Key Points
- An Israeli airstrike on an official Lebanese state building in a provincial capital has killed 16 people.
- Lebanese officials have said Israel's campaign against Hezbollah was now shifting to target the Lebanese state.
- Israel also struck at Syria's port city of Latakia early on Thursday, Syria's state news agency has reported.
The mayor of a major town in south Lebanon was among 16 people killed when an Israeli airstrike destroyed its municipal headquarters in the biggest attack on an official Lebanese state building since the Israeli air campaign began.
Lebanese officials denounced the incident, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel's campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state.
The Israelis "intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the city's service and relief situation" to aid people displaced by the Israeli campaign, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said.
Reported Israeli strikes on Syria, UNIFIL posts
Israel also struck at Syria's Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
Firefighters are working on extinguishing fires that had broken out, SANA added, while Syrian state television reported the country's air defences had confronted Israeli targets over Latakia.
have killed at least 13 people, according to Syrian state media reports.
The UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers observed an Israeli tank firing at their watchtower near southern Lebanon's Kfar Kela on Wednesday morning. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, UNIFIL said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the UNIFIL statement.
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Israel has previously called on the United Nations to move members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon out of the combat zone for their safety.
UNIFIL says its troops have come under Israeli attack several times, though Israel has disputed accounts of those incidents.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations.
"We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza and I am saying it here," he said according to a statement from his office.
Israel said on Wednesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area and its navy also hit dozens of targets in southern Lebanon.
It said it had "dismantled" a tunnel network used by Hezbollah's elite Radwan Forces in the heart of a town near the border with Israel, publishing a video showing multiple explosions rocking a cluster of buildings. Lebanese officials said it was the small town of Mhaibib.
Israeli warplanes on Wednesday also hit Beirut's southern suburbs, in the first attack on the city since
10 October, when two strikes near the city centre killed 22 people and brought down entire buildings
in a densely populated neighbourhood.Israeli operations in Lebanon have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, according to the health ministry, and more than
The UN says a quarter of the country is under evacuation orders. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes hundreds of women and children.
Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in the same period, according to Israel.
Having long accused UNIFIL of failing in its mission to keep armed fighters out of the border area, Israel adopted a more conciliatory tone earlier on Wednesday.
"The State of Israel places great importance on the activities of UNIFIL and has no intention of harming the organization or its personnel," foreign minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
The 10,000-strong peacekeeper force comprises contingents from 50 countries, including 2,500 Italian, French and Spanish soldiers, causing strain between Israel and some of its most prominent European allies.
Australia told Israel several days ago that while condemning drone strikes by Hezbollah on Israeli targets.
US declines to comment on Nabatieh strike after Gaza ultimatum
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin spoke to Gallant on Wednesday and "reinforced the importance of taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Armed Forces," according to the Department of Defense.
Israel launched its ground and air campaign in Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah after a year during which the Iran-backed militant group fired across the border in support of the Palestinian militants Hamas in Gaza.
In recent weeks Israel and pushed into southern border towns, saying its aim is to make it safe for tens of thousands of Israelis to return to homes in Israel's north evacuated under Hezbollah fire.
Israel first issued an evacuation notice for Nabatieh, a city of tens of thousands of people, on 3 October. At the time, the city's Mayor Ahmed Kahil told Reuters he would not leave.
Asked about the Israeli strike on Nabatieh, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to comment on the circumstances of specific strikes but said the US understands Hezbollah operates from places including civilian homes and supported limited strikes to target the group.
"Obviously, we'd not want to see entire villages destroyed. We don't want to see civilian homes destroyed," Miller said.
Senior US officials must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza to avoid legal action involving US military aid.
Within 30 days, Israel must enable a minimum of 350 trucks to enter Gaza per day, institute pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery and rescind evacuation orders to Palestinian civilians when there is no operational need, US secretary of state Antony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin reportedly wrote in a letter to their Israeli counterparts.
The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza and distributing it throughout the war zone, blaming impediments on Israel and lawlessness. The UN said no food aid entered northern Gaza between Oct. 2 and Oct. 15.
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Israeli airstrikes killed 11 Palestinians in Gaza City on Thursday, medics said, while Israeli forces sent tanks into Jabalia in the north, where Palestinians and United Nations officials expressed alarm over shortages of food and medicine.
Residents of Jabalia said Israeli forces blew up clusters of houses from air, by tank shells and by placing bombs in buildings before blowing them up remotely. Gaza's civil emergency service said it evacuated several wounded people from a school sheltering displaced Palestinians that caught fire after being hit by Israeli tank shells.
Residents said Israeli forces had effectively isolated Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya in the far north of the enclave from Gaza City, blocking movement except for those families with permission to heed evacuation orders and leave the three towns.
"We have written our death notes, and we are not leaving Jabalia," one resident told Reuters via a chat app.
