°®Âþµº

The live blog has now ended and will be back again tomorrow from 9am GMT. You can read °®Âþµº's coverage of Israel's war on Gaza here, and Lebanon here.

The Israeli military said that it has intercepted a target that approached Israel from the east, according to the Times of Israel.

The Israeli army has conducted raids on the town of Idna near Hebron, and village of Ya'bad near Jenin, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Major General Jasper Jeffers of the US military will help implement the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Friday.

Jeffers will "serve as co-chair, alongside Senior Advisor to the President, Amos Hochstein, for the implementation and monitoring mechanism of the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon."

"The cessation of hostilities implementation and monitoring mechanism will be chaired by the United States and consist of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) , [Israeli army], the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and France," CENTCOM said in the announcement.

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— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM)

Israeli airstrikes targeting the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood north of Gaza City has killed 10 people, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a press statement condemning the killing of the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital's intensive care unit Dr Ahmad Al-Kahlout.

"On this International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we call on the world community to take concrete actions to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza," CAIR said, adding that "each day, more Palestinians - like Dr. Ahmad Al-Kahlout - are slaughtered in Israel's US-backed campaign of systematic and intentional mass destruction, manufactured starvation and ethnic cleansing."

"The Biden administration's support for and complicity with this genocide will be remembered on this day for generations to come."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to hold a security discussion according to Haaretz,Ìýwith the issues of Israel's ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as Syria's new rebel offensive against the regime, which has seen rebel forces enter districts of the city of Aleppo, on the agenda.

Haaretz reported that the meeting will be held on the phone, and will include Defence Minister Israel Katz and army chief Herzi Halevi, as well as the heads of Israel's defence establishment.

A Hamas delegation will arrive in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian officials, the group's senior official Basem Naim told Reuters on Friday.

The visit comes days after the United States said it would begin new efforts with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to revive Gaza ceasefire talks.

(Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Israel Katz are seeking Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi steps down over his responsibility over the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, Times of Israel is reporting citing Israel's public broadcaster Kan. 

Halevi would step down at the end of the 60-day period for the implementation for a ceasefire in Lebanon, the report says, adding that Halevi could be replaced by a number of figures in the military, including Defence Minister Director-General Eyal Zamir, Deputy Chief Amir Baram, Chief of the Northern Command Ori Gordon, or head of the Strategy Directorate of General Staff Elizer Toledano.

18 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa, which added that others were injured in the strike.

Airlines will soon resume flights to and from Lebanon, Beirut airport authorities said, after a ceasefire with Israel came into effect this week.

Head of the Rafic Hariri International Airport Fadi al-Hassan announced that some airlines have already begun flights to Beirut, and it is expected that 90 percent of airlines will have resumed flights between 5 and 15 December.

Jordan said it would restart flights on Sunday, while Iraq said it would begin flights next week.

Al-Hassan told local broadcaster LBCI that the Israeli war impacted passenger traffic to Lebanon, but there was no material damage to the country’s only civilian airport.

Read more here.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday vowed to coordinate at a "high level" with the Lebanese army to implement the terms of a ceasefire with Israel that began two days earlier.

"The coordination between the resistance and the Lebanese army will be at a high level to implement the commitments of the agreement," Qassem said, adding that "no one is betting on problems or disagreements" with the army.

Read more here.

The UN food agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), said on Friday that bakeries in central Gaza have been shut down due to "severe supply shortages".

It comes after months of warnings from international agencies and Palestinians over a lack of basic items in Gaza and the collapse of living conditions from months of war.

Israel's restrictions on what can and can't enter the Strip mean there have been severe supply shortages that have curtailed power supplies, amongst others.

All bakeries in central have shut down due to severe supply shortages.

Bread is a lifeline for many families — often the only food they can access. Now, even that is slipping out of reach. WFP continues its call for safe & secure access of vital humanitarian aid into Gaza.

— WFP in the Middle East & North Africa (@WFP_MENA)

Hezbollah's new secretary-general Naim Qassem said the group won a "divine victory" against Israel after months of fighting in cross-border attacks and a ground campaign.

Qassem is speaking in Lebanon for the first time since a ceasefire was agreed with Israel on Wednesday, ending over a year of clashes.

The leader praised the group's military strength and said it inflicted "massive" losses on Israel.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on Israeli settlers near the settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank on Friday which injured nine people.

The group said in a statement that its fighter Samir Muhammad Ahmad Hussein from the village of Ainbus fired on soldiers and settlers inside a bus.

Al-Qassam, which mainly operates in Gaza but has a faction in the West Bank, said that Israeli actions which target the West Bank "will be paid for with the blood spilled from the bodies of soldiers and settlers".

The Israeli army said it identified "terrorist activity" and struck the movement of a Hezbollah portable rocket launcher in southern Lebanon.

"The threat was thwarted in an IAF strike. The IDF is deployed in southern Lebanon and will actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement," the army said in a statement on Telegram.

Under the ceasefire deal agreed on Wednesday, Israel reserved the right to strike if it suspected movements related to Hezbollah in south Lebanon where the army is occupying border villages.

It follows reports earlier on Friday from Lebanese sources who said that Israeli tanks were advancing into areas in the town of Khiam where they had not previously been.

The chief of Hezbollah is due to give a speech Friday, the Lebanese militant group said, his first since the start of a ceasefire with Israel two days earlier.

The Iran-backed group announced in a statement "a speech by the secretary general of Hezbollah Sheikh Naim Qassem today", without specifying the time.

France's special envoy on Friday said it was urgent for Lebanon to elect a president, after a parliamentary vote to end over two years without a head of state was announced for January.

Jean-Yves Le Drian's visit to Lebanon follows a fragile ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

"I came to Lebanon immediately after the ceasefire announcement to signal France's support for its full implementation and to stress the urgent need, more than ever, to elect a president and restart the institutional process," he told AFP on Friday.

He said he was in support of Thursday's announcement by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of a presidential election to be held on 9 January.

A Palestinian opened fire on an Israeli bus near the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank on Friday, wounding at least eight people before he was killed by Israeli troops, the Israeli military said.

Israel's MDA medical service said four people suffered gunshot wounds, with three in a serious condition, and four others were hurt by flying glass.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the shooter as a 46-year-old local man. Hamas' armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades said he man belonged to the group.

The Gaza health ministry said Thursday that at least 44,363 people have been killed in more than 13 months of Israeli attacks.

The toll includes 33 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 105,070 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, 2023.

Israel extended for one year a waiver allowing Israeli banks to work with Palestinian ones just days before it was due to expire, threatening to paralyse Palestinians financial institutions.

The extension was approved Thursday during a security cabinet meeting ahead of expiration of the waiver at the end of the month, a spokesman for far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told AFP.

Smotrich had threatened in May to cut the vital connection between Israel and Palestinian banks in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for the recognition of the State of Palestine by three European countries.

Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement and advocates for the full annexation of the territory occupied by Israel since 1967, had told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he "did not intend to extend" Israel's annual guarantees to banks in the West Bank.

In exchange for trade-offs on the development of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Smotrich later agreed to extend the guarantee, but only for a few months.

Two children and a woman were crushed to death Friday as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening  in the war-ravaged territory, medical officials said.

The children and the 50-year-old were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where a doctor confirmed that they died from suffocation due to crowding at the al-Banna bakery.

The flow of food allowed into Gaza by Israel has fallen to nearly its lowest level of almost 14-month-old war for the past two months, according to Israeli official figures.

UN and aid officials say hunger and desperation are growing among Gaza’s population, almost all of which relies on humanitarian aid to survive.

Some bakeries in Gaza were closed for several days last week due to a shortage of flour. AP footage taken last week after they reopened showed large crowds of people cramming together, screaming and pushing, at one bakery in Deir al-Balah.

Medics said an Israeli drone on Friday killed Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the army has been operating since early October.

Al-Kahlout was killed by a missile fired from the drone as he walked through the hospital gate, two medical officials at Kamal Adwan Hospital told Reuters. Earlier in the week, the director of the hospital and 12 other medics were wounded in similar attacks, the Gaza health ministry said.

There was no immediate Israeli army comment.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip that are now barely operational due to shortages of medical, fuel, and food supplies. Health officials said most of its medical staff had been either detained or expelled by the Israeli army.

(Reuters)

A man opened fire on an Israeli bus near the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank, wounding at least eight people, before he was killed by Israeli troops, the military and emergency services said on Friday.

Israel's MDA medical service said four people suffered gunshot wounds, with three in a serious condition, while four others were hurt by flying glass.

There was no initial information about the identity of the attacker.

Violence has surged across the West Bank since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza in October last year.

Dozens of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian street attacks, Israeli authorities said, while hundreds of Palestinians - including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and civilian bystanders - have died in clashes with Israeli security forces. 

The Israeli army is making grounds into southern Lebanese border towns under the ceasefire agreement, according to local reports.

Israeli tanks were seen entering the western part of the large town of Khiam which had been at the centre of battles between Hezbollah and Israel for weeks.

Lebanon's official news agency reported that four tanks were seen entering.

Hezbollah, under the agreement, is pulling back to north of the Litani River, and the Lebanese army will re-deploy to the south.

There has yet to full control of the south by the Lebanese army with Israeli forces still occupying this vacuum.

There have also been reports of the Israeli army firing shells at civilians who were attending a funeral in Khiam, despite it being cleared the UNIFIL and the Lebanese army.

Five Israeli settlers have been reportedly injured in a a gun attack which targeted a bus near the settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank, according to media reports.

The attack happened near the Giti Avisar junction, according to the Israeli army who said the shooter had been "neutralised".

A senior Israeli army commander Ori Gordin conducted a tour to south Lebanon on Thursday and held meetings with military personnel stationed there.

The army shared Gordin's comments in a statement today in which the officer threatened to return to a state of fighting with Hezbollah "if they make a mistake".

He also said that his military will clear the southern area of "Hezbollah's capabilities and certainly of its weapons".

The Israeli military have 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon under the terms of the ceasefire implemented on Wednesday.

There have been reports of the Israeli military firing shells at people in the south and bulldozing infrastructure.

In the middle of Deir al-Balah market in the central Gaza Strip, Khaled Abu Hasira, a 13-year-old boy, stands behind a small kiosk making hot drinks such as tea and coffee and selling them to those who pass by.

Thirteen months ago, Khaled was a diligent student and leader of his elementary school's scout team in Gaza City, but an Israeli airstrike killed his father and forced his family to flee to the southern part of the coastal enclave. Since then, Khaled is forced to work to provide for his mother and four younger siblings.

He was never used to such a massive responsibility. "I wished I could go back to school, be with my friends and participate in the scout team that I loved. But everything has changed now," he said to °®Âþµº. 

In his modest kiosk, Khaled works from early morning until evening, making tea and coffee. About four months ago, hot water spilled on his face and hands, causing third-degree burns.  He returned to work after only a few days.

"Khaled's work is our only source of income," says his mother, whose features are pale from malnutrition and the harsh condition of living in a tent.

"Khaled has become much older than his age. I wish he could live his childhood, but the war took everything from us," she added. She explained that she sold her gold jewellery and wedding ring to support her children, but with her money running out, she has no choice but to push her eldest son Khaled to work.

An Israeli attack in the southern city of Khan Younis killed four Palestinians overnight Thursday and wounded several others, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

An air strike hit tents sheltering displaced families near the Abu Matar mosque in southwest Khan Younis killing four people, including a child.

Central Gaza came under an aerial and ground attack by Israeli forces on Thursday which have killed at least 29 people according to Gaza's Shehab news agency.

Drones were reported over Nuseirat camp for hours, blocking residents from leaving while fighters jets reportedly hit residential buildings, mosques and other civilian facilities.

Rescue teams on Friday began recovering bodies from Nuseirat after Israeli tanks pulled back from the area following a 24-hour assault, Al Jazeera reported.

The United Nations has described the plight of Palestinian refugees as "the longest unresolved refugee crisis in the world" on Friday to mark International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

The commemoration takes place every 29 November to draw attention to the millions of Palestinians who live as refugees since they were exiled after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

The UN said Gaza is currently experiencing "the most intense bombardment of a civilian population since World War II".

It’s the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

The plight of the remains the longest unresolved refugee crisis in the world.

In the past year has experienced the most intense bombardment of a civilian population since World War…

— UNRWA (@UNRWA)

Lebanese residents are prohibited from moving south to a line of villages and their surroundings until further notice, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X on Friday.

Israel said it opened fire on Thursday towards what it called "suspects" with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone, saying it was a breach of the truce with Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, which came into effect on Wednesday.

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah in turn accused Israel of violating the deal.

"The Israeli enemy is attacking those returning to the border villages," Fadlallah told reporters, adding "there are violations today by Israel, even in this form".

In his recent post, Adraee called on Lebanese residents to not return to more than 60 southern villages, saying anyone who moves south of the specified line "puts themselves in danger".