Heavy Israeli bombardment in northern Gaza as UN peacekeepers in Lebanon take another hit

BEIRUT – Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip reported heavy Israeli bombing on Saturday in the hours after airstrikes that killed at least 22 people, as Israel warned people there and in southern Lebanon to avoid offensives against the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah .

In Lebanon, the U.N. peacekeeping force said its headquarters in Naqoura was hit again, with a peacekeeper hit by gunfire late Friday and in stable condition. It was not clear who fired. The shooting came a day after the Israeli military fired on the headquarters for the second consecutive day. Israel, which had warned peacekeepers to leave their positions, did not immediately respond to questions.

There were renewed hunger warnings in northern Gaza as residents said they had not received aid since the beginning of the month. The United Nations World Food Program said no food aid had reached the north since October 1. An estimated 400,000 people still live there.

The Israeli military renewed its offensive in the northern Gaza Strip nearly a week ago while expanding its air and ground campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Amid Israel’s war with Hezbollah, a senior U.N. official, Carl Skau, told The Associated Press he was concerned that Lebanon’s ports and airports could be rendered inoperable. More than 1 million people have been displaced.

Lebanon’s state news agency National News Agency reported that an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building on the outskirts of Barja, south of Beirut, and the health ministry said four people were killed. The ministry said five people were killed in an air strike on the village of Maisra, northeast of Beirut.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon killed a total of 2,255 people last year. More than 1,400 people have been killed since mid-September. It was not clear how many were fighters.

According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah fired more than 300 projectiles on the Yom Kippur holiday. The military said it killed 50 militants in Lebanon. Claims on both sides could not be verified.

“We will continue to stand with the Lebanese people and also the Palestinian people in these difficult circumstances,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Saturday as he toured the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

Some Gazans are trapped

In the northern Gaza Strip, residents told the AP that many were trapped in their homes and shelters and supplies were running low, while they saw bodies in the streets that had not been collected as bombing hampered emergency services.

Those who rushed to the scene of the latest deadly airstrikes in the Jabaliya urban refugee camp found a 20-meter-deep hole where a house once stood.

At least 20 bodies were recovered Saturday morning, while others were likely trapped under rubble, emergency services officials said. Elsewhere in Jabaliya, two brothers were killed and a woman and a newborn baby were injured in an attack on a house, officials said.

Another strike in the afternoon hit a house in Jabaliya, killing at least four people, including a woman, said Fares Abu Hamza, an emergency services official.

The Israeli military said it killed more than 20 militants in the Jabaliya area last day.

Military spokesman Avichay Adraee urged people in parts of Jabaliya and Gaza City to evacuate south to an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone because Israel plans to use major force “and will continue to do so for a long time.”

Israel has repeatedly returned to parts of the Gaza Strip as Hamas and other militants regroup. The war has destroyed large parts of the Gaza Strip and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, often multiple times.

Once again, some families moved south on foot, in donkey carts or huddled together in vehicles driving over piles of rubble. Others refused to leave.

“It’s like the first days of the war,” said Ahmed Abu Goneim, a resident of Jabaliya. “The occupation is doing everything to uproot us. But we won’t go.”

The 24-year-old said Israeli warplanes and drones had attacked many neighboring homes over the past week. He counted 15 relatives and neighbors, including four women and five children as young as three, who were killed in neighboring houses. He said there were dead people on the streets and “because of the bombing, no one was able to recover them.”

Hamza Sharif, who lives with his family in a school hostel in Jabaliya, described “constant bombings day and night.”

He said the shelter hasn’t received any help since the beginning of the month.

“Families rely on their supplies, but they will run out of supplies very soon,” he said.

The food is running out

The World Food Program said it was unclear how long the limited food supplies it had previously distributed in northern Gaza would last.

The U.N. independent investigator on the right to food last month accused Israel of waging a “hunger campaign” against Palestinians, which Israel has denied.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza began after the Hamas attack on October 7, when militants stormed Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250 others.

More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to local health authorities, although there are no figures on combatants and civilians. Gaza’s Health Ministry said hospitals had received the bodies of 49 people killed in the last 24 hours.

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Samy Magdy reported from Cairo. Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem and Sam Metz in Rabat, Morocco, contributed to this report.

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For more AP coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.