Israel-Gaza-Lebanon updates: Netanyahu calls UN troops Hezbollah 'human shields'

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday morning that it struck 185 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and 45 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip over the previous 24 hours.

In southern Lebanon, the IDF said it "dismantled launch pads that posed a threat to communities in northern Israel, eliminated terrorists during close-quarter encounters and in aerial strikes, located and confiscated numerous weapons including anti-tank missiles."

In Gaza, the IDF said its troops "eliminated dozens of terrorists in close-quarter encounters and in aerial strikes, located weapons, including grenades, AK-47 rifles, and more, and dismantled numerous terrorist infrastructure sites and rocket launchers that were ready to fire toward Israeli territory."

-ABC News' Jordana Miller

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said Wednesday that Israel's latest evacuation order in north Gaza is deepening the misery of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

"No end to hell," Lazzarini wrote in a post to X. "At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area."

The Israel Defense Forces ordered residents of the northern part of Gaza to evacuate amid a renewed military operation there, currently centered on the Jabalia refugee camp. The area is "still considered a dangerous combat zone," the IDF said this week.

"Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere in Gaza is safe," Lazzarini said of residents, many of whom have been displaced multiple times during a year of war.

UNRWA shelters and services are being forced to close, "some for the first time since the war began," Lazzarini added. "With almost no basic supplies available, hunger is spreading & deepening again."

The renewed fighting in the north also threatens the second phase of the U.N.-led polio vaccination campaign in Gaza. "Children are as ever, the first & most to suffer," Lazzarini said.

An Al Jazeera cameraman was critically wounded in the bombing of a central Gaza hospital, the publication said Tuesday.

Ali al-Attar, 27, suffered a skull fracture and internal bleeding in the brain after being struck by two pieces of shrapnel during the bombing of a police checkpoint inside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, according to Al Jazeera. Al-Attar was in the journalists' tents located next to the checkpoint at the time, it said.

The strike occurred early Monday local time, according to Al-Jazeera Arabic.

At least 128 journalists have been killed and 35 reported injured in the Israel-Hamas war since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Doctors Without Borders said northern Gaza has become "unlivable" due to bombings and evacuations.

"These forced mass evacuations of homes and bombing of neighborhoods by the Israeli forces are turning the north of Gaza into an unlivable wasteland, effectively emptying out the whole north of the Strip of Palestinian life," the organization said in a statement on Tuesday. "To make matters worse, no humanitarian supplies have been allowed to enter the area since 1 October."

The Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation order for northern Gaza earlier this week, saying the area is "still considered a dangerous combat zone."

Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Medical Complex, which is within the evacuation zone, said they have 24 hours to completely evacuate patients and staff.

"This is a dangerous measure that threatens the collapse of the healthcare system in the northern Gaza Strip," he said in a statement on Tuesday.