The Israel Defense Forces continued intense air and ground campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The uptick in offensive operations came days after Israel marked the anniversary of Hamas' Oct. 7 assault and as Israeli leaders planned their response to last week's Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Israel Defense Forces continued its bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs overnight into Wednesday, with a focus on the Hezbollah-controlled Dahiya area.
A view shows damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs following Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon on Oct. 9, 2024.
Abdel Hadi Ramahi/Reuters
Lebanon's health ministry also said 36 people were killed and 150 wounded in Israeli attacks on Monday.
The total number of people killed by Israel in Lebanon rose to 2,119 and the number of wounded to 1,019, health officials said.
-ABC News' Ghazi Balkiz and Joe Simonetti
Oct 09, 2024, 7:10 AM EDT
Gaza death toll passes 42,000, health officials say
The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza announced Wednesday that the Palestinian death toll in the strip since Oct. 7, 2023 has now passed 42,000.
Displaced Palestinians walk on a dirt road lined with building rubble in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, Oct. 7, 2024.
Omar Al-qattaa/AFP via Getty Images
Health authorities reported 42,010 Palestinians killed and 97,720 wounded since the start of the war. Thousands more bodies are believed to still be under rubble in the devastated territory.
-ABC News’ Lama Hasan and Joe Simonetti
Oct 09, 2024, 4:46 AM EDT
IDF claims strikes on 230 targets in 24 hours in Lebanon and Gaza
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.
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Khiam on Oct. 9, 2024.
-/AFP via Getty Images
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
Oct 09, 2024, 4:24 AM EDT
'Many' refusing Israel's north Gaza evacuation order, UNRWA head says
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."
Displaced Palestinians sit in a damaged car as they flee Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2024.
Hatem Khaled/Reuters
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.
