Updates: At least 84 killed in Gaza; Israel resumes raids across Lebanon

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For more on why is Israel targeting Lebanon’s ancient city of Baalbek, check out our explainer here.

View our photo gallery to see how Israel is targeting hospitals in Gaza, as medical supplies are torched and operations disrupted, here.

To know why the UN should consider suspending Israel over the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and its decades-long illegal occupation of Palestinian land, go here.

We will be closing this live page soon but before we do that, here is a recap of the day’s main developments:

• Two Israeli attacks on residential buildings in northern Gaza killed 84 Palestinians, including over 50 children.
• Pentagon says the US will deploy additional ballistic missile defence destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several US Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the Middle East.
• Israel says it has killed senior Hamas official Izz al-Din Kassab in an air strike in Khan Younis.
• Senior Hamas officials say Israel is not taking the Gaza ceasefire negotiations seriously, offering a temporary truce that falls short of demands for a permanent halt to the war.
• Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel region killed 52 people and wounded 72.
• The UN peacekeeping chief says UNIFIL will hold its line in Lebanon despite facing attacks in recent weeks, adding that its positions would be “occupied” if it left.

A Turkish ship carrying 1,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid has arrived at Beirut’s port, bringing vital supplies to Lebanon amid ongoing Israeli attacks.

The aid, organised by Turkish NGOs operating in Lebanon, included food supplies, medical equipment and essential goods aimed at assisting vulnerable citizens, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported.

This was the third shipment from Turkey to reach Lebanon. On October 9, two ships delivered 300 tonnes of humanitarian supplies.

A group of armed Israeli settlers opened fire and threw rocks at the homes of Palestinians in the town of Surif near Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Additionally, the Israeli army raided the town of Faroun near Tulkarem and opened fire and tear gas canisters on Palestinians, Wafa news agency reported.

The report added that Israeli forces also prevented Palestinian farmers from harvesting olives in the town of Deir Istiya in northwestern Salfit.

Israeli settlers also started a fire in the Ramin Plain area in eastern Tulkarem.

Since October of last year, more than 760 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer to discuss steps for regional de-escalation, the US State Department said.

They reviewed the steps Israel has taken to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza and Blinken urged for further measures to be taken to make aid available to civilians.

On October 13, the US had warned Israel it had 30 days to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Failure to do so could have legal implications for US weapon shipments to Israel because recipients of such aid are legally barred from blocking humanitarian assistance.

Northern Gaza is seeing particularly low amounts of aid reaching civilians. The UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee warned earlier its entire population “is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence”.

The US is pushing for a deal between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Lebanese armed group has signalled it will not link any ceasefire to an end to the war in Gaza.

So what would be the terms of any settlement? And what does it all mean for Lebanon?

Listen to our discussion below:

Lebanon’s transport minister is reporting that an Israeli air strike near a border crossing between Syria and Lebanon forced it to shut after it had partially reopened.

Ali Hamieh said the strike hit the same location within Syria, just past the Syrian border installation, as an Israeli bombardment last month closed the crossing.

The Pentagon said it is carrying out new military deployments to the Middle East, including additional ballistic missile defence destroyers and several long-range strike bombers.

The forces will begin to arrive in the coming months as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to depart, according to Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder.

The UN peacekeeping chief said that the Blue Helmet force in Lebanon will hold its line despite facing attacks in recent weeks, adding that its positions would be “occupied” if it left.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, under-secretary-general for peace operations, said that “UNIFIL peacekeepers are staying, they’re holding their line, and they’re determined to continue doing what they’re mandated to do”.

He said the force had rejected an Israeli request that it move 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the Blue Line.

“First of all, because there is a mandated … we are duty born to the mandate, the peacekeepers need to stay,” Lacroix said. “Second, because we thought that if those positions along the Blue Line are abandoned, then they would likely be occupied by one party or the other. That would be very bad for many reasons, including the perception of impartiality and neutrality of the United Nations.”

On Wednesday, a UNIFIL spokesman said the force had recorded more than 30 incidents in October resulting in property damage or injury to peacekeepers, about 20 of them from Israeli fire or action.

Israeli strikes in the Baalbek-Hermel region killed 52 people and wounded 72 on Friday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

The death toll included 12 people in Amhaz, nine in Younine and six in Harbata.

The death toll from Israeli bombardment of northeast Lebanon has risen to at least 45, with air strikes pounding rural villages that had previously been spared the worst of Israel’s intense air campaign against Hezbollah.

The governor of Baalbek, Bachir Khodr, reported air strikes on nine villages across the northeast killing 41 people on Friday.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) separately reported four more people killed in the small farming village of Ollak, also in the Bekaa Valley.

Here are some of the recent developments:

• Two Israeli attacks on residential buildings in northern Gaza have killed 84 Palestinians, including more than 50 children.
• Several people killed and wounded in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp as strikes also targeted Beit Lahiya and an area north of Rafah.
• UN agency chiefs say, “The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”
• Another Palestinian journalist has been killed in Gaza, bringing the death toll for media workers in the Strip to 183, according to a government toll.
• Lebanon’s Health Ministry says 30 people have been killed in the past 24 hours. The death toll since October last year now stands at least 2,897.
• Lebanon’s caretaker PM said Israel’s renewed bombings in the Bekaa Valley, southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs confirmed the “enemy’s rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire”.

We’ve just reported that more than 50 children were killed by Israeli strikes on two residential buildings in northern Gaza.

The Government Media Office added that the two multistorey buildings were sheltering at least 170 people when they were targeted.

It said 84 people were killed in what it described as “massacres” as no civil defence crews, medical services or other relief services are available in the area amid an Israeli siege and continuing bombardment.

It did not specify the location of the buildings but said they belonged to the Shalayel and al-Ghandour families.

The government called on the international community to uphold its obligation to protect civilians and said it held Israel and its allies – the US, France, the UK and Germany – responsible for the ongoing “genocide” in Gaza.

A senior Hamas official says Israel is not taking the Gaza ceasefire negotiations seriously.

Speaking to the Al-Aqsa TV channel, Osama Hamdan said Israel is not offering any genuine proposals and “is definitively not serious in the negotiations”.

“Any proposal presented to us that meets our people’s demands, ends their suffering and completely halts the Israeli aggression, not temporarily, we will proceed with it without hesitation,” Hamdan said.

He added that Israel has been unable to break the Palestinian resistance despite the yearlong war on the enclave.

Israel has killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza since October last year.

Efforts led by the US, Egypt and Qatar for a permanent ceasefire have so far failed, mainly due to Netanyahu’s refusal to halt the war.

Hamas has said it will not accept any proposal that does not include a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a total end to hostilities.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says it is evacuating patients from al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals in northern Gaza amid an the ongoing Israeli siege.

The Palestinian group evacuated 21 patients in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, it said on X.

The UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee earlier warned that the situation in northern Gaza is “apocalyptic” and that its entire population is “at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence”.

Today, Palestine Red Crescent Society teams, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, evacuated 21 patients from Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip to Al-Shifa Hospital in #Gaza City. pic.twitter.com/NQhkyuub4B

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 1, 2024

Several people have been killed and wounded in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

The bombing took place in the Tall az-Zaatar area of the camp, our colleagues on the ground reported.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency said Israeli air strikes also targeted al-Rafei School, which shelters displaced people in the town of Jabalia, killing several people.