Deadly Strikes On Gaza, Lebanon As Israel Faces Aid Deadline

Israeli air strikes killed dozens of people in Lebanon and Gaza Sunday, rescuers and authorities said, ahead of a US deadline for improved aid delivery to the Palestinian territory.

Rescuers in Gaza said 13 children were among 30 people killed by Israeli strikes in the territory's north.

The first strike early Sunday hit a house in Jabalia, killing "at least 25" people including 13 children and injuring more than 30, Gaza's civil defence agency said.

At around 6:00 am, "there was a very huge explosion... When we arrived here, all the bodies were torn apart," a distraught relative of the Alloush family, Abdullah al-Najjar, said.

He they had been preparing for breakfast when the strike happened.

Vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in north Gaza, Israel on October 6 began a major air and ground assault.

The United Nations has described the area as under "siege", and Washington set a deadline of this coming week for Israel to get more aid in or face possible cuts to military assistance.

After the strike in Jabalia, Israel's military said it hit "infrastructure" in which militants were operating and "posed a threat" to troops in the area.

"Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of aerial surveillance and precise intelligence," a military spokesman said.

Another strike on the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City killed five people, Gaza's civil defence agency said.

In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli strike on the village of Almat north of Beirut killed 23 people including seven children on Sunday.

"Under the rubble, there are only children, elderly men and women," Hezbollah lawmaker Raed Berro said at the scene, denying Israeli allegations that Hezbollah members or weapons were embedded among civilians.

In south Lebanon, Israeli strikes killed three Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers, the health ministry also said.

A war monitor also reported that an Israeli strike on an apartment belonging to Hezbollah south of Syria's capital Damascus killed three people.

The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 43,603 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.

Since late September Israel has been engaged in a two-front war after turning its focus north towards Lebanon.

It has escalated air strikes and sent in ground troops after almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges of fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah. The Lebanese group said it was acting in support of Hamas.

Israel's main military backer the United States on October 15 warned that it could withhold some of its billions of dollars in military assistance unless Israel improves aid delivery to the Gaza Strip within 30 days -- a deadline that expires on Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at the time that top US officials made "clear" to Israel's government that changes need to be made "to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today".

The demand came before Tuesday's election of President-elect Donald Trump who has suggested he would give freer rein to Israel.

On Saturday, a UN-backed assessment warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza.

Fewer aid shipments were allowed into Gaza than at any time since October 2023, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation".

Israel's military questioned the report's credibility.

A military statement said "all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground". It denounced "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests".

The IPC says its process is "evidence-based" and ensures "a rigorous, neutral analysis".

The heads of UN agencies in early November described north Gaza as "under siege" and denied "basic aid and life-saving supplies".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hopes to use the remaining weeks of his term to press for an end to the Gaza and Lebanon wars, a spokesman said on Thursday, before fellow mediator Qatar on Saturday said it had suspended its role in trying to broker a deal.

"Qatar would resume those efforts... when the parties show their willingness and seriousness," Doha's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said in a statement.