Key points
- A Hezbollah leader says “the solution is a ceasefire” as Israel intensifies bombing of Lebanon.
- The United States says Israel must take steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk an arms embargo.
- Israeli attacks have killed at least 50 Palestinians across Gaza, as Israel continues its military siege of Jabalia.
Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem called for a ceasefire as conflict escalates in Lebanon, but said the group would inflict “pain” on Israel if it did not agree.
“The solution is a ceasefire, we are not speaking from a position of weakness, if the Israelis don’t want it, we will continue,” Qassem said in a recorded speech on Tuesday.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which says its operation in Lebanon aims to secure the return of tens of thousands of residents forced to flee their homes in northern Israel due to Hezbollah attacks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday that Israel will continue to attack Hezbollah “without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon, including Beirut.”
The director of the United Nations refugee agency for the Middle East, Rema Jamous Imseis, said new Israeli evacuation orders in 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that more than a quarter of the country was now affected.
“People are listening to these evacuation calls and fleeing with almost nothing,” he said at a briefing in Geneva.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,350 people in the past year, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said, and more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon have been displaced.
An American ultimatum for Israel
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a letter written to Israeli officials that Israel must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza to avoid lawsuits involving U.S. military aid.
“We are writing now to highlight the American government’s deep concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and to call for urgent and sustained action by your government this month to reverse this trajectory,” they wrote in a letter to their Israeli counterparts , published by an Axios Reporter on
It outlined specific measures Israel must take within 30 days, including allowing a minimum of 350 trucks per day to enter Gaza, instituting pauses in fighting to allow aid to be delivered, and lifting evacuation orders on Palestinian civilians when there is no operational need.
“Failure to demonstrate continued commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures could have implications for U.S. policy… and related U.S. legislation,” the letter reads.
He cited Section 620i of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits military aid to countries that impede the delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.
Israeli attacks on Jabalia continue
Israeli military strikes killed at least 50 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as Israel continues its military siege in and around the Jabalia refugee camp.
Palestinian health officials said at least 17 people were killed by Israeli fire near Al-Falouja in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, while another 10 were killed in Bani Suhaila, in eastern Khan Younis , in the south, when an Israeli missile hit a house.
An Israeli airstrike destroyed three houses in the Gaza City suburb of Sabra on Tuesday, and the local civil emergency service said it had recovered two bodies from the site, while the search continued for 12 other people believed to be in homes. at the moment.
Eight others were killed when a house was hit in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said a doctor was killed while trying to help people injured by Israeli attacks in Al-Falouja in Jabalia.
He added that several doctors were injured when their ambulance came under Israeli fire in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
