Middle East updates: Israel kills Fatah official in Lebanon

Israel's offensive in Gaza since the October 7 terror attacks has killed more than 40,223 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry. 

There were at least 50 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 92,981 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.

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

Israeli police said they arrested five ultra-Orthodox protesters at a demonstration in Jerusalem against mandatory military enlistment. 

Officers scuffled with demonstrators, who had gathered outside of the Israeli military enlistment office in Jerusalem on Wednesday. 

Protesters blocked streets and prevented people who had received summons from the army from presenting themselves for enlistment. 

Until a Supreme Court ruling in June this year, Israel's ultra-Orthodox community had been shielded from mandatory military service. 

But after a court order to the government to start drafting young ultra-Orthodox men into the army, approximately 3,000 between the ages of 18 and 26 have received a summons. 

Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel, who typically serve 2 to 3 years as well being expected to remain on duty as reservists until around the age of 40.

Around 1.3 million ultra-Orthodox Jews make up roughly 13% of Israel's population. 

Many ultra-Orthodox Jews argue that military service is incompatible with their way of life, and that exposure to military ranks would secularize them.

But the issue had also been a sore point among other Israelis who were expected to do mandatory military service, one that intensified in recent months with Israel's military more active.

The Israeli military on Wednesday urged Palestinians in a section of the humanitarian zone in the central Gaza Strip to leave ahead of a new operation there.

Israeli troops would "act forcefully against the terrorist organizations" in the zone located in Gaza's Deir al-Balah, Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-language spokesman for the Israeli military posted on social media.  

"For your safety, we urge you to evacuate immediately to the west," he added alongside a map showing the affected zone.

The Israeli-designated humanitarian zone has already been reduced in size amid evolving Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground operations. 

Israeli media reports the zone is currently 42 square kilometers in size — a total area of 11% of the Gaza Strip.
Aid organizations have described the living conditions in the zone, where most of Gaza's population of around 2 million currently resides, as catastrophic.

The Israeli military says it targeted a commander in the armed wing of the Palestinian Fatah movement, describing him as having worked for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. 

Khalil al-Maqdah was killed in a targeted air strike in Lebanon on Wednesday.

"Earlier today... an air force aircraft targeted Khalil al-Maqdah in the Sidon area of southern Lebanon," the military said in a statement.

It claimed that Maqdah and his brother worked for Iran in "directing attacks and transferring funds and weapons to terrorist infrastructure" in the occupied West Bank.

The "assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region," Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah's central committee, told the AFP news agency.

A drone strike in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon has killed an official from Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

State media and Palestinian officials in Lebanon said Israel had carried out the attack. 

"The Israeli strike in Sidon killed [Fatah] group official Khalil [al-]Makdah," said Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior member of the political party. 

There have been no previous attacks on Fatah in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

A Lebanese security source confirmed the report to AFP, saying the strike hit his car.

Lebanon's official National News Agency said Makdah was killed "in a drone strike on his car."

Mounir al-Makdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah's armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, confirmed that his brother Khalil had been killed.

He told the broadcaster Al-Mayadeen that his brother had been a commander in the brigade.

There was no immediate comment on the attack from the Israeli military.

The Islamist militant group Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after clashes that followed Hamas's resounding 2006 election victory there.

Fatah still controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Greek shipping ministry and UK maritime agency UKMTO say the oil products tanker Sounion was attacked by two small boats and struck by three projectiles in the Red Sea on Wednesday.

The attack off the coast of Yemen caused damage to the vessel but no injuries.

In solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas, Iranian-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November.  

UKMTO said the attack caused Sounion, a Greek-flagged vessel with 25 crew members, to lose the ability to maneuver.

British security firm Ambrey separately reported another incident in the same area, saying "the vessel was engaged by small arms fire from two skiffs."

Two people were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Wednesday. 

One Lebanese person was killed in a strike targeting a vehicle in the village of Beit Lif, while a Syrian person was killed in another strike in the village of Wazzani, the Lebanese state news agency NNA cited the ministry as saying.

Hezbollah said it struck an Israeli base in the occupied Golan Heights in retaliation. The militant group reportedly launched over 50 rockets, hitting several private residences.

Since October 7, Israel and Hezbollah have traded almost daily cross-border fire, with over 500 killed in Lebanon, including some 100 civilians and non-combatants. The fighting has also killed 23 soldiers and 26 civilians in Israel.

Fears are growing that tension between Israel and Lebanon could to lead to a regional war, especially after an Israeli strike targeted and killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr last month.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's latest visit to the Middle East did not result in a concrete cease-fire agreement.

Blinken's visit was his ninth since the deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel killed 1,200 people on Israeli soil on October 7 last year, which prompted Israel's ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip. Over 40,000 Palestinians have thus far been killed, according to local health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.

Blinken met officials from fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar. He said Israel had accepted a proposal to bridge gaps with Hamas, adding that the mediators focused on trying to "get Hamas on board" and ensure the two parties agreed to key details on implementing a deal.

"Our message is simple: it's clear, and it's urgent," he told reporters before leaving Qatar. "We need to get a cease-fire and hostage agreement over the finish line, and we need to do it now. Time is of the essence."

Though little details of the proposal are known, Blinken said it is "very clear on the schedule and the locations of [Israeli military] withdrawals from Gaza."

On Tuesday, Hamas said the proposal was a reversal of what it had agreed to, accusing Washington of acquiescing to new conditions from Israel. The US has yet to respond.

Blinken's visit to the region also coincided with an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City on Tuesday, which killed at least 12 people. Israel said the strike targeted Hamas militants who set up a command center there.

Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, Germany, the European Union and others.

rmt/rm (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)