Updates: Israel bombs Hezbollah targets as dozens of Gaza civilians killed

For more on Pope Francis calling for an investigation to determine whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, check out our story here.

You can watch our NewsFeed video on the deadly Israeli attack on a UN-run school in northern Gaza, here.

To read our news story about dozens of people killed in an Israeli assault in Beit Lahiya, go here.

• In Gaza’s northern city of Beit Lahiya, dozens of Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a multistorey building. Many wounded remain buried under the rubble.
• Israeli air strikes on the ancient Lebanese city of Tyre killed 11 people and wounded 48 others, the country’s Health Ministry says.
• Mohammed Afif, Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, was killed in an Israeli bombing in Beirut’s Ras Al Naba’a commercial district, with children among the three others dead and 14 wounded.
• At least two people were killed in an Israeli attack on Mar Elias Street, also in central Beirut, with 22 others injured.
• Ultra-Orthodox protesters clashed with police in Tel Aviv after the Israeli military issued more call-up notices.
• Yemen’s Houthis say they successfully carried out drone strikes against Israel, targeting several military and other “vital targets” in the Yaffa and Ashkelon areas.

An Israeli strike on Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, killed at least 30 people, the director of a hospital in the city says.

Hussam Abu Safia, of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said there were dozens of wounded and others still buried in the debris. The exact death toll remains unclear.

The Health Ministry’s director-general, Munir al-Bursh, told Al Jazeera earlier that 30 percent of the victims of the Beit Lahiya “massacre” were children.

Israel’s army says it “eliminated” Hezbollah’s media chief Mohammed Afif in the Beirut area.

In a statement, it described him as the Lebanese group’s “chief propagandist”.

The military “conducted a precise, intelligence-based strike in the area of Beirut and eliminated the terrorist Mohammed Afif”, it said, adding that Afif was “directly involved in Hezbollah’s terrorist activity against the state of Israel”.

Three others died and 14 Lebanese were wounded in the rare air strike on central Beirut’s commercial district.

Dozens of people are missing after an Israeli air strike hit a five-story residential building in Beit Lahiya in Gaza.

Omar Abdel Aaal, one of many people fleeing the scene on foot, said, “They bombarded the houses and completely destroyed Beit Lahiya”.

Mahmud Bassal, a Civil Defence spokesman, said, “The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling.”

In other strikes across the embattled enclave, Bassal said 15 people were killed in central Gaza while five others were killed in the southern city of Rafah.

In the southern Khan Younis area, the Civil Defence agency said an Israeli drone targeted a group of unarmed people trying to secure aid, killing six Palestinians.

The Lebanese group confirmed its media relations chief died earlier in an Israeli attack in central Beirut.

The strike also killed three others and wounded 14 in the commercial district of Lebanon’s capital.

“He was not intimidated by the enemy’s threats to kill him, he faced them with great courage and with his famous phrase: ‘The bombing did not frighten us, so how can the threats frighten us?'” Hezbollah said in a statement on Telegram of Mohammed Afif.

“With his brilliant pen and courageous positions, he drew the letters of glory and victories, and instilled terror in the souls of the enemy.”

We reported earlier on an Israeli air strike on Mar Elias Street that killed two people and wounded 22 others – the second such attack in central Beirut in one day. The commercial district hadn’t been targeted by Israel previously.

Lina, 59, whose home in Mar Elias is less than 500 metres (1,600 feet) from the blast site, said the air raid hit a street she uses “every day to go to work”.

“It’s a residential area… Nowhere in the country is safe any more,” she said, requesting to be identified only by her first name.

The attacks happened as Lebanese officials considered a US-led ceasefire proposal.

“This confirms the crimes of the Israeli enemy and that it wants to negotiate under fire and is expanding and targeting safe and safer areas,” said a Lebanese member of parliament, Faisal al-Sayegh.

Brief clashes broke out as thousands of people marched in Thessaloniki and Athens to commemorate the 1973 student uprising against the Greek military dictatorship.

The marches focused on the Israeli war on Gaza, delivering a message of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

In Thessaloniki, petrol bombs exploded and protesters burned US and Israeli flags, while in Athens, the march passed by the US Embassy and concluded at the Israeli Embassy.

Earlier in Athens, students carried a flag stained with the blood of those who took part in the 1973 revolt against the military government at Athens Polytechnic University, where several people had died after the military crashed through the gates with tanks.

The Lebanese armed group says its fighters targeted a Merkava tank at the Tyre Harfa-Jbeen triangle with a guided missile, destroying it.

The attack killed and wounded the crew inside, it said. There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military.

We have been reporting on the assassination of Hezbollah’s spokesman Mohammad Afif in an Israeli air strike on central Beirut. Witnesses in the vicinity of the attack described chaotic scenes.

“I was asleep and awoke from the sound of the strike and people screaming and cars and gunfire,” Suheil Halabi said. “I was startled, honestly. This is the first time I experienced it so close.”

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry, and about 1.2 million have been driven from their homes.

Israeli attacks on the ancient city of Tyre killed at least 11 people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.

Forty-eight others were also injured, the ministry added.

Before Hezbollah and Israel started trading fire across the border last year, at least 50,000 people lived in Tyre, a vibrant city which is home to Christians and Muslims.

It was emptied of most of its population when Israel’s heavy bombardment in Lebanon began last month.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health says four people have now been confirmed killed in an Israeli assault on central Beirut’s Ras Al Naba’a district, which killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.

“The Israeli enemy strike on Ras Al Naba’a led to a final toll of four dead including a woman and 14 others wounded including two children,” a Health Ministry statement said, raising an earlier toll of one dead and three wounded.

Residents fleeing the deadly strike on a multistorey building in Beit Lahiya say other homes were hit as well by Israeli bombing. Dozens of Palestinians were killed in the attack.

“Tonight, we did not sleep at all,” said one fleeing Beit Lahiya resident, Dalal al-Bakri. “They destroyed all the houses around us… There are many martyrs [dead].”

A Palestinian woman, Umm Hamza, said the bombing increasingly escalated overnight. “It’s cold and we don’t know where to go,” she said.

Israeli troops launched a ground invasion of northern Gaza in early October, ordering tens of thousands of residents to leave. Thousands who remain are cut off from food, water, and medicine as warnings of imminent famine continue.

In the northern city of Beit Lahiya, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in an attack on a multistorey building housing forcibly displaced people.

Many wounded remain buried under the concrete debris.

Watch the video below:

A lawmaker from Lebanon’s al-Jamaa al-Islamiya denied a media report that said that the Islamist group aligned with Hamas and Hezbollah was the target of an Israeli strike on Beirut earlier.

Imad Hout said that “no centre or institution affiliated with the group is located in the area targeted by the strike, and no member of the group was targeted”.

An unnamed Lebanese security source said the attack hit an electronics store in the Mar Elias district, a commercial and residential area in central Beirut. At least two people were killed and 13 wounded in the strike.

A ship passing through the Red Sea says a missile splashed into the sea close by, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency reports.

The failed attack occurred 46km (25 nautical miles) west of al-Mukha, Yemen.

It did not name the vessel or the owner but cited a security officer as saying the vessel and crew were safe and proceeding to the next port of call.

The Yemen-based Houthi group has carried out attacks on Israel-linked shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2023, in what it says is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians.

Members of the ultra-Orthodox community near Tel Aviv scuffled with police during a protest after the Israeli military issued more call-up notices.

The move by the army to bolster its forces as it wages wars on Gaza and Lebanon may further inflame tensions between religious and secular Israelis.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that the Defence Ministry could no longer grant blanket exemptions to Jewish seminary students from the conscript military, an arrangement in place since 1948 when the number of ultra-Orthodox, or “Haredi”, was small.

On Friday, the ministry said 7,000 members of the community would gradually receive notices starting today.

The government faces increasing pressure from Israeli reservists, many of whom have served for the majority of the past year, to draft ultra-Orthodox members.