Live: Lebanon condemns 'deliberate' Israeli strike on Nabatieh which killed mayor

Bilal Ezzat Khudari, who is originally from Gaza City but is now displaced in Deir al-Balah, was sleeping 300 metres away from the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital when an Israeli strike hit its courtyards at around 2am local time.  

"I rushed to the hospital to see what happened and saw the bombing had caused a fire, which then set off gas canisters used by people and led to a bigger inferno," Khadari told Middle East Eye correspondent Mohammed al-Hajjar.

"The fire was 10 to 15 metres tall. It was so big people couldn't help. It kept spreading, and every now and then something would blow up inside, pushing the rescuers back."

Khudari said he saw people inside the blaze being burned alive.

"I saw at least three charred bodies. One of them was a janitor. He had nothing to do with anything.

"There was a falafel vendor who worked and slept here. His wife and son both died in the fire. His son was a good guy, an engineer."

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenager during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. 

The boy was identified by local media as 17-year-old Rayyan Ibrahim Sayyed. 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday urged other members of the European Union to respond to Madrid and Ireland's request to suspend the bloc's free trade agreement with Israel over its was in Gaza and Lebanon.

For months, both Spain and Ireland have been in talks with other EU countries who want a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement on the basis that Israel may be breaching the agreement's human rights clause.

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli forces raided Jenin on Monday and opened fire at resident as they surrounded a house in the northern occupied West Bank city.

At least one Palestinian pupil was wounded by Israeli gunfire, according to local media. 

Attacks by Israel on the United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as Unifil, are "unacceptable" and contrary to UN rules, Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Monday.

"It is contrary to what we expect from any member state of the United Nations, which is ultimately an organisation that protects world peace," he told reporters ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers held in Luxembourg.

EU countries, led by Italy, France and Spain, have thousands of troops in the 10,000-strong peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, which has said it has repeatedly come under attack from Israeli forces in recent days. Israel has called on the UN to move the troops out of the combat zone.

Albares said only UN can order the withdrawal of Unifil.

Reporting by Reuters

Gaza endured "another night of horror" after Israeli forces shelled a hospital courtyard, leading to a deadly fire in makeshift tents, and bombed a school designated as a polio vaccination site, killing 22 people, Unrwa said on Monday. 

"A strike hit a hospital courtyard, burning the tents where people were sleeping," the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on X. 

"Just before this, an Unrwa school sheltering families was hit in Nuseirat. That same school was going to be used as a polio vaccination site today."

Another night of horror in the #Gaza Strip.

A strike hit a hospital courtyard, burning the tents where people were sleeping. Just before this, an @UNRWA school sheltering families was hit in Nuseirat.

That same school was going to be used as a #polio vaccination site today. pic.twitter.com/EZt07HuKol

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 14, 2024

Israeli shelling on a food distribution centre killed 10 Palestinian aid seekers on Monday in the Jabalia refugee camp, which has been under an Israeli siege blocking the entry of food and water for nine days.

Ibrahim Rabea, a Jabalia resident, told Middle East Eye the attack targeted a gathering of people who arrived at the centre to collect the remaining aid there after they ran out of food in their homes.  

At least 10 were killed and 40 others wounded in the bombing, according to initial estimates. 

Those killed and wounded were left strewn on the streets "with no ambulances, no civil defence and no one able to rescue them," said Rabea. 

The European Union's member states have taken too long to condemn Israel's attacks on Unifil peacemakers in Lebanon, the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday, describing the attacks as "completely unacceptable".

"We should be against Israeli attacks against Unifil. Our soldiers are there, many soldiers are there," added Borrell, speaking at an EU ministerial meeting in Luxembourg.

EU countries, led by Italy, France and Spain, have thousands of troops in the 10,000-strong peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, which has said it has repeatedly come under attack from Israeli forces in recent days. Israel has called on the United Nations to move the troops out of the combat zone.

Reporting by Reuters

Israel's army chief said Monday a Hezbollah drone strike on a military training base that killed at least four soldiers at the weekend was "difficult and painful".

"We are at war, and an attack on a training base on the home front is difficult and the results are painful," Herzi Halevi told soldiers during a visit to the Golani Brigade training base that was hit Sunday night in the area of Binyamina, south of the city of Haifa.

A pre-dawn Israeli air strike hit the yards of the al-Aqsa Martyr's hospital in the central Gaza Strip's Deir al-Balah on Monday, causing a fire in makeshift tents used by displaced people. 

The fire engulfed several shelters while people slept inside. Eyewitness described civilians burning to death with people unable to stop the fire due to lack of equipment. 

At least four people were killed and 40 wounded, some seriously, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

The Gaza-based media office said this was the seventh Israeli attack on yards of the al-Aqsa Martyr's hospital.

All photos taken by Ramadan Abed for Reuters 

Hezbollah said its fighters fired artillery rounds at Israeli troops attempting an "infiltration" into south Lebanon on Monday, while also targeting soldiers elsewhere.

"During an enemy infantry force's attempted infiltration into Lebanese territory" near the border village of Markaba, Hezbollah fighters targeted the force "with artillery shells", a statement said, adding fighters targeted soldiers elsewhere with rockets, including in south Lebanon's Labbouneh area.

Reporting by AFP

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are the latest updates from the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon, now in its 374th day:  

• Israeli confirmed that four soldiers were killed and around 60 others wounded in a Hezbollah drone strike that hit an army base near Haifa late on Sunday. The Lebanese group said more similar attacks will continue unless Israel stops its assault on Lebanon. 

• In Gaza, the Israeli military separated northern Gaza districts from Gaza City with earth mounds as drones fired at civilians attempting to move between the two adjoining governorates.

• Northern Gaza remains under siege and heavy Israeli attacks for the ninth day amid reports on Israeli media saying the latest assault could last months and aims to empty northern Gaza of Palestinian people and life. 

• Elsewhere, Israeli artillery shelling targeted a school used as shelter for Palestinian civilians in the Nuseirat refugee camp on Sunday night, killing at least 22 people, including children.