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Israel-Gaza live updates: Israel, Hezbollah exchange fire over border

At least two were injured in Isreal by falling shrapnel, officials said.

Last Updated: August 6, 2024, 9:16 AM EDT

As the Israel-Hamas war continues, tensions are escalating after the assassinations of two Hamas and Hezbollah leaders this week.

9:16 AM EDT

Israeli prisons are 'network of torture' for Palestinians: Human rights group

B’tselem, a major Israeli human rights group, published a report alleging that the Israeli prison system has become a "network of torture camps" for Palestinians arrested since Oct. 7.

The group reported abuse including "frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation; deliberate starvation and sleep deprivation."

The number of Palestinians in Israeli jails and detention centers stands at 9,623, the rights group said, including, 4,781 held without charge. An estimated 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody.

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir talks to emergency responders at the scene of a suspected stabbing attack in Holon, Israel, Aug. 4, 2024.
Ricardo Moraes/Reuters, FILE

The Israeli army and government have denied allegations of systematic abuse, and the prisons service said it is are not aware of the claims in the report.

But, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister for national security who is in charge of the prisons service, has long championed the deteriorating conditions in prisons for Palestinian prisoners, who he said are "terrorists," as a matter of policy.

"Since I assumed the position of Minister of National Security, one of the highest goals I have set for myself is to worsen the conditions of the terrorists in the prisons, and to reduce their rights to the minimum required by law," he said in July. "Everything published about the abominable conditions of these vile murderers in prison was true."

In response to claims of overcrowding, Ben-Gvir has advocated the death penalty as a response.

-ABC News' Guy Davies

Aug 06, 2024, 7:42 AM EDT

Israel, Hezbollah exchange fire, killing at least 5 in Lebanon and injuring 2 in Israel

Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets and drones toward northern Israel on Tuesday morning and afternoon, injuring at least two people, after an earlier Israeli airstrike killed at least five people in southern Lebanon, according to authorities on both sides.

The Lebanese militant group said in separate statements that Tuesday's attacks against Israel -- at least four so far -- were carried out both in support of the Palestinian people in the war-torn Gaza Strip and in response to recent Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon.

One of those drones was intercepted by Israeli air defense and the falling shrapnel injured "several civilians" south of Nahariya, the northernmost coastal city of Israel, according to the IDF.

Israeli police and a soldier work at the impact site of a projectile, after Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah said it launched a swarm of attack drones against military targets in northern Israel, in Nahariya, Israel, August 6, 2024.
Rami Shlush/Reuters

Israel's Magen David Adam rescue service said its first responders were deployed to the scene and treated a 30-year-old man in serious condition and a 30-year-old woman in mild-to-moderate condition with shrapnel injuries to the lower limbs. Both patients were transported to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya.

"We saw the male unconscious in the car with a severe head injury from shrapnel. A female who was fully conscious with shrapnel injuries to her lower limbs was in a parking lot nearby," paramedic Roi Vishna and senior EMT Noam Levi said in a joint statement released by MDA." We treated the male including ventilating him and providing medications, and evacuated him by MICU in very serious condition to hospital. The female casualty was evacuated in mild to moderate condition."

PHOTO: This picture taken from northern Israel shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment of the southern Lebanese border village of Khiam on Aug. 6, 2024, amid continuing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters.
This picture taken from northern Israel shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment of the southern Lebanese border village of Khiam on August 6, 2024, amid continuing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters.
Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images

Hezbollah launched the counterattacks after an Israeli airstrike on the town of Mifdoun in southern Lebanon killed at least five people on Tuesday morning, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. It was not immediately clear whether civilians were among the casualties.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months amid the ongoing war in Gaza. But regional tensions have soared following last week's assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran's capital and Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Lebanon's capital.

-ABC News' Ghazi Balkiz, Jordana Miller and Morgan Winsor

Aug 05, 2024, 3:48 PM EDT

Israel kills another Hezbollah commander

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Monday they had killed another Hezbollah commander in a strike on Lebanon. Ali Jamal Aldin Jawad, a commander in Hezbollah's Radwan Force, was killed in the strike.

The death was also confirmed by Hezbollah.

"His elimination significantly degrades the capabilities of the Hezbollah terrorist organization to promote and carry out terror activities from southern Lebanon against northern Israel," the IDF said.

Israel's killing of a Hezbollah official in Beirut, Fuad Shukr, and a Hamas official in Iran, Ismail Haniyeh, has pushed the Middle East to the brink of further war.

Aug 05, 2024, 2:10 PM EDT

Remains of about 80 deceased Palestinians returned after being taken by IDF

The deceased remains of an estimated 80 Palestinians -- which Israeli forces took from Gazan cemeteries to identify whether hostages had been buried there -- were returned by the Israel Defense Forces.

Workers in protective suits ride on a truck carrying bodies returned by Israel in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Aug. 5, 2024.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

The bodies were decomposed beyond recognition, with Gazan officials saying between three and four bodies were in each bag. They will be reburied in a mass grave in Khan Younis.

A Gazan civil defense official on the ground said there is no data as to who these individuals were.

Workers bury bodies returned by Israel in a cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Aug. 5, 2024.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

"I wished I could find him, to be at peace," Suwa Abu Rajilah, a mother who traveled to the site to see if her son, killed in the war, was there. "To say I buried him, but I couldn't find him."

-ABC News' Dia Ostaz