Middle East latest: Israel kills 6 in Lebanon and 31 in Gaza, where a US aid deadline expires

Palestinian medical officials said Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least 31 people in the past 24 hours while eight international aid groups said Tuesday that Israel has failed to meet U.S. demands that it allow greater humanitarian access to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where experts have warned the north may already be experiencing famine.

In Lebanon, an Israeli strike targeted the southern Beirut suburbs and another airstrike on an apartment building east of the capital killed six people there, according to paramedics at the scene.

The Biden administration last month called on Israel to "surge" more food and other emergency aid into Gaza, setting a 30-day deadline that was expiring Tuesday. It warned failure to comply could trigger U.S. laws requiring it to scale back American military support as Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In recent days, U.S. officials signaled Israel still isn't doing enough, although they have not said if they will take action.

The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people - mostly civilians - and abducting 250 others.

Israel's war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. The officials do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since the conflict erupted, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,000 wounded, the country’s Health Ministry reported.

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Here’s the latest:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - An attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels saw multiple explosions strike near a commercial vessel traveling through the Red Sea on Tuesday, though no damage was immediately reported by the ship, Western authorities said. The Houthis later claimed they targeted American warships there.

The attack comes as the rebels continue their monthslong assault targeting shipping through a waterway that typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it a year over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel's ground offensive in Lebanon.

The Houthis have insisted that the attacks will continue as long as the wars go on, and the assaults already have halved shipping through the region. Meanwhile, a U.N. panel of experts now allege that the Houthis may be shaking down some shippers for about $180 million a month for safe passage through the area.

A vessel in the southern reaches of the Red Sea, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, reported the attack, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

No one was wounded on board in the blasts, and the ship was continuing on its journey, the UKMTO added.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree in a prerecorded statement Tuesday night claimed the rebels attacked two American destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones. It wasn't immediately clear if the UKMTO report was directly linked to the Houthi claim, but similar incidents of rebel fire coming near other ships have happened before.

WASHINGTON - Israeli President Isaac Herzog said while meeting Tuesday at the White House that Iran was an "empire of evil," adding that it needs to be a "major objective" of the United States to make sure the country and its proxies can not fulfill their intentions of annihilating Israel and obtaining nuclear weapons.

Herzog met with President Joe Biden as conflict and uncertainty continued to roil the Middle East.

Herzog noted an aerial attack on Tuesday from Lebanon that he said killed two Israelis. He also stressed that Israel needed the return of 101 hostages taken by Hamas during an October 7, 2023 to stop the fighting in Gaza.

"First and foremost we have to get the hostages back," Herzog said.

"I agree," Biden said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war in Gaza until "total victory" over Hamas and pledged to bring home the hostages, but has faced widespread criticism that dozens remain captive after more than a year of war. Iran remains locked in the wars roiling the region, with its allies battered - militant groups and fighters of its self-described "Axis of Resistance," including the Palestinian Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi rebels.

TEL AVIV, Israel - First responders say a rocket fired from Lebanon hit a storage facility in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, killing two people.

The Magen David Adom rescue service said the two people killed on Tuesday were in their 40s. It said two others were wounded by shrapnel from a separate impact near the town.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired a barrage of around 10 projectiles into the country's north, some of which were intercepted. On Monday, the Lebanese militant group launched some 200 projectiles into Israel, it said.

The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah steadily escalated and boiled over into all-out war in September. Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon in early October.

BEIRUT - Israeli jets carried out an airstrike Tuesday on an apartment building east of Beirut, killing at least six people while four remained buried under the rubble, paramedics at the scene said.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack, which also wounded two people. The target of the strike remained unclear. The region is far from Hezbollah's main strongholds in southern and eastern Lebanon.

Since escalating its military operations against the Hezbollah militant group in late September, Israel has extended its strikes deeper into Lebanon, beyond Hezbollah-dominated areas.

The paramedics at the scene in the Lebanese mountain village of Baalchmay said six people were killed and four, including a woman who is almost 90, were still under the rubble.

Wael Murtada said the home destroyed belonged to his uncle and those in the house had fled from Dahiyeh, an area south of Beirut, about 40 days ago. He said the six dead included three children while those who are still missing are his grandmother, an aunt, a child and a domestic helper from the African nation of Guinea.

"They fled from death to face death here," a woman who was a relative of the family shouted, beseeching God to destroy Israel.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip - Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes have killed another 17 people in the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll from the last 24 hours to 31 dead.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, 11 people were killed in a strike on a three-wheeled vehicle with a trailer known as a tuk-tuk, according to the Nasser Hospital. Tuk-tuks are widely used as taxis in Gaza. Three children were among those killed.

Another strike on Tuesday hit a group of people near a clinic run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in the central city of Deir al-Balah, killing at least six people, including two children, according to the city's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the latest strikes.

Earlier, officials at Nasser Hospital said a late Monday strike hit a cafeteria in the so-called Muwasi humanitarian zone west of the Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least 11 people, including two children. Another strike early Tuesday hit a house in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing three people including a woman, according to al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

TEL AVIV, Israel - A drone fired from Lebanon smashed into a nursery school near the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Tuesday morning, but no children were injured as they were inside a bomb shelter at the time of the attack.

That’s according to an Associated Press reporter who visited the scene. The impact scattered debris across the playground.

Hezbollah launched at least four drones toward Israel during the day, the Israeli military said, with the air force intercepting some of them. The Lebanese militant group has so far not claimed responsibility for the drones fired Tuesday but has said it fired rockets into Israel.

Drones have challenged Israel's robust aerial defense systems, and many have evaded interception, causing damage and killing people, including one of the worst mass-casualty strikes in Israel during the past year of war, when four soldiers were killed and dozens wounded by a drone strike.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Since the conflict erupted, more than 3,200 people have been killed and more than 14,000 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reported.

In Israel, 73 people have been killed and over 600 wounded by Hezbollah fire, according to the prime minister's office.

TEL AVIV, Israel - The Israeli military announced on Tuesday the opening of a fifth crossing for humanitarian aid into Gaza, one of key demands by the United States for Israel to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The crossing, across from Kibbutz Kissufim, and closest to the city of Deir al Balah in Gaza, will allow for the delivery of food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment to central and southern Gaza, the military said.

The aid will undergo a security check at the Kerem Shalom crossing and then be brought into Gaza via the new crossing.

Trucks picking up aid at Kerem Shalom have repeatedly been attacked and supplies stolen as they travel to distribution hubs inside Gaza, according to an Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing rules.

Israel has come under intense criticism from the aid groups and the international community for failing to allow enough aid into Gaza, creating famine conditions in the northern part of the coastal strip.

Israel has announced a series of steps toward improving the situation. But U.S. officials have signaled that Israel still is not doing enough, though they have not said if they will take any action against it.

-Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel;

BEIRUT - Israeli airstrikes set off large explosions on Tuesday in Beirut's southern suburbs - an area known as Dahiyeh where Hezbollah has a significant presence - soon after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for 11 houses there.

There was no immediate word on casualties. The military said the houses contained Hezbollah installations, but the claim could not be independently confirmed.

Late Monday night, a strike hit the village of Ain Yaacoub in northern Lebanon, killing at least 16 people, the Lebanese civil defense said. Four of the killed were Syrian refugees, and there were another 10 people wounded. There was no Israeli military comment on the strike.

Israel has been carrying out intensified bombardment of Lebanon, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and put a stop to more than year of cross-border fire by the Lebanese militant group onto northern Israel.

TEL AVIV, Israel - The Israeli military said on Tuesday that hundreds of packages of food and water were brought to a besieged area in northern Gaza where the military has been carrying out a concentrated operation since October.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza said aid trucks were brought to the areas of Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun, where the military has carried out an intense operation since Oct. 6.

On Monday night, the Israeli security Cabinet approved more aid for Gaza, which will increase the number of trucks that enter the battered enclave each day, according to an official familiar with the matter.

At least 700 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza since the operation began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and tens of thousands have been displaced. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its counts.

An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing rules, said the army estimates there are approximately 5,000-10,000 Palestinians still living in northern Gaza.

The aid was delivered on a U.S.-imposed deadline that called on Israel to "surge" more food and other emergency aid into Gaza.

It warned that failure to comply could trigger U.S. laws requiring it to scale back military support as Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Aid groups have accused Israel of falling short on aid distribution, especially in northern Gaza.

-Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel;

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. humanitarian office says 85% of its attempts to coordinate aid convoys and humanitarian visits to northern Gaza - where hunger is acute and Israel is carrying out a major offensive - were denied or impeded last month.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs made 98 requests to Israeli authorities for authorization to go through the checkpoint along Wadi Gaza but only 15 made it, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday.

The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, "is worried about the fate of Palestinians remaining in North Gaza, as the siege there continues, and urgently calls on Israel to open up the area to humanitarian operations at the scale needed, given the massive needs." Dujarric said.

In a new report published Monday, OCHA said humanitarian organizations submitted 50 requests to the Israeli authorities to enter North Gaza governorate in October and 33 were rejected while eight were accepted but faced impediments including delays that prevented their completion, he said.

Over the past three days, Dujarric said, teams from OCHA, the U.N. human rights and de-mining agencies and other humanitarian groups visited nine sites in Gaza City to assess the needs of hundreds of displaced families, many from North Gaza.

The teams say that some were in shelters, abandoned homes, destroyed clinic and some were sleeping in the streets or open fields where they feared stray dogs at night, Dujarric said.

In a severely damaged structure, the team found more than a dozen families - including people with disabilities and some in urgent need of medical care - sheltering in the basement which had no electricity and was full of sewage, he said,.