Waves of Israeli airstrikes pummel Gaza, Lebanon

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel launched waves of airstrikes across Lebanon’s northeast and targeted Hamas infrastructure near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday.

The latest airstrikes come against the backdrop of the Biden administration’s renewed diplomatic push days before the U.S. election to reach temporary cease-fire deals.

Israel has stepped up its war against Hamas’ remaining fighters in Gaza, and has broadened its strikes in Lebanon to bigger urban hubs in recent weeks after the Israeli military initially targeted smaller border villages in the country’s south, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah draws deep support.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel. Roughly 1,200 people in Israel were killed and some 250 hostages were taken back to Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The yearlong cross-border fighting in the north boiled over on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since the monthlong 2006 war with Hezbollah.

In Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, Israeli planes also pounded the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight and early Friday for the first time in four days.

The Israeli military said those attacks hit Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites and command centers, and had warned residents to evacuate at least nine locations in Dahiyeh.

Bulldozers rumbled through clouds of dust and smoke Friday, clearing rubble from the pulverized roads where Israeli warplanes had reduced dozens of buildings to their skeletal remains in at least three different areas.

Overall, U.N. agencies estimate that Israel’s ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon have displaced 1.4 million people there. Residents of Israel’s northern communities near Lebanon, roughly 60,000 people, have also been displaced for more than a year.

Back-to-back rocket attacks from Lebanon killed seven people near the northern city of Haifa on Thursday, including four Thai farm workers.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in October of last year, more than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry says.

On Friday, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported four airstrikes in different villages across the northeast — areas that had largely been spared the worst of Israeli bombardment until last month.

As U.S. diplomats left the region after a flurry of meetings with Israeli officials, there were no signs of a breakthrough in either conflict.

Hamas on Friday doubled down on its long-standing demands for a permanent cease-fire and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, saying Israel has offered only a temporary pause in the war and increase in aid shipments in the latest negotiations. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

“The proposals do not meet the comprehensive needs of the Palestinian people in terms of security, stability, relief, and reconstruction,” said senior Hamas official Bassem Naem, speaking first to the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV before confirming the group’s position to The Associated Press.

Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Bassem Mroue and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut, David Rising in Bangkok, Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this story.