Israel’s deadly airstrike in southern Lebanon targeting a paramedic center linked to a Sunni Muslim group triggered a barrage of rockets Wednesday into northern Israel that was claimed by the militant group Hezbollah, killing at least one person.
International mediators are scrambling to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah as the Israeli war in Gaza against Hamas grinds through its sixth month.
The overnight Israeli strike killed seven people who were “waiting to respond to a rescue call, and ended up getting hit by missiles,” said Muheddine Qarhani, head of the Emergency and Relief Corps. The Israeli military said it struck a military building in Hebbariye and killed a member of Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and several other militants.
Hezbollah has been launching rockets toward Israel since the day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7. There has been near-daily violence, mostly confined to the area along the Lebanon-Israel border.
In Gaza, more than 32,000 people have been killed and 74,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally. The ministry says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Some 1,200 people were killed in Israel and another 250 people abducted when militants launched a surprise attack out of Gaza on Oct. 7, triggering the war.
Currently:
— Israel and Hamas dig in as pressure builds for a cease-fire in Gaza.
— With its soldiers mired in Gaza, Israel is also fighting over drafting the ultra-Orthodox.
— They fled kibbutzim after Hamas attacked. Now, many Israelis must decide whether to go back.
— Seven Lebanese and an Israeli are killed in an exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border.
— Find more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s the latest:
REPUBLICAN U.S. SEN. GRAHAM, ON A VISIT TO ISRAEL, CALLS FOR BIDEN TO LET ISRAEL DESTROY HAMAS IN SOUTHERN GAZA CITY OF RAFAH
TEL AVIV, Israel — Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham wants the Biden administration and Congress to allow Israel to militarily defeat all remaining Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — which is overflowing with more than a million displaced civilians. Israel says there are thousands of Hamas militants in that area.
Defeating Hamas in Rafah is “non-negotiable,” Graham told reporters in Jerusalem on Wednesday. “I urge the Biden administration, the Congress to make sure that Israel has the time and space to achieve victory over Hamas militarily.”
The U.S. Department of Defense wants Israel to protect civilians and secure the delivery of aid into Gaza during any military operation into Rafah, where over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled to escape fighting in other areas and are packed into rudimentary tent camps and U.N.-run shelters.
Israel was meant to send a delegation to Washington to discuss plans for defeating Hamas in Rafah. However, Israel cancelled the visit after the U.S. allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, without linking the two.
The cancelled meeting was the strongest public clash between Israel and the U.S. since the war began.
Graham said he understood Israel’s opposition to the U.N. resolution, saying the wording created doubt. But he hoped for a “breakthrough” that would bring Israel and the U.S. “back together talking about the way forward.”
NETANYAHU SAYS U.S. VISIT WAS CANCELED AS A MESSAGE TO HAMAS
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his decision not to send a delegation to Washington for talks with the Biden administration was meant to deliver a message to Hamas that international pressure against Israel will not prompt it to end the war without concessions from the militant group.
Netanyahu’s remarks appeared to be an attempt to smooth over a clash between Israel and Washington this week following the U.S. decision not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution this week demanding an immediate cease-fire. Netanyahu decided in response to cancel a delegation’s visit to Washington meant to discuss Israel’s plans for an offensive in Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah.
Speaking to visiting Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida on Wednesday, Netanyahu said the cancelled visit “was a message first and foremost to Hamas: don’t bet on this pressure, it’s not going to work.”
Netanyahu said the U.S. abstention was “very, very bad,” and that it “encouraged Hamas to take a hard line and to believe that international pressure will prevent Israel” from achieving its war aims. Israel wants to destroy Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and free the hostages taken by the militant group during its Oct. 7 attack.
The U.S. abstention and Netanyahu’s decision to cancel the delegation was the strongest public dispute between the two allies since the war in Gaza began.
RAFAH AIRSTRIKE KILLS AT LEAST 4, WITH 10 MORE FEARED BURIED UNDER RUBBLE
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian health officials say an airstrike on an apartment building in the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah has killed at least four people.
An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies arrive at a local hospital. Relatives say another 10 people were still buried under the rubble.
Palestinians could be seen digging through the remains of a pancaked building early Wednesday. Mohammed Dheir, a neighbor, says there were “limbs all over the ground.”
Israel has threatened to expand its ground operation to Rafah, where some 1.4 million people – over half of Gaza’s population – have sought refuge. The military has regularly carried out airstrikes on Rafah since the start of the war.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border on Oct. 7 and attacked several Israeli communities and army bases, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. They abducted another 250 and dragged them back to Gaza.
In response, Israel launched one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Wednesday that at least 32,490 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians but says women and children make up around two-third of those killed.
The Israeli military says it has killed over 13,000 fighters. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, residential areas, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes.
18 PEOPLE HAVE NOW DIED TRYING TO RECOVER AIRDROPPED AID, GAZA OFFICIALS SAY
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say at least six people drowned earlier this week while trying to recover airdropped food aid in northern Gaza.
Mahmoud Bassel, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense rescue service, says a large group of men swam out into the Mediterranean Sea on Monday to try to recover aid parcels. Six bodies were later recovered and transferred to a nearby hospital.
He said Wednesday that a total of 18 people have died while trying to recover airdropped aid in scenes of chaos and desperation.
“Sometimes it falls into the sea, sometimes on civilians, sometimes on houses, sometimes on Israeli territory beyond the border fence,” he said.
The Hamas-run government media office has also reported 18 deaths related to the aid drops. The United States and other nations have carried out several airdrops in recent weeks to try and get food to Palestinians in northern Gaza, where experts say famine is imminent.
Aid groups say the airdrops are no substitute for bringing aid in overland and have called on Israel to streamline its inspection procedures and open more crossings.
Israel’s offensive, launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, has caused widespread devastation in northern Gaza and Israeli forces have largely sealed the north off since October. Aid groups say requests to deliver aid to the north are often denied by the military or are too dangerous because of the breakdown in security across Gaza.
ISRAELI MILITARY KILLS 3 PALESTINIANS DURING AN OVERNIGHT RAID IN THE WEST BANK
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says its forces killed three Palestinian militants during an overnight raid in the West Bank.
The military said it opened fire on militants who hurled explosive devices, killing one of them. It said an airstrike killed two other militants, and that its forces destroyed a vehicle containing explosive devices after arresting two people who were inside it.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two of those killed were 19 years old. It says another four Palestinians were wounded in the raid, which occurred overnight into Wednesday. It did not say whether any of those killed or wounded were militants or civilians.
Violence across the West Bank has spiked since the war in Gaza broke out on Oct. 7, when Palestinian militants launched an incursion on southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping around 250 others.
The raid was carried out in the Jenin refugee camp, which has seen regular clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in recent years. The dense, urban camp was built to house Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel who fled or were driven out during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has little control over Jenin.
At least 450 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli fire since the conflict broke out, according to Palestinian health officials.
HEZBOLLAH CLAIMS ROCKET ATTACK THAT KILLED 1 IN NORTHERN ISRAEL
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel Rescue Services said that one person was killed and two others lightly injured in a Hezbollah rocket attack on northern Israel. The man, 25, was killed from a fire that broke out at a factory in an industrial park in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona as a result of a direct hit.
Around 30 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Wednesday morning, according to the Israeli military. Hezbollah took responsibility for the launches and said they were in response to an Israeli airstrike that killed seven members of a militant group in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group began launching rockets toward Israel one day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7. There has been near-daily violence, mostly confined to the area along the Lebanon-Israel border, and international mediators are scrambling to prevent an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The fighting has killed nine civilians and 11 soldiers in Israel. More than 200 Hezbollah fighters and about 40 civilians have died in Lebanon.
ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE KILLS 7 IN LEBANON
BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike on a paramedic center linked to a Lebanese Sunni Muslim group in south Lebanon killed seven of its members early Wednesday.
The airstrike on the village of Hebbariye hit an office of the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps overnight, according to the Lebanese Ambulance Association. The strike was one of the deadliest single attacks since violence erupted along the Lebanon-Israel border more than five months ago.
“This condemned crime forms a flagrant violation against humanitarian work,” the association said in a statement. It listed the names of the seven volunteers who were killed in the strike.
The militant Hezbollah group vowed to avenge the attack, saying it “will not pass without punishment.”
The Israeli military said it struck “a military building” in Hebbariye and killed a member of Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group. It said the man was involved in carrying out attacks against Israel and several other militants were killed with him as well.
Since the Israel-Hamas began on Oct. 7, Hezbollah has been carrying attacks against Israel’s military posts along the border. Israel has since carried out scores of airstrikes, mostly along the borde,r but since late February they have started attacking northeast Lebanon.
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