Live: At least 22 Palestinians killed in strike on Gaza shelter, Hezbollah hits military base inside Israel

The Lebanese health ministry is now saying that at least 18 people were killed and 92 others wounded after the latest round of Israeli air strikes on central Beirut, which took place around 8pm local time. 

Emergency crews and area residents are scouring the rubble in the dark, the BBC reported.

Israeli officials have yet to announce who was being targeted in the two residential buildings that were hit. The specific neighbourhoods of Basta and Nweiri had not been targeted before. 

Lebanon's health ministry has said that so far 11 people have been killed and 48 others were wounded after an Israeli hit on central Beirut. 

The Israeli military has yet to comment on the nature of what is now known to be multiple air strikes, and who they may have been targeting. 

A Lebanese security source has told the Reuters news agency that an Israeli air strike on a central Beirut neighborhood that had not been previously hit may have targeted a senior Hezbollah figure.

Israeli media has reported the same. 

It was not immediately clear who that may be, but Thursday's strike went well beyond the southern suburbs, Reuters reported. 

Over a dozen British NGOs on Tuesday accused the UK government of “failing to stand up for international law” after Israeli forces launched a fresh aerial and ground offensive in northern Gaza, laying siege to residential areas and leaving 400,000 civilians trapped there.

The military this week ordered hundreds of thousands of people across northern Gaza to flee south.

However, residents have told Middle East Eye they were not given enough time to leave their homes before Israeli forces encircled some areas. Many reports say those who have attempted to leave have been shot and killed by Israeli forces.

Read more: NGOs accuse UK of 'failing to stand up for international law'

Italy's Defence Minister Guido Crosetto has said that Israel shooting at UN peacekeepers along the demarcation line in Lebanon could be a war crime. 

"This was not a mistake and not an accident," Crosetto told reporters. "It could constitute a war crime and represented a very serious violation of international military law."

Israeli soldiers fired on positions belonging to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) on Wednesday and Thursday, the Reuters news agency reported. 

Italy, which has a significant number of soldiers in Unifil, had summoned the Israeli ambassador earlier on Thursday. Crosetto said the ambassador had not yet provided answers as to why the attack occurred. 

Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Salim Baddoura, urged the international community to pressure Israel to pull back from his country, given it is employing the "same sinister playbook" as in Gaza, he said. 

"As these atrocities keep unfolding, we have the right to ask ourselves after one year: what is the real and ultimate goal of this?" Baddoura asked. 

"There is a pressing necessity for the international community to forcibly push for a ceasefire and uninhibited humanitarian relief."

He made his comments at a meeting in Geneva hosted by Pakistan, which currently heads the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Reporting by Reuters

Unicef, the UN children's agency, has said that humanitarian pauses have been agreed to allow for a second round of polio vaccinations for 590,000 children under the age of 10, starting from 14 October.

"Area-specific humanitarian pauses have been agreed. It is critical that these pauses are respected by all parties. Without them, it is impossible to vaccinate the children," Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

Reporting by Reuters

An Israeli air strike targeting the residential area of Karak in the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon has killed four people and injured 17 others, the Lebanese health ministry said Thursday.

Al Jazeera is reporting that the strike devastated the area. Emergency teams are searching for survivors among the rubble.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that Germany will send more weapons to Israel soon, following a drop in deliveries this year which prompted opposition accusations that Berlin has delayed exports.

"We have not decided not to supply weapons. We have supplied weapons and we will supply weapons," Scholz told parliament at an event to commemorate the victims of the 7 October Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

He added that "there will be further deliveries soon".

Reporting by Reuters

Italy's defence minister summoned the Israeli ambassador on Thursday, a government source told AFP, after the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said it had been hit by Israeli tank fire.

The Unifil force, which has some 10,000 peacekeepers in south Lebanon, said that Israeli tank fire on its headquarters wounded two members, as Israeli troops battle Hezbollah militants on the border.

Reporting by AFP 

A United Nations inquiry said on Thursday it found that Israel carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza's healthcare system in the Gaza war, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.

A statement by ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, released ahead of a full report, accused Israel of "relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities" in the war.

"Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system," said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on 30 October.

The UN inquiry's statement also accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing and torturing medical personnel, targeting medical vehicles and restricting permits for patients to leave the besieged Gaza Strip.

As an example, it cited the death of a Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, in February along with family members and two medics who came to rescue her under Israeli fire.

The World Health Organization says over 10,000 patients requiring urgent medical evacuation have been prevented from leaving Gaza since the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was shut in May. The Palestinian health ministry says nearly 1,000 medics have been killed in Gaza in the past year, in what the WHO called "an irreplaceable loss and a massive blow to the health system".

The statement said the treatment of both Palestinian detainees in Israel and captives seized by Hamas fighters in the 7 October attack had been investigated and it accused both sides of involvement in torture and sexual violence.

Reporting by Reuters

Palestinian and Dutch organisations on Thursday filed a legal complaint against the state of the Netherlands over its alleged failure to prevent Israel from committing possible genocide in Gaza and other violations of international law.

The case argues that the Netherlands has a legal obligation to do everything in its power to stop alleged violations by Israel of international law and the 1948 Genocide Convention.

It is backed by Palestinian human rights organisations, Dutch social justice NGOs and Jewish organisations who do not support the Israeli government.

Israel denies committing war crimes or acts of genocide in its war in the Palestinian territories.

The organisations seek a ban on all Dutch exports to Israel of weapons and goods that could have a military use. They also want judges to order the Netherlands to halt all business with Israel related to its presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, the NGOs' lawyer, Wout Albers, told Reuters.

The case is expected to be heard in November.

Reporting by Reuters

The United Nations said that Israeli forces have fired at three United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) positions in Lebanon's southern border.

Unifil says two peacekeepers were injured by Israeli tank fire, according to Reuters.

Al Jazeera is citing a Unifil source as saying that two members were slightly wounded as Israeli forces hit the guard tower of the Unifil. They told Al Jazeera that the UN headquarters are highly visible and that it would be hard for the Israeli forces not to see them.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country will continue to provide weaponary to Israel.

"We delivered and will deliver," Scholz was quoted as saying in German media Tagesspiegel.

On 7 October, which marked a year of the war on Gaza, Berlin ruled out a weapons export ban on Israel.

Deputy government spokeswoman Christian Hoffmann told journalists in Berlin on Monday that decisions on arms export were taken on an individual case by case basis, but added: "There is no decision for a general boycott of arms exports to Israel. The federal government has not made that (decision).”