Middle East crisis live: Aid entering Gaza is lowest in months, says Unrwa, as US deadline approaches

Air raid sirens have been heard in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital, with the Israeli military saying it had intercepted three projectiles fired from Lebanon.

“Following the sirens that sounded in numerous areas in central Israel, the IAF (Israel Air Force) intercepted three projectiles that crossed from Lebanon,” the army said. media reported that sirens were also activated at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, where flights were temporarily halted. It is Israel’s main airport.

UN peacekeepers have warned that the Israeli military has committed “severe violations” of a ceasefire deal with Syria as its military continues a major construction project along the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria.

The comments from the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which has patrolled the area since 1974, come after an Associated Press report on Monday that published satellite imagery showing the extent of the works along the frontier.

The work, which UNDOF said began in July, follows the completion by the Israeli military of new roadways and what appears to be a buffer zone along the Gaza Strip’s frontier with Israel. The Israel military also has begun demolishing villages in Lebanon, where other UN peacekeepers have come under fire.

While such violence hasn’t broken out along the Alpha Line, UNDOF warned on Tuesday the work risked further inflaming tensions in the region.

“Such severe violations of the (demilitarized zone) have the potential to increase tensions in the area and is being closely monitored by by UNDOF,” it added.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Syrian officials have declined to comment on the construction.

Lebanon’s health ministry has just said that five people died in the Israeli strike in the mountains east of Beirut, after a security official said a house was targeted.

“The Israeli enemy strike on Baalshamieh killed five people,” the ministry said in an initial report.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee has again issued a forced evacuation order for residents of southern Lebanon, this time saying people in the affected villages must move north of the Awali river, which meets the coast about 50km (30 miles) from the border with Israel. He prohibited residents from fleeing south.

The order was aimed at the villages of Chaqra, Hula, Majdal Selem, Taloussa, Meiss el-Jabal, as-Sawana, Qabrikha, Yahmour, Arnoun, Blida, Muhaibib, Barashit, Fron and Ghandouriya.

In a post on X, Adraee wrote:

Hezbollah’s terrorist activities force the IDF to act forcefully against it in these areas, and we do not intend to harm you. For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move to the north of the Awali river. For your safety, you must evacuate without delay. Anyone who is near Hezbollah elements, facilities or weapons is putting his life in danger.

A Lebanese security official has told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that an Israeli airstrike hit a villa east of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday.

The security official said the “Israeli strike caused an unspecified number of casualties”. The country’s state-run National News Agency later said Israeli warplanes hit a house between Baalshamieh and Dhour al-Abadiyah. Details of the attack are still emerging. We will give you the latest developments as soon as we get them.

The UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) has warned that already low levels of aid trickling into Gaza had dwindled further, with the situation in the north of the territory described as “catastrophic”.

The warning came as the Israeli military said it had delivered hundreds of packets of food to cut-off areas of northern Gaza as the deadline for Israel to get more aid into the Strip or face cuts in military assistance fast approaches (the US government said in a letter on 13 October that Israel had 30 days to take specific steps to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza).

Asked about whether there were signs the situation had improved ahead of Wednesday’s deadline, Louise Wateridge, an Unrwa emergencies officer, said “aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months” (see post at 11.29 for some of her other comments).

Speaking to a Geneva media briefing via video-link from Gaza, Wateridge said that “the average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip… that is for 2.2 million people”.

“Children are dying. People are dying every day,” she said, stressing that “people here need everything”.

The situation is at its worst in northern Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment at the weekend said that famine was imminent.

No food was permitted to enter besieged northern Gaza for an entire month, Wateridge said, adding that UN requests to access the area have been repeatedly denied.

Wateridge said that testimonies from the north painted “an endlessly horrific” picture that was becoming “more critical” by the hour, AFP reports.

“Hospitals have been bombed, the doctors inform us that they have run out of blood supplies, they have run out of medicine… there are bodies in the streets.”

At least 43,665 Palestinian people have been killed and 103,076 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Of those, 62 Palestinians were killed and 147 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.

Gaza’s health ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.

Will Christou reports from Beirut for the Guardian

While Hezbollah has indicated that it wants a ceasefire in Lebanon, it has insisted that it would have its own conditions to stop firing at Israel, and said that it has the capacity to continue fighting for months to come.

Lebanon’s speaker, Nabih Berri, who negotiates on behalf of Hezbollah, said on Tuesday that “There is no sane person who thinks that we will agree to a settlement or solution that achieves the interest of Israel at the expense of Lebanon and its sovereignty.”

Israel has issued contradictory statements about ceasefire talks in the last 24 hours, with foreign minister Gideon Saar saying “certain progress” had been made on Monday, but defense minister Israel Katz on Tuesday morning saying there would be “no ceasefire” and “no respite” in Lebanon.

Leaked drafts in Israeli media of a ceasefire proposal showed that Israel was seeking the freedom to fly over Lebanese airspace at will, as well as to take offensive action in Lebanon if it thought Hezbollah was violating the terms of the ceasefire deal. The leaked proposal is understood to reflect Israel’s maximal demands in any future ceasefire negotiation and is expected to be a non-starter with Lebanese and Hezbollah officials, who see it as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.

On Sunday, the Israeli military it had approved plans for an expanded ground offensive in south Lebanon, a month after it launched what it called a “limited and targeted” cross-border operation.

Hezbollah, for its part, continued to carry out attacks on northern Israel, launching over 200 rockets on Monday and launching a rocket salvo at the town of Kafr Yuval in north Israel on Tuesday afternoon.

William Christou reports for the Guardian from Beirut

Israel carried out more than a dozen airstrikes on Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday morning, the most intense aerial bombardment of the city in weeks.

An Israeli military spokesperson published maps on social media of 11 buildings in Dahiyeh that it said were Hezbollah installations and warned civilians to distance themselves. Around 40 minutes after the warnings were issued, the bombing started and the resulting explosions were heard around the capital city, accompanied by sonic booms of Israeli jets passing overhead.

A video showed two missiles striking an at least ten-storey building, leveling it completely. Among the places that were destroyed were Harkous chicken, a neighbourhood restaurant and landmark in Dahiyeh, as well as a medical complex.

Daytime strikes in Dahiyeh have been rare over the past two months and residents typically return to the southern suburbs to check on their homes in the relative safety of daylight. The area which used to house around half a million people has been mostly depopulated since Israel began to regularly bomb Dahiyeh in late September.

On Monday night, Israel killed at least 14 people in a strike in Ain Yacoub, in the northern province of Akkar about 110 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. The strike hit a building housing displaced people without warning, in an area that has not witnessed any prior Hezbollah-Israel fighting. Over the last two months, Israel has struck several buildings hosting displaced people in areas which have no affiliation to Hezbollah.

It is approaching 2pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City. Here are the latest headlines …

• Israel’s newly appointed defense minister Israel Katz has said there will be “no ceasefire” and “no respite” in Lebanon. Posting to social media Katz said “The warning and powerful activity carried out by the IDF and the security agencies against Hezbollah and the elimination of [Hassan] Nasrallah are a picture of victory and the offensive activity should be continued, in order to worsen Hezbollah’s capabilities and realise the fruits of victory. In Lebanon there will be no ceasefire and there will be no respite”

• Katz’ comments directly contradicted a statement from Israel’s foreign minister on Monday that there had been a “certain progress” in ceasefire talks. Hezbollah said on Monday that it had not been directly involved in any talks

• Beirut’s southern suburbs have again been hit by multiple Israeli air strikes. Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson had issued orders that people in specific locations in southern Beirut should flee their homes

• Palestinian medical officials say two Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman. Associated Press reports that most of the victims of one of the strikes were in an Israeli-declared “humanitarian zone”. AP reports that one strike late Monday hit a makeshift cafeteria used by displaced people in Muwasi, the centre of the Israeli declared “humanitarian zone”. At least 11 people were killed, including two children

• Louise Wateridge, senior emergency officer for Unrwa in Gaza, told a Geneva press briefing that no food had been allowed to enter northern Gaza for an entire month. She told the media “Anything that happens now is already too late. Thousands and thousands of people have been killed senselessly. They have been killed because there is lack of aid, because the bombs have continued and because we have not been able to even reach them under the rubble”

• Israel has claimed it has met most US demands to increase aid access to the Gaza Strip, despite its own official figures showing aid delivery is at its lowest since December. The Kisufim crossing was opening on Tuesday to allow some trucks through

• Palestinian media sources report that the Al-Qassam Brigades has claimed it successfully mounted an attack on Israeli troops that had taken refuge inside a house in Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. Overnight Israel announced the deaths of four soldiers in combat in the northern Gaza Strip

• Israel’s military has issued a statement on its official Telegram channel that two suspects have been arrested after an incident yesterday in which two soldiers were injured after they were hit by a car in Al-Khader

• Palestinians in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have staged a protest about the number of people detained in Israeli jails. According to Palestinian news agency Wafa more than 11,600 arrests of Palestinians have been made by Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank since 7 October 2023

• The IDF says it is investigating why warning sirens did not sound after a drone crossed into Israel from Lebanon and fell in Nesher, on the outskirts of Haifa

• The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) has reported multiple explosions in the vicinity of a vessel which was positioned of the western coast of Yemen. It says there was no damage and nobody was injured. Yemen’s Houthis have repeatedly targeted shipping in the area

• Hebrew media outlet Ynet has reported that authorities in Thailand are warning they have intelligence of plans for an attack on Israeli tourists at a music party on Friday