Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu spokesperson has confirmed that he had approved the pager attack on the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah in September that killed nearly 40 people and injured thousands.
An Israeli strike early Sunday on a home sheltering displaced people in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 17 people, according to the director of a nearby hospital that received the bodies.
Qatar on Saturday announced that it has suspended its key mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel following the lack of progress on a cease-fire deal for Gaza.
The UN estimates tens of thousands remain in northern Gaza, where earlier this week the Health Ministry reported no ambulances or emergency crews operating north of Gaza City.
The war has displaced 90 per cent of Palestinians, and more than 43,000 people have been killed, with over half of the dead women and children which began after Hamas militants stormed Israel on October 7, 2023.
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PM Netanyahu's spokesperson Omer Dostri told news agency AFP, "Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon." Meanwhile, The Times of Israel quoted Netanyahu himself who reportedly said, "The pager operation and the elimination of (Hassan) Nasrallah were carried out despite the opposition of senior officials in the defence establishment and those responsible for them in the political echelon."
An Israeli strike early Sunday on a home sheltering displaced people in the Jabaliya of northern Gaza Strip killed at least 17, including nine women, according to Dr. Fadel Naim, director of Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, who said the toll was likely to rise as rescue efforts continued.
Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated Jabaliya and the nearby towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun for the past month, allowing in only a trickle of humanitarian aid. Tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City.
The entire northern third of Gaza was the first target of Israel's ground invasion and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the 13-month-old war, which was triggered by Hamas' attack into southern Israel.
According to AP, a soldier for Yemen's exiled government opened fire on Saudi troops as they exercised in eastern Yemen, killing two of them and wounding another in a rare insider attack during the kingdom's nearly decadelong war there.
Meanwhile, US warplanes carried out new strikes targeting Houthi positions that lasted into early Sunday morning, the American military said. The strikes come after the militants likely shot down yet-another American reconnaissance drone over the country.
Qatar suspended its key mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel on Saturday due to frustration over the lack of progress on a Gaza cease-fire deal. It remains unclear if the remaining Hamas leadership in Qatar must leave or where they would go, with some leaders now in Lebanon, and ties to Iran and Turkey.
According to AP, Qatar told Israel and Hamas it can't continue to mediate “as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith” and "as a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose” in Qatar.
There continued to be no end in sight to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, where Israel's military said it struck command centers and other militant infrastructure in Beirut's southern suburbs and elsewhere. An Israeli airstrike on the southern port city of Tyre late Friday killed at least seven, officials and a resident said.
An Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre left at least seven people dead, among them five siblings, three of whom were deaf and mute, officials and a resident said on Saturday. Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes killed 31 people.
In Gaza, Israeli strikes killed at least 16 people on Saturday, Palestinian medical officials said, while Israel announced the first delivery of humanitarian aid in weeks to the territory's hungry, devastated north.
The UN estimates that tens of thousands of people remain in northern Gaza. Earlier this week, the Health Ministry said there were no ambulances or emergency crews operating north of Gaza City. The conflict has left 90% of Palestinians in Gaza displaced, according to U.N. figures.
