Death toll from walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon rises to 25, health minister says
The death toll from Wednesday’s blasts targeting walkie-talkies across Lebanon has risen to 25, the country’s health minister Firass Abiad has said. Speaking at a press conference, he also said 608 others had been injured.
Key events
A UN committee has condemned Israel for committing “severe violations” of a global treaty protecting children’s rights, saying its military actions in Palestine since last October has had a “catastrophic” impact on them.
“The committee condemns in the strongest terms the severe violations of rights under the convention in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories), including the tremendous loss of life as a result of the state party’s military actions,” the four-person committee said in a document, referring to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Israel’s delegation argued in a series of UN hearings earlier this month that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and said that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law.
Three Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in West Bank
Three Palestinians have been killed and four others were injured by Israeli fire during a military raid in the occupied West Bank’s city of Qabatiya, Reuters reports, citing the Palestinian official news agency WAFA.
Death toll from walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon rises to 25, health minister says
The death toll from Wednesday’s blasts targeting walkie-talkies across Lebanon has risen to 25, the country’s health minister Firass Abiad has said. Speaking at a press conference, he also said 608 others had been injured.
Lebanon’s state-owned news agency NNA, citing a Lebanese military statement, reports that pagers and other electronic devices are being detonated in a controlled fashion as a precautionary measure.
It quotes the military saying that specialised units are “detonating pagers and suspicious communication devices in various regions” and called on citizens “to stay away from the detonation scenes and to report any suspicious device or object.”
Al Jazeera is carrying an additional quote from Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan, who said that “Iran, Hezbollah and elements close to them have no choice” but to respond to recent actions widely attributed to Israel. He said “We have come to a point where these operations carried out by Israel have become increasingly provocative.”
Israel’s military evacuated injured people by helicopter after an anti-tank missile was fired into northern Israel from Lebanon this morning. Reports in Israeli media suggest at least eight people were wounded.
The man that Israeli security forces say they have arrested for plotting assassinations against senior political figures in Israel has been named as 73-year-old Moti Maman. Maman, from Ashkelon, was arrested last month and indicted this morning. The Shin Bet and Israeli police have claimed that Iran was backing the plot.
Turkey: Israel mounting attacks against Lebanon ‘step by step’
Hakan Fidan has said it is “alarming” that conflict appears to be escalating in the Middle East. The Turkish foreign minister is reported by AFP as saying “The escalation in the region is alarming. We see Israel mounting its attacks towards Lebanon step by step.”
Hezbollah and Israel have repeatedly exchanged fire since the surprise Hamas attack in southern Israel in October 2023, and thousands of Israelis and Lebanese people have fled their homes to avoid the crossfire over the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries.
Israeli media reports that at least eight people were injured by an anti-tank guided missile attack from Lebanon on what Hezbollah has claimed was an IDF position in northern Israel.
More details soon …
Lebanon’s state-owned news agency NNA reports that there have been fires inside Lebanon near the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon as a result of fire from Israel. It also reports that Israeli drones and reconnaissance planes have been overflying southern Lebanon.
Lorenzo Tondo
Lorenzo Tondo reports from Jerusalem for the Guardian:
The head of the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, said in a statement on Thursday that “too many of our staff are being killed as our buildings are attacked’’ in Gaza.
Commissioner general of Unrwa, Phlippe Lazzarini, says that the UN agency “continues to be the target of a barrage of misinformation & disinformation.”
In the statement he said:
This includes attempts to justify the killing of staff by labelling them operatives of armed groups like Hamas. Such horrific claims, made publicly, are not backed by evidence and are dangerous. Most importantly, they instigate fear among our humanitarian frontline workers in Gaza.
Several colleagues told us they no longer feel safe to put on the Unrwa vest. Their children are begging them not to go to work fearing they might be killed while in Unrwa buildings. The misinformation attacks are not about the neutrality of Unrwa or our humanitarian workers.
Lazzarini said these attempts were aimed at
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creation of a distraction from the atrocities of this war
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dehumanisation by rendering the unbearable justifiable
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undermining and eliminating Unrwa
He added “Everyone has a responsibility to control the spread of inaccurate or malicious information. Before sharing, check the facts to avoid the trap of putting the lives of others at risk.”
Last week, Unrwa said six staff members had been killed in two airstrikes that hit al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza – the highest death toll among its staff in a single incident. The Israel Defense Forces claimed the strikes killed nine Hamas members, three of whom had doubled as Unrwa workers.
Unrwa, one of the UN’s largest agencies, has 13,000 staff working in Gaza and more than 30,000 in the region providing health and educational facilities to Palestinian refugees.
Lazzarini called for an independent investigation, pointing out the total number of Unrwa staff killed in the conflict since 7 October last year had reached 220.
Allegations of the involvement of Unrwa staff in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel led major donors in January to cut their funding to the agency, the main channel of humanitarian support not only to Palestinians in Gaza but to Palestinian refugee communities across the region.
In August, the UN fired nine staff members from Unrwa, after an internal investigation found they may have been involved in the Hamas-led 7 October attack against Israel.
The UN secretary general’s office announced the move in a brief statement on Monday. It did not elaborate on the Unrwa staffers’ possible role in the attack. It said the nine included seven staffers who were fired previously over the claims.
