Sour).

Here is what happened on the Lebanese-Israeli border since 4:25 p.m.:

- Hezbollah announced that it hit the Israeli sites of Zebdin in the occupied Shebaa Farms and Ruwaisat al-Alam in the Kfar Shouba Hills with rockets at 4:25 p.m. and 4:31 p.m. respectively.

- Three Israeli artillery shells fell on the outskirts of Shebaa (Hasbaya), residents told our correspondent in the South.

- The Israeli army announced on X that it "shot down [earlier today] an explosive drone" belonging to Hezbollah which "was detected crossing the territory of Lebanon to the Metula area." Hezbollah earlier announced that it targeted the Israeli site of Metula using a drone at 02:10 p.m.

A masked member of the so-called "Popular Committees of Protection," some armed with batons, controls traffic in Gaza's southern city of Rafah on March 6, 2024. (Credit: Said Khatib/AFP)

Here is what happened on the Lebanese-Israeli border since 3:30 p.m.:

- Israeli jets fired several missiles on the village of Yaroun and targeted an empty house in the area of al-Hakban in the outskirts of Yater (Bint Jbeil), residents told our correspondent in the South.

- According to a security source, missiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israeli sites.

Gaza's Civil Defense announced that soldiers were withdrawing from the center of Khan Younis, a large town transformed into a field of ruins after being at the heart of fighting in the south of the territory for many weeks.

More than 40 Israeli strikes, according to the Gazan government's press service, targeted the areas of Khan Younis, Gaza City and Deir el-Balah.

"We were reciting night prayers. We didn't feel anything until the explosion. The rubble kept falling for two minutes and we didn't know where to go. Glass was falling," a survivor, Yazem Mohammed al-Qot, told AFP after a strike on a house in Deir el-Balah.

Hezbollah mourns two members and a civilian who were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the village of Houla yesterday. (Credit: Hezbollah media office)

Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad said that Hezbollah will "use all means and tools" if Israel launches a war against the party.

Fayyad made this comment in the village of Houla (Marjayoun) during the mourning of two Hezbollah members and a civilian who were killed in an Israeli attack that targeted Hula yesterday. The three killed were a family with a Hezbollah member and his civilian wife along with their son who was also a Hezbollah member.

During his speech, Fayyad also warned Israel of making any mistake and said that Israel should "think a thousand times before committing any foolishness."

Following a relatively calm morning and early afternoon, Hezbollah announced that it targeted the Israeli site of Metula, located opposite the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila, using a drone at 02:10 p.m. The party said that the attack was in response to the "Israeli attacks on southern [Lebanese] villages and civilian houses." This is the first attack claimed by Hezbollah today.

At around the same time of the attack, Israeli artillery targeted the village of Fardis, in Hasbaya district, residents told L'Orient Today's correspondent in the South.

Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati stated that in his opinion, Hezbollah is indeed focused on containing the fighting at the Lebanon-Israel border, during an interview with Lebanese TV channel al-Jadeed on Tuesday evening.

"Is Hezbollah focused on containing and mitigating the situation? Or does it want to open a new front? I ask the question... As far as I'm concerned, it's trying to contain it," he said, adding that he believes the party "has the capacity to retaliate, but is containing itself."

Mikati told al-Jadeed that US Envoy Amos Hochstein's proposal for peace at the border is on the table, and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri is expected to respond to it soon, having taken the time to study the document.

"We also have questions, and we are waiting for answers from Mr. Hochstein," Mikati said, indicating that he and Berri will be contacting Hochstein within the next 48 hours by telephone, regarding the proposal.

👉 Read the full report here.

A damaged ambulance remains at the site of an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in the southern Lebanese village of Adaisseh near the border with Israel on March 5, 2024. (Credit: Hassan Fneich/AFP)

On Monday evening, for the third time since cross-border fighting began between Israel and Hezbollah, a medical facility in southern Lebanon was targeted, killing three paramedics. The vast majority of first responders in southern Lebanon are members of medical organizations run by Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement.

The Israeli attack targeted a civil defense center in Adaisseh, the third strike of its kind — on Jan. 11, an Israeli attack on a center in Hanine killed two first responders and on Feb. 22, an attack killed another two rescue workers.

According to a Lebanese Ministry of Health statement, there have been seven killed and ten wounded within Hezbollah's Islamic Health Association and the Amal Movement's al-Rissala Mission Scouts, since cross-border fighting began. Seventeen ambulances have been destroyed or damaged by the fighting.

What are these organizations and what role have they played in the South, before and during the ongoing conflict?

👉 Read about them here.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel to Cyprus this week as the bloc explores a possible humanitarian corridor through the Mediterranean island to support the population in Gaza, her spokesperson says, cited by Reuters.

"Our efforts are focused on making sure that we can provide aid to Palestinians," the spokesperson told journalists, adding: "We all hope that this opening [of the corridor] will take place very soon."

Reports of the attempts to open the corridor first surface in early December, with minimal progress since. Cyprus, located some 370 km (230 miles) northwest of Gaza, is the closest European Union member state to the region. It has campaigned for months for the creation of a sustained, one-way sea route carrying aid directly to the enclave.

In Nicosia, a government spokesperson said: "On Friday [Leyen] will visit, along with the [Cypriot] president, the infrastructure related to some phases of the plan."

Displaced Palestinian women carrying their belongings lift a makeshift white flag as they walk past Israeli forces while fleeing the Hamad City area in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 5, 2024. (Credit: AFP)

A report published by the UN on Monday concluded that despite “limited survivor and witness testimony, limited forensic evidence” and “minimal crime scene processing, and the very limited forensic examination conducted," an investigative team concluded following a two-and-a-half week visit to Israel that there are "reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the Oct. 7 attacks."

The report was submitted to the UN Secretary General and contains findings from the mission of a team lead by UN Special Representative Pramila Patten and made up of a forensic pathologist, a digital and open-source information analyst, and specialists trained in ethical interviewing of survivors and witnesses of sexual violence. However, the report does not include any first-hand testimonies with survivors of sexual violence.

The report describes the significant challenges faced both by Israeli authorities following the Oct. 7 attack and by the UN's investigative team during its visiting in early February. Among the challenges cited is the sheer number of victims and the wide range of locations where various devastating incidents of violence took place.

👉 Read more here.

Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Kassem, says there's a "90 percent chance" that the cross-border fighting with Israel will not evolve into a large-scale war in the country, but that Hezbollah is "ready for the 10 remaining percent," during an interview with LBCI on last night.

In the interview on "Kalam Bel Siyasa" ("Political talks"), Kassem claimed that Israel's perception of Hezbollah's readiness influences their hesitation to escalate, adding, "we haven't dragged Lebanon into conflict; a significant Israeli threat exists." He clarified, "an undeterred enemy poses a constant threat of war."

👉 Read the full report here

Hezbollah announced the death of Ali Hassan Hussein, born in 1999, killed with his father and mother in yesterday's Israeli attack on their house in the southern Lebanese village of Hula.

This brings to 234 the number of Hezbollah members killed since Oct. 8, according to our count.

Britain will warn Israel today that its patience is running thin over the "dreadful suffering" in Gaza, where a lack of aid is leading people to die of hunger, foreign minister David Cameron said, cited by Reuters.

Cameron, who is due to meet Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz today, told parliament yesterday evening that Israel's handling of aid for Gaza, as the occupying power, raised questions over its compliance with international law.

"We are facing a situation of dreadful suffering in Gaza," Cameron told the upper House of Lords. "I spoke some weeks ago about the danger of this tipping into famine and the danger of illness tipping into disease; and we are now at that point."

👉 Read the full report here.

Israeli authorities evacuated six Indian citizens working in the fields of the northern Israeli community of Margaliot after a missile fired from Lebanon on Monday killed one and wounded seven other agricultural workers nearby, Haaretz reported.

The Immigration and Population Authority said in a statement that the decision to evacuate was made "following the events and in light of the increasing rate of fire over the last days." The six Indian nationals were taken to Kibbutz Beit Keshet in Israel's northern region of the lower Galilee.

Times of Israel reported in December that over 12,000 foreign workers had arrived in Israel since Oct. 7, after an initial 10,000 fled, following the Hamas-led attacks. The agriculture industry in Israel has experienced a significant shortage of laborers as the military has pulled reserve fighters and Palestinians have been generally refused work.

Here’s what happened overnight at the Lebanon-Israel border:

• Israel targeted the town of Dibbin, in Marjayoun district, with missiles last night after 9 p.m., destroying a two-story house and injuring two women and two boys. Lightly wounded individuals in neighboring houses were transferred to Marjayoun Hospital for treatment by al-Rissala Scouts Association, affiliated with the Amal Movement, security sources reported.

• At 10:55 p.m., Hezbollah issued a statement mourning Hassan Ali Hussein, born in 1963 “who was martyred in [the Israeli attack on] Hula with his wife and son.”

• After 11:00 p.m., Israeli artillery shelling targeted the outskirts of the towns of Aitaroun and Yaroun, both located in the Bint Jbeil district, our correspondent in the South reported, citing local residents.

• After midnight, Hezbollah issued a statement stating that at 10:45 pm its fighters targeted a building in the Israeli Avivim village, located less than one kilometer from the Blue Line with Lebanon.

• The Israeli army stated that it attacked Hezbollah targets in six locations in southern Lebanon, including the site from which anti-tank missiles were launched toward Israel on Tuesday, Haaretz reported.

This morning, Hamas released a statement regarding the Cairo mediation, saying the group believes it has "shown the flexibility required to reach an agreement" with Israel. "But the occupation [Israel] continues to evade the rights included in this agreement, notably a definitive cease-fire, the return of displaced persons, withdrawal from Gaza and the provision of humanitarian aid."

The statement concludes in saying that the movement "will continue negotiations via the mediator brothers to reach an agreement."

Cease-fire negotiations in Cairo carry on for another day today. Yesterday, the talks broke up without any breakthroughs, but a few hours later the Hamas delegation announced it would extend its stay in order to continue discussions with Egyptians, Qatari and American representatives. The Israeli delegation is no longer in Cairo.

The plan being discussed calls for a six-week truce to facilitate a hostage exchange and an increase in humanitarian aid into the battered and besieged enclave. Already sixteen children in Gaza have died fro malnutrition, according to the health ministry there.

Israel has demanded a precise list of hostages still held in Gaza, while Hamas says it cannot coordinate this under the current conditions, and demands a cease-fire be implemented first, with the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops.

The US has stepped up its pressure, with VP Kamala Harris being the first senior US official to publicly call for a cease-fire on Sunday.

Good morning. Welcome to today's live coverage of the Gaza war and it's regional impact.

👉 You can catch up on yesterday's live coverage here.

☕ And you can read today's Morning Brief here.