Middle East updates: Beirut strike death toll reaches 37

Israeli forces raided the bureau of Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the channel said in the early hours of Sunday.

There was a military order to close the bureau for 45 days, the channel said on X, formerly Twitter.

Al Jazeera also posted a video of what it dubbed the "moment" Israeli forces raided the premises. 

A video posted by the channel showed bureau chief Walid Al-Omari speaking to men in military fatigues and reading out the purported order.

"[The order] commands us to leave the bureau immediately and take our personal belongings and cameras," Al-Omari said in the video, as he read the order he was holding in his hand.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has targeted an Israeli air base with dozens of missiles, it said on early Sunday.

The missile attack on the Israeli Ramat David air base near Haifa was in response to "repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon," the group said in a statement.

Israel's emergency medical services (MDA) said a 60-year-old man was lightly wounded by shrapnel from a missile shot from Lebanon. The missile was intercepted in a village in the lower Galilee.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a short statement that around 10 rockets were detected, most of which were intercepted. Alerts had been activated in the area.

"A rocket was also monitored falling in the area and the incident is being investigated," the statement said.

Thousands of demonstrators have again taken to the streets of Tel Aviv calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and for hostages in Gaza to be released.

There have been weekly rallies in the coastal city throughout the course of the war, which began when Hamas led a terror attack in Israel on October 7.

Those involved in Saturday’s rally held placards and pictures of those taken hostage.

Eli Elbag, father of hostage Liri Elbag, said addressing his daughter: "It's been a year since I last kissed you, a year since I last laughed with you."

"We will continue to fight to bring everyone home," the father said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused by his critics of stalling in truce negotiations and continuing the war in order to satisfy his far-right coalition partners.

However, Netanyahu blames Hamas for rejecting the terms of a possible truce and hostage release agreement.

The Israeli military on Saturday said it would begin instituting updated safety guidelines in communities from the northern city of Haifa up to the border with Lebanon.

Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said on social media platform X that as of 20:30 (17:30 UTC/GMT) on Saturday, gatherings would be limited to 30 people in open areas, and 300 people in buildings.

Work could still take place in buildings that were within reach of protected spaces.

The move comes after the IDF launched strikes that it said struck numerous Hezbollah targets inside southern Lebanon.

Israel's military has said it was conducting strikes on Hezbollah targets situated in southern Lebanon.

"Approx. 180 Hezbollah targets and thousands of launcher barrels, ready for immediate use against Israeli civilians, were dismantled by a number of strikes in southern Lebanon," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on social media platform X.

The post was accompanied by footage the IDF said showed some of the targets being hit.

The IDF also said Hezbollah militants had fired "about 90" rockets by late afternoon Saturday into northern Israel.

The German government has again expressed concern that fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah could grow into an even larger regional conflict. 

"Once again, the entire region is holding its breath. We urgently need concrete steps in the #MiddleEast to de-escalate and avoid further civilian casualties. FM @ABaerbock was in touch with her counterparts in Israel and Lebanon about necessary next steps," Germany's Foreign Office posted on social media platform X, referring to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

"The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah must not become a regional conflagration," German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in Berlin on Saturday.

"This would have terrible and long-term consequences for people throughout the region. The destruction from such a confrontation would be catastrophic," Hebestreit said. 

An Israeli attack on Friday killed 37 in a Beirut suburb and injured at least 68. Hezbollah has said 15 of its members were killed.

The Health Ministry of the Gaza Strip has updated the death toll on an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza City to at least 22.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said most of those killed were women and children. 

It said 13 children, including a 3-month-old baby, and six women were among the dead.

Earlier, the ministry said 17 people had died in the Israeli rocket strike on the Al-Zaytoun School C.

The Israeli military said it hit a Hamas command center embedded in the compound that previously served as a school. 

It repeated an accusation that Hamas uses civilian facilities for military purposes.

What would Israel's new war goals in Lebanon be after 11 months of intermittent exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite group that is Lebanon's most powerful armed force?

Is a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah inevitable?

DW Middle East Analyst Shani Rozanes provides her insights in the video below.

Israel's offensive in Gaza since the October 7 terror attacks has killed more than 41,391 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry. 

There were at least 119 deaths in the past 72 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 95,760 people have been wounded since the latest conflict began.

The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but the UN and multiple humanitarian organizations consider the casualty numbers broadly reliable.

Around half of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants are children and the UN says the majority of civilians killed have been women and children. 

Israel launched its Gaza operation after the Hamas attacks in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people. 

Gaza's civil defense agency says an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Palestinian territory's largest city killed 17 people, including eight children.

Israel's army said it was targeting Hamas militants.

The Hamas-run agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said thousands of displaced people had sought shelter at the school.

"At least 17 martyrs, including eight children, and more than 30 injured, most of them children and women... following an Israeli rocket strike on Al-Zaytoun School C," Bassal said.

In a statement, the Israeli military said the air force had "conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City."

It added that the target was "embedded inside" the Al-Falah School, which is adjacent to the Al-Zaytoun School buildings.

Iran has strongly condemned the Israeli strike that hit the suburbs of Beirut on Friday.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Israel was committing "shameless crimes" against children and the Lebanese Health Ministry said three children were among the 31 dead from Friday's strike.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also condemned the killing of a military commander in the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, Ibrahim Akil, but he added that Iran, which is Hezbollah's main backer, was not planning a direct act of revenge.

"The incident is a matter for Hezbollah, and it will certainly show an appropriate reaction in due course," the Iranian chief diplomat said, according to a report published by Iran's ISNA news agency.

Araghchi said Friday's targeted killing of Hezbollah commander Akil was "a criminal act of desperation."

He said Israel had reached an impasse and was now trying "to drag the entire region into the swamp with such crimes."

To prevent an even more dangerous escalation of the situation in the Middle East, the minister said Iran would push for international condemnation of Israeli "war crimes."

The Israeli military has confirmed a Hezbollah announcement that Ibrahim Akil, one of the Islamist group's commanders, was among those killed in an attack on the Lebanese capital's southern Dahiya district.

He is the second leading Hezbollah figure to be confirmed killed in Friday's attack.

The strike on the crowded district came during rush hour, as people headed home from work and children left school. Media showed footage of at least two buildings completely flattened.

"We will continue pursuing our enemies in order to defend our citizens, even in Dahiya, in Beirut," said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Akil is believed to have served on Hezbollah's highest military body, the Jihad Council.

The United States had sanctioned him for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing that killed more than 300 people at the US Embassy in Beirut and the US Marine Corps barracks.

The US State Department last year posted a $7-million reward seeking information leading to his identification, location, arrest or conviction.

It cited his alleged role in the embassy bombing and the taking of US and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Iran-backed Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group. It also operates as a major political party within Lebanon.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad says the death toll from an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb on Friday has risen to 31.

Abiad told reporters that 68 people were also wounded with some 15 still in hospital. 

The attack is the deadliest airstrike on Beirut since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Three children and seven women were counted among the dead. Several Hezbollah members, including top leaders, were also killed in the strike, according to Israel.

Ibrahim Akil, a Hezbollah commander who was in charge of the group's elite Radwan Forces and about a dozen members of the militant group who were meeting in a basement were also killed, the Israeli government said.

Israel said it had targeted Hezbollah fighters in the strike that followed threats from the militant group's top leadership that came after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in what is believed to be an Israeli operation.

The series of attacks in Lebanon mark an escalation of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, although Israel has carried out strikes in other parts of the country before.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said earlier in the week that Israel was moving to a new phase of the war on its northern border.

"The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: The safe return of the residents of the north to their homes," he wrote on X.

The strikes have been met with calls for an end to the violence. UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine-Hennis Plasschaert, said on Friday that the strike represented "an extremely dangerous cycle of violence with devastating consequences. This must stop now."

rc/ab (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)