Middle East latest: Israel pounds Beirut suburb Dahiyeh with airstrikes overnight

Israel’s air force pounded Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight, destroying dozens of buildings in several neighborhoods, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Friday.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

Recently, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on the northeastern city of Baalbek and nearby villages, as well as different parts of southern Lebanon. International mediators are ramping up efforts to halt the wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, circulating new proposals to wind down the regional conflict.

Lebanon’s Heath Ministry said more than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 wounded since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets almost daily into Israel, drawing retaliation.

The death toll from more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has passed 43,000, Palestinian officials reported this week, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.

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Here’s the latest:

Death toll rises from West Bank raid that the UN says badly damaged its offices

Palestinian health officials say the death toll from an Israeli raid in the north of the occupied West Bank has risen from three to four.

The Ramallah-based health ministry said two people were killed by gunfire and two by bombing in the two-day military raid, which ended Thursday.

The Israeli military said its troops withdrew from the camp after striking two militants who had fired upon soldiers and killing other militants in “close quarters combat.”

Hamas denounced the attack, which it said killed a Hamas leader in the area.

The operation in the Nur Shams refugee camp heavily damaged the offices of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The agency’s Commissioner General, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote Thursday on X that it had been put of service by Israeli military bulldozers that partially demolished the building.

The Israeli military denied it damaged the building. It said militants had planted explosives nearby and set them off to attack Israeli troops and that the blast “likely caused damage to the building.”

Palestinian health officials say that Israeli fire has killed at least 736 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, including at least 165 children.

Israeli Cabinet approves 2025 budget ramping up defense spending amid fighting in Gaza and Lebanon

Israel’s Cabinet on Friday passed a budget for 2025 Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, ramping up defense spending amid the war in Gaza and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

The budget, which must still be approved by Israel’s parliament before taking effect, increased allotted defense spending to at least $27.2 billion, Israeli media reported, though that could increase to $40 billion pending further cabinet discussions.

In the last year, Israel spent $27.5 billion on defense, according to the the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“We have come together for an important, difficult, but necessary budget in a year of war,” Netanyahu said after the budget was approved.

The budget has been mired in controversy in Israel, with the destruction caused by conflicts on two fronts driving up government expenditures and debt, a mass call-up of reservist soldiers hurting families and small businesses, and international credit ratings being downgraded.

Economists have called for an end to the war with Hamas in Gaza and for far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to construct a budget that reduces the country’s deficit — something that would require unpopular decisions such as raising taxes or cutting spending.

Smotrich on Friday claimed the budget would reduce the deficit and that spending allocations were “intended to support all war efforts until victory” and allow Israel to “emerge from war into accelerated growth.”

Opposition lawmakers promptly criticized the budget for allocating funds to government ministries — run by Netanyahu’s far-right and ultranationalist coalition partners — which they described at superfluous. Yair Lapid wrote on X that the budget “distributes billions of shekels to 10 unnecessary government ministries. They’ve lost their shame.”

Israeli airstrikes on villages in northeastern Lebanon kill 10 people, news agency says

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s state news agency says two separate Israeli airstrikes on Friday in the country's northeast have killed 10 people.

The National News Agency said eight people were killed when a village home in Amhaz was destroyed while two other people were killed in the village of Taraya.

Israel intensified its airstrikes on the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel region earlier this week, killing dozens and leaving tens of thousands displaced.

Lebanese legislator Hussein Haj Hassan, who represents the region in Parliament, said that so far 60,000 people have been displaced from the area, many of them moved to safer towns and villages nearby.

UN rights office warns of threat to UNESCO World Heritage Site in Baalbek and other archaeological sites

BEIRUT — The U.N. Human Rights Office on Friday expressed alarm over “the continuing grave impact” of Israeli military operations on civilians and civilian targets in Lebanon, including the destruction of places of worship and risks posed to invaluable archaeological sites.

The office said that since Israel’s air force ordered the northeastern Lebanese city of Baalbek evacuated, airstrike that followed have “come perilously close” to the ancient Roman-era temple complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Destruction of cultural heritage “depletes the historical and cultural identity of the communities it represents,” it said.

The sites destroyed or severely damaged so far include mosques in the southern villages of Yaroun, Maroun el-Ras, Blida, and Kfar Tibnit, OHCHR said, adding that a Melkite Greek Catholic church in the port city of Tyre was also damaged in early October.

Civilian objects, buildings dedicated to religion and other sites of cultural significance are protected from attack under international humanitarian law unless they become military objectives, the office said.

It stressed that should the sites lose their protection, any attacks upon them must still comply with the principles of proportionality and precaution, and that all parties to the conflict should take special care to avoid damage to buildings dedicated to religion or other sites of cultural or historical significance.

Death toll rises to 25 from Israeli strikes on Thursday in central Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Hospital officials in Gaza said on Friday that the death toll from Israeli strikes on the central parts of the territory the day before has risen from 16 to 25 as more bodies have been recovered.

The Palestinians killed in the series of strikes on central Gaza include five children and seven women, the officials said.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specific strikes but said it had killed armed militants in central Gaza on Thursday.

UN aid agency says there's a new wave of displacement from Beirut after Israeli strikes

GENEVA — The U.N. humanitarian aid coordination agency is pointing to a new “wave of displacement” in Beirut after the Israeli army issued new orders for people to leave.

Spokesman Jens Laerke of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, citing local officials, says the new displacement orders for the capital’s southern suburbs were followed shortly afterward by heavy airstrikes.

He told reporters in Geneva that other recent displacement orders from the Israeli military spurred an estimated 50,000 people to leave the eastern city of Baalbek and head mostly toward the northern Bekaa Valley.

“We are working to access civilians who remain in hard to reach areas. To date, 15 convoys have successfully been organized to reach areas” in four Lebanese cities, including Baalbek, Laerke said. “But the insecurity has an impact on what we can do.”

During the same briefing, World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris expressed concerns about the malnutrition situation in Gaza.

“We’ve not really seen any food aid into north Gaza since the 2nd of October. People are running out of ways to cope. The food systems have collapsed,” she said. “The opportunity to care for those who are at the most critical stage is not there anymore.”

An Israeli airstrike on the edge of Qamatiyeh in Lebanon kills 3 and wounds 5

BERIUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli airstrike on a mountain town overlooking Beirut has killed three people and wounded five.

The ministry gave no further details about the early Friday airstrike on the edge of Qamatiyeh, southeast of Beirut.

An Associated Press journalist who visited the scene said the strike was closer to the nearby village of Ein al-Rummaneh, adding that it caused minor damage to an apartment on the first floor of a building.

On Oct. 6, an Israeli strike in Qamatiyeh killed six people, including three children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

Thailand tells Israel not to allow workers to enter closed military zones after 4 are killed in northern Israel

BANGKOK — The employer of the Thai workers killed and injured in northern Israel had received permission from the Israeli military to bring the workers to the area for about 1-2 hours, said Nikorndej Balankura, spokesperson of Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding Friday that the employer was also killed.

The worker who was injured was in serious condition and was being treated at a hospital in Haifa, he said, and the Thai embassy was already in touch with the families of the deceased.

Projectiles fired Thursday from Lebanon into northern Israel killed seven people, including four Thai workers, in the deadliest such attack since Israeli troops invaded Lebanon in early October. Israel’s northernmost town, Metula is surrounded by Lebanon on three sides and has sustained heavy damage from rockets. The town’s residents evacuated in October 2023, and only security officials and agricultural workers remain there.

Nikorndej said Thailand has called on Israel to refrain from granting permissions for Thai workers to enter closed military zones from now on, to prevent such losses from happening again.

“Thailand reiterates its call on all conflicting parties to immediately cease any retaliatory actions to prevent the situation from prolonging and aggravating, and to restore regional peace and stability in the Middle East region,” he said.

Israel pounds Beirut suburb overnight with airstrikes

BEIRUT — Israel’s air force resumed airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburb, destroying buildings in several neighborhoods, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Friday. There was no immediate word on casualties.

The early Friday airstrikes on Dahiyeh — after a four-day lull during which no airstrikes were reported in the suburb — destroyed dozens of buildings and caused fires in the area, the agency said.

In recent days, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on the northeastern city of Baalbek and nearby villages, as well as different parts of southern Lebanon.