Lebanese civilians ‘bearing brunt’ of damage: UN official

Imran Riza, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator, has said the mass wave of displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon has been “catastrophic”, with civilians “bearing the brunt” of the pain.

“The level of trauma, the level of fear amongst the population, has been extreme,” Riza said. “You’ve got people being displaced from one place to another, thinking they were going to a safe place, and then that being struck,” he added.

Riza noted that international humanitarian law demands aid workers be allowed to reach people in need, and that civilian infrastructure be protected.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing a situation where we have to go back to everybody and advocate for these basics in terms of protecting civilians”, he said.

The number of Lebanese people killed by Israel since it intensified its attacks on the country last week is approaching 2,000, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

_{Smoke rises after a strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs and its surroundings, as seen from Hadath, Lebanon, October 3}

World Bank reroutes $250 million to Lebanon aid response

The World Bank has announced it will divert $250m in funds to Lebanon’s emergency aid response.

The funds are being redirected from a programme intended to improve the country’s electricity infrastructure and boost renewable energy.

“The World Bank is activating emergency response plans to be able to repurpose resources in the portfolio to respond to the urgent needs of people in Lebanon,” according to a World Bank.

There are currently some 1.2 million people displaced in Lebanon, with aid groups warning of a “nightmare” scenario.

US: Israel still undecided about how to respond to Iran

United States President Joe Biden has advised Israel to avoid striking Iranian civilian infrastructure, including oil facilities, a US official has told our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA).

The White House has already said it does not support an Israeli strike on nuclear facilities. “We continue our discussions with the Israelis regarding their response to the Iranian strike and they have not yet asked for our assistance,” the US official told AJA.

“We urge Israel to avoid a comprehensive regional war in its response to the Iranian missile attack,” the source added.

The US does not believe Israel has decided yet how to respond to Iran, a US official told the Reuters news agency. “We understand that they are still determining what exactly they will do,” the source said.

Israeli attacks on Gaza ‘designed to cause maximum damage’

The Israeli army continues to conduct and carry out air strikes that it described as precise, limited to targeted operatives across the Gaza Strip.

But when we look on the ground, how these attacks are being carried out, they are designed to cause maximum damage.

They are not only causing further civilian casualties, but the scale and the extent of damage and destruction and casualties that they cause is very high, contrary to what Israeli statements describe these attacks and overnight attacks.

In the early morning of today’s attack, artillery fired on the eastern part of the Gaza Strip, as well as the western part of Nuseirat refugee camp, where the Israeli military attacks almost on hourly basis right now.

Every once in a while, we hear heavy artilleries, and according to witnesses and the Palestinian Civil Defence, who are prevented from getting anywhere near these bomb sites, they describe the horror of – many of the people are trapped inside the homes that are being targeted.

Many of these homes are already collapsed on people while they are still inside because they could not leave, whether here in Maghazi refugee camp or further western part of Gaza—of the Nuseirat refugee camp, the reports of many people are still trapped and buried under the rubble.

Twelve people have been confirmed killed, according to health officials here at Al-Aqsa Hospital and al-Awda Hospital. Five of them were in a residential home in northern part of the Strip, in Shati refugee camp, that has been bombed relentlessly since week one of this genocidal war.


_{Palestinian Civil Defence rescuers extract the body of a victim from a hole underneath the rubble of a collapsed building in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday}

Israeli forces kill four Palestinians gathering wood

Within the past hour, as we were finishing up our earlier report, the Israeli military once again carried out deadly attacks on a group of people.

A missile was fired by a drone in the northern part of the city of Beit Lahiya on a group of people who were in the area collecting wood. And the reason people were in that area, the reason they were collecting this wood, was because of the lack of cooking gas.

There are people in the northern part, they lack every basic necessity in their life and it’s not unusual to see people out in the streets or areas where they can collect wood or other elements that could help them with their daily struggles in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Four people were confirmed dead as a result of the attacks.

This is an example of what people in the northern part of the Strip are suffering on a daily basis. It’s not only the ongoing attacks, the aerial bombardment, but also their daily routine of staying alive and staying protected and safe – they can’t even have that.

Three of UNRWA’s schools in Gaza struck in 48 hours: Lazzarini

The head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, says that in the past two days alone, three UNRWA schools were hit in Gaza. In a post on X, Philippe Lazzarini said at least 21 people were reported killed.

“More than 140 UNRWA schools have come under attack since 7 October, the majority while people were taking refuge in them under the UN flag,” he said.

“Schools cannot be used for any military purposes by anyone. Schools are not a target”.

“These are some of the basic rules of war blatantly disregarded”.

#Gaza: in the past two days alone, three @UNRWA schools were hit in Gaza.
At least 21 people were reported killed.
The schools were home for more than 20,000 displaced people.
Some schools were hit more than once since the war began.

More than 140 UNRWA schools have come…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) October 3, 2024

Palestinians injured in Israeli attack on Nuseirat camp receive medical care

_{A wounded Palestinian man is brought on a stretcher to al-Awda Hospital for treatment following the Israeli attack on Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza City}

_{A Palestinian child who lost a relative mourns as the bodies of the people who lost their lives in the Israeli army attack are brought to al-Awda Hospital for funeral procedures}

Majority of Palestinian water and sewage facilities in Gaza out of operation

The Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing officials at the Palestinian Water Authority, reports that over 85 percent of water and sewage facilities have either completely or partially ceased operations due to the destruction of vital infrastructure by Israeli forces.

Ziyad Fuqaha, the acting head of the water authority, said that the Israeli war on Gaza has affected all three water sources in the enclave, estimating that the production from these sources has decreased to approximately 30-35 percent of pre-war levels.

Israeli forces blow up residential buildings in central Gaza

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that the Israeli military has blown up residential buildings northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported earlier that the military has been striking the western part of the camp on a near-hourly basis.

Air strike in West Bank’s Tulkarem

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that Israeli forces have carried out an air strike on Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

Five killed from Tulkarem attack: Report

The Israeli air raid on Tulkarem refugee camp has killed five people and wounded others, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency. At least one strike hit a crowded cafe in the camp, causing the casualties, Wafa reports.

Israel’s military confirmed it carried out an attack in Tulkarem in a post on X, calling it a joint operation with the country’s Shin Bet security service.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency shows scenes of devastation in the camp, with massive piles of wreckage and fires breaking out. Rescuers could be seen rushing bloodied victims to receive medical care.

Israel’s attacks on Lebanon – in numbers

Israel targeted potential new Hezbollah leader in Beirut strikes: Report

The Israeli military attempted to kill Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an air strike in Beirut on Wednesday night, the Axios news outlet reports.

Citing three anonymous Israeli officials, they said Safieddine, tipped as Nasrallah’s most likely successor, was hiding in a bunker deep underground in a suburb in southern Beirut and it wasn’t clear if he had been killed in the strike.

The US State Department listed Safieddine, who currently heads Hezbollah’s executive council, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2017.

Wave of Israeli air strikes pound Beirut’s southern suburbs

There has been 20 strikes in the last 24 hours or so. Eleven of those have been in the southern suburbs of Beirut. I’m now in the centre of Beirut and it’s about seven kilometres (around 4.3 miles) to the south from here.

Huge strikes. There are reports that they were bunker busting bombs. They dig very deep and can down into tunnels and they can level entire buildings. The huge explosions really rocked much of Beirut.

The majority of them were in the Dahiyeh area. We’ve seen many air strikes there before, but we know that Israeli media has been reporting that Hashem Safieddine was targeted in that strike.

He’s known to be possibly the next leader of Hezbollah. He’s certainly in the upper echelons of Hezbollah. However, we have not yet had any statement from Hezbollah as to whether he was there or not, or whether he was being targeted, and neither from the Israeli forces. So we have yet to confirm.

_{Smoke and flames rise over Beirut’s southern suburbs after a huge strike on Beirut, Lebanon, late on October 3}

Senior US Republican lawmaker urges Biden to speed up Israel arms sales

Representative Michael McCaul urged the US president to speed up weapons shipments to Israel, which have been held up in recent months over concerns they are being used to violate international law in Gaza and Lebanon.

“I urge you to act today to ensure all weapons shipments to Israel, including 2,000-pound (907 kg) bombs, are expedited to support our ally,” McCaul said in a letter to Biden.

McCaul, who reviews all major foreign US weapons sales in his position as chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said he knew of more than 10 weapons shipments to Israel that have been awaiting final approval for more than four months.

Biden says US will not deploy ‘its own forces in support of Israel’

The response I got from the US State Department was to contact the Israeli government. So there is no comment coming from the US government about what has been happening over the past couple of hours in that Beirut suburb.

Earlier, US President Joe Biden spoke to reporters as he was returning from a trip to look at hurricane damage.

He was asked whether the US and Israel were discussing whether the Israeli government should launch strikes on Iranian oil facilities. The president said that he wasn’t going to get into what they consider private diplomatic discussions.

The president did say that he believed a wider war could be prevented. That it still could be negotiated back to some form of non-confrontation between Israel and Iran. Between Israel and Hezbollah and, let’s not forget, Israel and Hamas.

However, the president made it very clear that the US would not be deploying its own forces in support of Israel as it is in the middle of all of these conflicts.

US weary as Israel ignores ‘calls for restraint’ amid expanding war in region

When we watch what happens at the State Department, at the Pentagon and at the White House, their statements are fully supportive of Israel.

But you can hear, between the lines, there is a kind of exhaustion about the continual Israeli war. The Biden administration has been calling for a ceasefire. They’ve been calling for restraint. And they have received neither.

Netanyahu has not been listening to the US calls for restraint. That government has continued to not only to pursue the war in Gaza. It’s expanded it to the West Bank and, given some provocations, as well as in Lebanon and also in Yemen.

The US administration is in the middle of an election campaign. The last thing they want is for this war to be expanded.

Biden is trying to support Kamala Harris, and he’s trying to show the US is exercising some kind of restraint on Israel. And that just doesn’t seem to be having any effect.

Netanyahu being pressured by US to ‘limit’ response to Iran

Amir Oren, a columnist for the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, says public holidays are not an impediment to Israel’s fighting including the current commemoration of the Jewish New Year.

“There are two different Israels now: one on the various [fighting] fronts and one back at home,” he said. “Of course, there are air raid sirens that continue, especially in the north, but all we know is that there is routine life going on.

He added: “As for the Iranian-Israeli tension, obviously the Biden administration is putting a lot of pressure on Israel to contain and limit its response [to Tehran’s missile attack], so it does not conflagrate into full-blown war.

“Biden is telling Netanyahu to limit Israel’s response and find a less intrusive target – obviously not the nuclear infrastructure and hopefully not the oil industry,” Oren said.

Mother and two children among 18 killed in Israeli fighter jet strike on Tulkarem

This is the first time the Israeli army used fighter jets against a building or a target for assassination in the occupied West Bank in over 20 years.

A use of extreme force that is, quite frankly, unnecessary. It could have been done with drones or helicopters, as we’ve seen repeatedly over the past year. And yet, we saw this massive strike that has left at least 18 people killed, including a mother, her two children and her brother.

An entire building was levelled to the ground and the hospitals in this refugee camp of 23,000 were overwhelmed with the influx of casualties.

It was a very traumatic night for the residents of the Tulkarem refugee camp.

Body parts ‘all over the place’ after Israeli fighter jets hit Tulkarem refugee camp


_{Palestinians examine the damage following an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem}

Red Crescent medic Daliya Hadaydeh said the aftermath of the air attack on a coffee shop in the Palestinian camp was “horrific”.

“We heard a huge explosion in the camp. We headed towards the area. We saw the whole building destroyed and engulfed in flames,” Hadaydeh told Al Jazeera following the missile strike on the camp located in the northwest of the occupied West Bank.

“Body parts were scattered all over the place. It was a horrific scene. Five of the bodies were almost intact. But between 15 and 20 were dismembered,” she said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said that at least 18 people were killed in the attack on Thursday night, many were injured, and the search was continuing for people buried beneath the rubble.

_{The remains of some of the 18 victims of an Israeli air attack on the Tulkarem refugee camp are brought to the Sabit State Hospital morgue in the occupied West Bank on Thursday night}

‘Massacre’: Israeli forces raid West Bank towns after 18 killed


_{Israeli military says the attack targeted a Hamas military commander}

Israeli military raids continue in the occupied West Bank after an air strike killed at least 18 Palestinians in the Tulkarem refugee camp.

“This is one of the rare times Israel has used a fighter jet to launch an air strike here,” said Leila Warah, a journalist based in Bethlehem. “This is a densely populated area and many people were caught in the crossfire.”

The Israeli army said this was an attack targeting the head of Hamas’s military wing in the area. Warah said the governing Palestinian Authority described the attack as “a massacre” and urged the international community to intervene to stop Israel’s assaults.

Health authorities expect the death toll to rise because many victims are severely wounded.

Israeli military storms several areas across the West Bank

The Israeli military has carried out several operations across the occupied West Bank in recent hours.

Incidents include: