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A member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) checks the courtyard of a school after an Israeli air strike hit the site, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on Sept. 11, 2024, amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (Credit: Eyad baba/AFP)

Live GAZA WAR

Three people, including a father and his child, killed in Israeli airstrike in Nabatieh: Day 342 of the Gaza war

What you need to know

Hezbollah retaliated with rocket strikes and drone squads in response to the bombing that killed two young people in southern Lebanon.

The first round of polio vaccinations in Gaza has likely achieved its target, according to the WHO.

For Josep Borrell, currently on a visit to Beirut, a large-scale war is "not inevitable."

Eighteen people, including six UNRWA humanitarian workers, were killed in a school in central Gaza.


21:39 Beirut Time

Thank you for following today's live coverage of the Gaza war and its global and regional impacts. Make sure to return tomorrow for all the latest updates.

19:57 Beirut Time

The Lebanese Ministry of Health confirmed in a statement the death toll of three people, including a child, and three injured following the Israeli strike that targeted a motorcycle in Nabatieh.

19:38 Beirut Time

Latest updates from the Lebanese-Israeli border apart from the airstrike in the Nabatieh district:

* Hezbollah announced that it fired rockets at a group of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of "Tallet Taihat," facing the Lebanese village of Mais al-Jabal (Marjayoun district), and artillery shells at another group of soldiers in the heights of "Abou Dajaj," facing the Lebanese village of Ramyah (Bint Jbeil), at 6:05 p.m.


* Israeli warplanes have targeted the village of Shihine and forests in the outskirts of Zibqine (Sour district) and Yater (Bint Jbeil district), residents told our correspondent in the South.


* Israeli warplanes have targeted a house in Aitaroun (Bint Jbeil district), according to residents.

19:33 Beirut Time

A security source told our correspondent in the South that the target of the Nabatieh airstrike was one of the two motorcycles hit. The source confirms that the driver has been killed.


Another motorcycle driven by a Syrian man and his son happened to pass by at the moment of the strike, killing them, the source adds. Moreover, a civilian car also happened to pass by and the driver was lightly injured.

19:28 Beirut Time

⚡ The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday in a statement that it had carried out two strikes in Syria and "eliminated" a member of Hezbollah.


"The Israeli military has eliminated Ahmad Al-Jabr, a Hezbollah terrorist (...) in Syria, in the Quneitra area," the army stated in a rare operation claim in Syria, adding that it had also carried out a strike in another area in southern Syria.

19:22 Beirut Time

Three persons have been killed including a father and his child and three injured in the Israeli airstrike on a road between Nabatieh and Kfarjoz, our correspondent in the South reported citing a security source.

18:14 Beirut Time

In a statement posted on X in the late afternoon, the Israeli military declared that two of the UNRWA employees killed Wednesday in an attack at the Nuseirat camp in Gaza were Hamas operatives.


The Israeli military also revealed the identities of nine Hamas agents who were killed, including the two UNRWA employees: "Yasser Ibrahim Abu Sharar, a Hamas military wing operative and emergency committees member in Nuseirat, and Iyad Matar, a Hamas military wing operative."


The military added that they contacted UNRWA to "request additional information but did not receive a response."


The Gaza Civil Defense reported that 18 people, including U.N. staff members, were killed Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a school that had been converted into a shelter for displaced persons.

18:14 Beirut Time

Latest updates from the Lebanese-Israeli front:

* An Israeli drone has been flying over Burj al-Barajneh in the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to local media outlets.


* Hezbollah announced that it targeted the Israeli site of al-Abbad, facing the Lebanese village of Houla (Marjayoun district), at 4:38 p.m.


* Israeli artillery shelling has targeted the outskirts of Rashaya al-Foukhar (Hasbaya), according to residents' testimonies relayed by our correspondent in the South.

17:41 Beirut Time

Latest updates from the Lebanese-Israeli front:

* Hezbollah announced that it fired rockets at the Israeli sites of Zebdine in the disputed Shebaa farms and Ramtha in the Kfar Shuba hills at 5 p.m.


* Seven fire crews are working to contain a fire that erupted near Avdon in Northern Israel caused by rockets fired from Lebanon, Haaretz reported citing Fire and Rescue Services. The source added that the fire has spread across multiple acres.

17:34 Beirut Time

After UNRWA claimed that several of its employees were killed in an attack yesterday in the Nuseirat camp in Gaza, the Israeli army said that two of the employees killed were Hamas operatives.


The Israeli army announced the identities of nine Hamas operatives who were killed, including two who it said were employees of UNRWA: "Yasser Ibrahim Abu Sharar, an operative in Hamas' military wing and emergency committees in Nuseirat, and Iyad Matar, an operative in Hamas' military wing."


The army added that it has contacted UNRWA to "ask for additional information but has not received a response."


Gaza's Civil Defense announced that 18 people, including U.N. staff, were killed yesterday in an Israeli airstrike on a school converted into a shelter for displaced people.

17:29 Beirut Time

(Credit: Courtesy of Muntasser Abdallah)

Israeli phosphorus artillery shelling has targeted the outskirts of the village of Maroun al-Ras (Bint Jbeil district) and the city Bint Jbeil causing fires, residents told our correspondent in the South. 

17:27 Beirut Time

Latest developments on the Lebanon-Israel front:

* Three Israeli artillery shells landed in the village of Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil district), residents told our correspondent in the South.


* Israeli fighter jets broke the sound barrier four times over the city of Saida and two times over Western Bekaa, according to our correspondents in the South and Bekaa.


* Rocket sirens were heard in the village of Avivim, located in Upper Galilee, according to Haaretz.

16:02 Beirut Time

In response to the Israeli attack on the village of Biyada (Sour district) yesterday that killed two brothers, Hezbollah announced that it attacked the Nahal Gershom Israeli base in the Upper Galilee with swarms of drones, targeting the positions of its officers and soldiers.

15:53 Beirut Time

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, stated from Beirut that an expanded war in the region is "not inevitable" and called for the "full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701."


During a press conference at the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he lamented that since his last visit to Beirut in January, "the drums of war have not stopped beating." However, he emphasized that in his view, "the worst has been avoided."


"A full-scale war in southern Lebanon with an invasion has not occurred (...) but the threat remains," Josep Borrell warned.

15:14 Beirut Time

The first round of polio vaccinations in Gaza, aimed at preventing an outbreak in the war-torn territory and beyond, has likely achieved its goal, the WHO said Thursday.

More than 552,000 children had already received a first dose as of yesterday, according to AFP. The second should be administered to them in about four weeks, the U.N. agency said, on the last day of the first phase.

14:37 Beirut Time

In response to the Israeli airstrike on a motorcycle in the village of Biyada (Sour) that killed two brothers yesterday, Hezbollah announced that it targeted the village of Rosh Hanikra, facing the Lebanese village of Naqoura (Sour) for the first time and that it fired Katyusha rockets at the village of Matzuva in the Western Galilee.

Hezbollah also claimed another attack, not related to the retaliation to the Biyada strike. The party said that it fired rockets at Israeli artillery positions north of the village of Ain Yaacoub at 1:20 p.m.

14:34 Beirut Time

Latest updates from the Lebanese-Israeli border:

•⁠ ⁠Hezbollah announced that it targeted this morning the Israeli site of Malkia, facing the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil).

•⁠ ⁠According to the Israeli army, fires have broken out in Northern Israel as about 15 rockets were fired from Lebanon.

•⁠ ⁠An Israeli drone carried out a strike on the park of the village of Maroun al-Ras (Bint Jbeil), residents told L'Orient Today's correspondent in the South. This park, which was established with the help of Iran more than ten years ago, was also targeted by two Israeli explosive drones yesterday.

•⁠ ⁠The villages of Yaroun, Ramieh (Bint Jbeil) and Marwahin (Sour) have been subjected to Israeli artillery shelling, according to residents.

14:28 Beirut Time

EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said he was "outraged" by the death of six U.N. staff the day before in an Israeli strike on a school in the Gaza Strip.

"The disregard for the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, in particular the protection of civilians, cannot and must not be accepted by the international community," Josep Borrell said in a message on the social network X.

14:20 Beirut Time

The German Foreign Ministry called the deaths of six U.N. employees in an Israeli strike on a school in the Gaza Strip "completely unacceptable."

"Humanitarian workers must never fall victim to rockets," the ministry said on X, adding that "the Israeli army has a responsibility to protect UN staff and humanitarian workers."

12:22 Beirut Time

Two people were killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a car in the southern province of Quneitra, in the government-controlled part of the Golan Heights, Syria's state-run SANA news agency said.

"Two citizens were killed in an Israeli attack by a drone that fired a missile at a civilian car " on the road between Quneitra and Damascus, the agency said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a U.K.-based NGO with extensive sources in Syria, said a soldier was among the two people killed. A local security source told AFP that "two charred bodies were removed from a car that was targeted by an attack."

This strike comes after particularly violent strikes, attributed by Damascus to Israel, which targeted central Syria on the night of Sunday to Monday and left 18 dead according to the authorities, 27 according to the SOHR. The strikes on the Messyaf region notably targeted sensitive military sites, according to the NGO. The Israeli army did not initially comment on Thursday morning's strike.

12:12 Beirut Time

The Gazan Health Ministry announced a new death toll of 41,118 in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war with Israel.

At least 34 people have been killed in the past 24 hours, he said in a statement, adding that 95,125 people had been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7.

11:36 Beirut Time

Last night, at around 9:30 p.m., fighter planes targeted the area around Majdal Zoun (Sour) and, at 11 p.m., artillery fire hit Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil). 

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for an artillery strike carried out at 1 a.m. against the Israeli site of "Bayyad Blida," opposite the Lebanese village of Blida (Marjayoun). 

11:34 Beirut Time

The destroyed house in Maroun al-Ras. (Photo obtained by Muntasser Abdallah)

An Israeli strike destroyed, at 7 a.m., a house on the outskirts of Maroun al-Ras (Bint Jbeil), according to local residents quoted by L'Orient Today's correspondent.

In addition, an Israeli drone was flying over the Sour region.

09:45 Beirut Time

In the occupied West Bank, eight Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes yesterday, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian Health Ministry said, with the Israeli army confirming five deaths.

After the death of five people early yesterday in "Israeli bombings against a group of citizens in Toubas," the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported three other deaths near the city of Tulkarem "following an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle."

09:41 Beirut Time

A Hamas delegation met with Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha yesterday to discuss a truce in Gaza and a possible exchange of hostages and prisoners, the group said in a statement.

Hamas said its chief negotiator, Khalil Hayyeh, met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. The Palestinian group said they discussed “developments regarding the Palestinian cause and the aggression on the Gaza Strip,” without saying whether the talks had resulted in a breakthrough. In its statement, Hamas reiterated its “readiness to immediately implement the cease-fire agreement based on President Biden’s statement.”

Hamas also reiterated its demand for Israel to withdraw from "all Gaza territories."

The group also said it had not made any further demands to the negotiators and that it "rejects any new conditions to this agreement from any party."

09:40 Beirut Time

In front of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, several people arrived on stretchers from the site of the strike, an AFP correspondent noted. Some were visibly unconscious, and the AFP correspondent saw at least one child and women arriving among the wounded.

"There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip," commented Umm Ayman, a Palestinian who was at the time in front of the hospital, "the children, the elderly, the women: What wrong have they done to end up in pieces?"

09:40 Beirut Time

In front of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, several people arrived on stretchers from the site of the strike, an AFP correspondent noted. Some were visibly unconscious, and the AFP correspondent saw at least one child and women arriving among the wounded.

"There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip," commented Umm Ayman, a Palestinian who was at the time in front of the hospital, "the children, the elderly, the women: What wrong have they done to end up in pieces?"

09:38 Beirut Time

Gaza's Civil Defense announced that 18 people, including U.N. staff, were killed yesterday in an Israeli airstrike on a school converted into a shelter for displaced people, with the Israeli army claiming to have targeted Hamas "terrorists."

The death toll stands at 18, including two employees of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal, who had previously reported 14 deaths. At least 18 people were also injured, according to this source.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres confirmed the deaths of UNRWA staff at the site, giving a death toll of six.

"A school converted into a shelter for 12,000 people was again targeted by Israeli airstrikes today. Six of our UNRWA colleagues are among the dead," he said on the X network. "What is happening in Gaza is completely unacceptable," Guterres stressed, declaring that "these dramatic violations of international humanitarian law must stop immediately."

According to UNRWA, "this is the highest number of deaths among our staff in one go."

The Israeli army said in a statement that its aircraft had "carried out a precision strike on terrorists operating inside a Hamas command center" in the Al-Jouni school.

The Hamas government's media office in the Gaza Strip said the school, which is run by UNRWA, was sheltering around 5,000 displaced people at the time of the strike.

08:46 Beirut Time
08:45 Beirut Time

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