MONITORING (SW) – At least 77 more people got killed in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria as Israel continued with ground and air offensives across the Middle East.
In Gaza, 30 people, including 13 children, were killed by Israeli strikes in the territory’s north, rescuers and health officials said. The first strike hit a house in Jabalia, Gaza, killing at least 25 people, including 13 children and injuring more than 30, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.
Another strike on the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City killed five people, with others still missing, civil defence said. The United Nations has described the area as under “siege”, reported Dawn.
Israel’s military strikes have killed 43,603 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.
At least 38 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Sunday, including 23 in a raid north of the capital Beirut, the health ministry said.
Israel in recent months turned its focus north towards Lebanon, escalating air strikes and sending in ground troops, after almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges of fire with Lebanese group Hezbollah. The Lebanese group said it was acting in support of Hamas.
In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli strike on the village of Almat, north of Beirut, killed 23 including three children, on Sunday. Israeli strikes killed three rescuers in Lebanon south, and at least 12 people in the Baalbek region.
More than 3,130 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border exchanges began, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, most of them since Sept 23.
An Israeli strike on an apartment in Damascus, Syria, killed nine people on Sunday, a war monitor said.
The Israeli strike killed “nine people and wounded 14, including women and children, in the Sayyida Zeinab area,” Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Britain-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, earlier said that “the Israeli attack targeted (Hezbollah) figures in the building where Lebanese families and members of the movement live”.
Syria’s official Sana news agency reported an Israeli aggression targeting a residential building in the Sayyida Zeinab area, home to a major Shia shrine, that killed and injured an unspecified number of people.
Since 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on residential buildings as well as airport in Syria.
