By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Timour Azhari and Laila Bassam
CAIRO/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed more than 60 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, medics said, and Israel also bombarded Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday as a U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the fighting struggled to move forward.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of “stubbornness” in negotiations, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his priority was to enforce security “despite any pressure or constraints”.
Israel has pressed on with its military offensives against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon despite efforts by Washington to secure ceasefires on both fronts ahead of the U.S. presidential election next Tuesday.
Medics in Gaza said about 60 people were killed and dozens more injured overnight and into Friday morning in Israeli strikes on the city of Deir Al-Balah, the Nuseirat camp and the town of Al-Zawayda all in the central area of the Palestinian coastal enclave, as well as in the south.
At least 10 were killed in an Israeli strike that hit the entrance of a school sheltering displaced people in Nuseirat, medics told Reuters. Another 10 were killed in a car in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, medics said.
The Israeli military said its troops had killed what it called armed terrorists in central Gaza and northern Gaza’s Jabalia area. It had no immediate comment on the reported school strike, although it habitually denies targeting civilians.
Israel also pummelled Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday morning with at least 10 strikes, Reuters journalists said. It was the first bombardment on the area – once a densely-packed district and Hezbollah stronghold – in nearly a week.
The strikes came after Israel issued evacuation orders for 10 separate neighbourhoods. The attacks began before the final series of orders were published.
The hostilities have whittled away any hope a truce could be reached before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
Addressing graduating Israeli troops on Thursday, Netanyahu said “agreements, documents, proposals are not the main point.
“The main point is our ability and determination to enforce security, thwart attacks against us and act against the arming of our enemies, as necessary and despite any pressure and constraints. This is the main point,” he said.
His office said he relayed a similar message to U.S. envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk in Israel on Thursday.
‘ISRAELI STUBBORNNESS’
Lebanon’s Mikati said on Friday: “Israeli statements and diplomatic signals received by Lebanon confirm the Israeli stubbornness in rejecting the proposed solutions and insisting on the approach of killing and destruction.”
Israel on Thursday also bombed the Baalbek region in Lebanon’s east, home to UNESCO-listed Roman ruins. A cultural group that organises yearly festivals amid the ruins said some cracks were visible due to nearby Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with Palestinians a day after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s retaliatory offensives have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of Gaza to rubble, Palestinian authorities say, and also killed around 2,800 people in Lebanon, according to the health ministry there.
In northern Israel close to the Lebanese border, a farmer and four Thai workers were killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack on Metula on Thursday, Israeli authorities said. Two more civilians were killed by shrapnel near the town of Kiryat Ata, further south near the major port city of Haifa.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah says it only fires at military targets in Israel.
Despite the new push for peace by the United States, Israel’s close ally and main arms supplier, the continued deadly exchanges of fire indicate little progress has been made.
Hassan Saad, speaking in a street in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, told Reuters: “This is a brutal war and Israel does not have the right to do this…There must be a limit put for Israel because it does not abide by any of the laws or human morality.”
Another Beirut man, Ali Ramadan, said he believed the Israeli airstrikes were a way to put pressure on Lebanon in the ceasefire negotiations.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari, Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Clauda Tanios in Dubai; Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Writing by Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
