Israel kills 77 in Gaza, pounds Lebanon as war rages on after a year
GAZA STRIP
At least 77 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in Israeli attacks Monday on many points in the Gaza Strip, according to health sources as it intensified its strikes in Lebanon.
The Israeli army continued its attacks on the northern, southern and central parts of the besieged enclave on the first anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war.
Health sources said three Palestinians were killed in an attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on a tent near Al-Furqan Mosque in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Five Palestinians were killed and 18 injured in two separate airstrikes on other locations in the camp.
Another 16 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks to the east and west of Khan Younis.
In Rafah city, eight Palestinians were killed in an attack by Israeli warplanes targeting a home in the Miraj area, and one Palestinian was killed in an attack in the Khirbet al-Ades area.
In another front, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) is reporting that Israeli forces launched air attacks in Beirut and across eastern and southern Lebanon this morning.
Israel claimed to have killed the commander of Hezbollah’s headquarters, Suhail Hussein Husseini, in an attack on Beirut on Monday.
Israel intensified its fight with Lebanon's Hezbollah as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press the "sacred mission" against Israel's enemies, on the first anniversary of the war.
Hamas said it will be a long fight, but Netanyahu said both wars would ensure the violence Israel endured last Oct. 7 could never be repeated.
Israel's military said air defenses intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, while in the West Bank, Palestinian officials reported a deadly Israeli raid.
Tehran, which arms and finances Hezbollah and backs the Yemeni rebels, hailed Hamas's Oct. 7 attack as Iran awaits what Israel said will be retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage on Israel last week.
"As long as the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country, we will continue to fight. As long as our hostages are still in Gaza, we will continue to fight," Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded television address, vowing not to give up on the "sacred mission" of achieving the war's goals.
Pope Francis condemned the "shameful inability" of world powers to end the Middle East conflict, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the region is "on the verge of a complete conflagration".
Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said the movement chooses "to keep up the fight in a long war of attrition, one that is painful and costly for the enemy".
He also said scores of people taken hostage into Gaza last Oct. 7 were enduring a "very difficult" situation.
Thousands of fighters killed
A senior Hamas official has acknowledged that "several thousand fighters from the movement and other resistance groups died in combat".
When the Gaza war began, Netanyahu vowed to "crush" Hamas, but troops have found themselves returning again to areas to confront signs the movement was trying to rebuild.
Netanyahu has vowed to bring home the hostages, but critics in Israel have accused him of obstructing mediation for a truce and hostage-release deal.
Late last month Israel turned its focus north towards Hezbollah, with intensified air strikes in Lebanon and, since last week, "targeted" ground raids.
Netanyahu says the aim is to ensure tens of thousands of Israelis forced to flee Hezbollah fire can return home safely.
On Monday the military said it would expand its operations against Hezbollah to Lebanon's coast south of the Al-Awali river, and warned people to stay away.
It also declared a "closed military zone" near the coast in Israel's extreme northwest, near Shlomi, after a similar declaration last week to the northeast in the Metula area.
The military said Hezbollah fired about 135 projectiles into Israel Monday and Israeli forces hit back by striking "over 120 terror targets in southern Lebanon within an hour".
Late Monday, Lebanese state media reported more Israeli strikes on Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold, which has been repeatedly pounded even after a bombing killed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.
More troops deployed
Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli soldiers in two south Lebanon border villages, including Maroun al-Ras where it has reported previous clashes. The army said it had deployed another division for operations across the border.
At least four projectiles were fired from Gaza just after Oct. 7 commemorations began, Israel's military said, adding it retaliated against militant infrastructure throughout Gaza.
Hamas said it fired rockets near the border with Gaza and at Tel Aviv, while Hezbollah twice said it had launched rockets at areas north of Haifa, a major coastal city.
As troops fought what Israel says is a war for its very existence, vigils at massacre sites and rallies called for the return of hostages a year after their abduction.
Gaza's 'graveyard'
Israel launched a military offensive that has reduced swathes of Gaza to rubble, and displaced nearly all of its 2.4 million residents at least once amid an unrelenting humanitarian crisis.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on X Monday the war had turned Gaza into a "graveyard".
Of the 251 people taken hostage into Gaza, 97 are still being held, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Since Israel's escalation in Lebanon began in late September, more than 1,110 people have been killed and more than one million are displaced, official figures show.
Violence has also soared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian health ministry says more than 700 people have been killed since the Hamas attack, including two on Monday during Israeli raids.
Israel's military says 349 soldiers have been killed since the Gaza ground offensive began on October 27.
Nearly 42,000 people have been killed since Oct. 7, mostly women and children, and over 97,100 others injured, according to local health authorities.
The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.