Israel destroys apartment tower in southwestern Gaza City | LIVE

UNIFIL Eastern Sector Commander General Ricardo Esteban Cabrijos inaugurated an education project Ghandourieh, benefiting five public schools in the Bint Jbeil district: Ghandourieh, Touline, Sawwaneh, Qabrikha and Froun, NNA reported.

The event, held at Ghandourieh Public School, was attended by local officials and members of the Indonesian battalion, led by Colonel Raja Gunung Nasution.

The project provided school supplies and improved infrastructure to enhance learning conditions, NNA reported. General Cabrijos affirmed UNIFIL’s ongoing support, saying, “Children are the future of Lebanon.” Nasution added, “We come not with weapons, but with books, because peace begins in the classroom.”

Hezbollah MP Hassan Ezzeddine reiterated “the unwavering position of the resistance regarding its weapons.”

Speaking in Aitit (Sout), Ezzeddine criticized the government’s recent decision “aimed at disarming the resistance,” calling it “reckless, misguided, and dangerous.” He urged those responsible to reconsider, warning that they would bear responsibility for its consequences. According to him, the focus on “disarming the resistance reflects misplaced priorities,” particularly in a country facing deep crises.

The MP reaffirmed that Hezbollah “will never give up its weapons, under any circumstances.” He also praised the withdrawal of the Shiite ministers from the cabinet session, describing it as “a unified and principled stance,” and commended Shiite Minister Fadi Makki for raising the possibility of his resignation.

Israel destroys apartment tower in southwestern Gaza City

Israel destroyed an apartment tower this afternoon in southwestern Gaza City, witnesses told AFP, following an Israeli airstrike in an area that the Israeli army had earlier asked residents to evacuate.

“The army recently struck an apartment tower used by the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza City area,” a military statement said. Witnesses told AFP that the building targeted was the Soussi tower, located within the same evacuation perimeter as the Rouya tower, which the Israeli army had announced earlier it intended to target.

Videos circulating on social media show the roughly fifteen-story tower collapsing in a massive cloud of dust after explosions at its base. Sharing one of the clips, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on his X account: “We continue.” The day before, following a similar demolition of a building in western Gaza City, he had written: “We have begun.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Israel’s characterization of the forced displacement of Palestinians as voluntary is “absurd.”

Yesterday, Benjamin Netanyahu stated that there are “different plans to rebuild Gaza” and claimed that “half of the population wants to leave Gaza,” asserting that this is not a mass expulsion. “I can open Rafah for them, but Egypt will immediately close it,” he added.

In response, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement reiterating its “categorical rejection of the forced or coerced displacement of Palestinians from their lands.” “[Egypt] emphasizes that such practices constitute a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes that cannot be tolerated,” the ministry added.

The statement stressed that Egypt will never be complicit in such practices nor act as an intermediary for the displacement of Palestinians, describing it as a “red line” that must not be crossed.

21 people killed in Gaza by Israeli forces

At least 21 people have been killed, including 13 in Gaza City, by Israeli forces across the besieged enclave since dawn, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Six people have also died over the last 24 hours due to Israel-forced starvation, the Health Ministry said.

Israeli army calls for evacuation of Gaza City ahead of announced assault

The Israeli army called on residents of Gaza City this morning to evacuate to a zone declared “humanitarian” further south, ahead of a planned ground assault on the city, the largest in the Palestinian territory, which has been devastated by nearly 23 months of war.

Avichay Adraee, the army’s Arabic-speaking spokesperson, issued the call on social media as the U.N., which estimates around one million residents in the area, warned of an impending “disaster” if the offensive on Gaza City expands.

The evacuation order comes after U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday that the United States was “in deep negotiations with Hamas,” whose unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war.

Adraee specified that to “facilitate the departure of the city’s residents,” the coastal Al-Mawasi sector in the south of the territory has been declared a “humanitarian zone.” According to the army, this zone includes “essential humanitarian infrastructure” and is supplied with “food, tents, medicine and medical equipment.”

Three Palestinians waiting for aid killed southwest of Khan Younis

Three Palestinians waiting for aid were killed after Israeli forces opened fire near an aid center southwest of Khan Younis, according to sources at Nasser Medical Complex.

The incident came shortly after the Israeli army announced the creation of a so-called “humanitarian area” in Khan Younis.

The U.N. said more than 1,000 Palestinians have died trying to access food aid in Gaza since the U.S.- and Israel-backed GHF began operations at the end of May.

Update on southern Lebanon:

• Israeli drones flew over Saida and the Palestinian camps in the area this morning.

• Last night, after 11 p.m., the Israeli army swept the Roueissat al-Alam site toward the outskirts of Kfar Shuba.

Journalists killed at the end of August in Gaza: AP challenges Israeli version

The American news agency Associated Press (AP) challenged yesterday the arguments put forward by the Israeli army to justify strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five Palestinian journalists, including an AP contributor, at the end of August.

On Aug. 25, 22 people, including five journalists, were killed in Israeli strikes on a building of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to authorities in the Gaza Strip.

More details in this article.

A Palestinian killed by Israeli forces near a checkpoint in the West Bank

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that Israeli forces shot and killed a 57-year-old man near a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank yesterday, with the army claiming it had “neutralized the terrorist.”

In a statement, the Ministry of Health announced “the martyrdom of citizen Ahmed Abdel Fattah Chahada… by the bullets of the occupier,” last evening near a checkpoint south of Nablus, in northern West Bank.

The Israeli army said that “a terrorist approached a checkpoint and threw a suspicious object at soldiers operating in the area.” “The terrorist did not comply with instructions [from the army], so the soldiers applied standard operational procedures and neutralized the terrorist to eliminate the threat,” it added, specifying that no Israeli soldiers were injured.

Israeli army calls on Gaza City residents to move to a ‘humanitarian zone’ further south

The Israeli army this morning called on the inhabitants of Gaza City to evacuate to a “humanitarian zone” declared by Israel further south in the Gaza Strip, in anticipation of a forthcoming ground assault on the largest city in the Palestinian territory.

“From now on, and to facilitate the departure of the city’s residents, we declare the [coastal] Al-Mawasi area [in southern Gaza] a humanitarian zone,” said a message in Arabic “to the residents of Gaza City and all those present there,” published on social media by Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army spokesperson for the Arabic-speaking public.

“Take this opportunity to move without delay to the humanitarian zone and join the thousands of people who have already done so,” the text added, while the U.N. estimates around one million people are in the Gaza City area and warns of a “disaster” if the Israeli offensive on the city expands.

Lebanese government ‘welcomes’ army plan to disarm Hezbollah

One month after its “historic” decision to grant the Lebanese state a monopoly on weapons, the Council of Ministers said yesterday that it “welcomed” the army’s plan to dismantle militia arsenals, starting with Hezbollah.

The cabinet therefore opted for a carefully measured compromise, using careful wording to avoid formally adopting the army’s plan, so as not to completely upset the Hezbollah-Amal tandem.

More details here.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the situation in the Middle East, where the Israeli army continues its relentless destruction of the Gaza Strip, in Lebanon — whose southern region is still almost daily bombarded by Israel — as well as in Syria and Iran.