Middle East latest: US won’t halt any weapons to Israel over Gaza humanitarian aid situation

Eight international aid groups said Tuesday that Israel has failed to meet U.S. demands for greater humanitarian access to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where hunger experts say the north may already be experiencing famine.

However, the Biden administration said Tuesday it won’t limit weapons transfers to Israel because the U.S. says its key ally has made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Last month, Washington told Israel to boost aid to Gaza within 30 days, or else it 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.

Israeli strikes killed at least 46 people in Gaza in the past 24 hours, and killed at least 33 people in Lebanon, local health officials said Tuesday. Two people in northern Israel also died from rockets fired from Lebanon.

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.

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.

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

___

Here’s the latest:

UN says 70% of those killed in Gaza were children and women

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. human rights office has verified that close to 70% of those killed in Gaza by airstrikes, shelling and other hostile actions were children and women, a senior U.N. rights official said.

Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that "the age group most represented in verified fatalities was children from 5 to 9 years old."

According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 100,000 injured since Hamas' surprise Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw some 250 taken hostage, about 100 of whom are still being held. The Gaza ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians but has said the majority of those killed are women and children.

Kehris said monitoring by the Geneva-based office of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights indicates that the unprecedented level of killing and injury "is a direct consequence of the parties' choices of methods and means of warfare, and their failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law."

"The pattern of strikes indicates that the Israeli Defense Forces have systematically violated fundamental principles of international humanitarian law: distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack," she said. "Palestinian armed groups have also conducted hostilities in ways that have likely contributed to harm to civilians."

Kehris criticized Israel for destroying Gaza's civilian infrastructure including hospitals, schools, electricity grids, water and sewage facilities, which are protected under international law.

This "contributes directly to the famine risk," which hunger experts have warned is likely imminent in northern Gaza, she said, also citing the constant and continuing Israeli interference with the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid.

Over the past five weeks, Kehris said, Israeli airstrikes have led to "massive civilian fatalities in northern Gaza," especially of women, children and older, sick and disabled people. Many were reportedly trapped by Israeli military restrictions and attacks on escape routes, she said.

The U.N. human rights office has warned Israel against targeting locations sheltering significant numbers of civilians, and also against attacking the three major hospitals "while unlawfully restricting the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza," Kehris said.

UN humanitarian chief describes destruction and 'daily cruelty' in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N.'s top humanitarian official says "acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes" are being committed in Gaza where Palestinians face increasing hunger, starvation and potential famine - putting most of the blame on Israel.

Calling the situation in the territory after more than a year of war "catastrophic," Joyce Msuya told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that "the latest offensive that Israel started in North Gaza last month is an intensified, extreme and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year."

She accused Israeli authorities of blocking aid from entering the northernmost part of Gaza, where she said around 75,000 people remain with dwindling food and water, and supplies have been cut off while people are being pushed south. Israel says it is battling Hamas militants who have regrouped there.

"Shelters, homes and schools have been burned and bombed to the ground," Msuya said. "Numerous families remain trapped under rubble because fuel for digging equipment is being blocked by the Israeli authorities and first responders have been blocked from reaching them."

She said hospitals have been attacked and ambulances destroyed.

Msuya stressed that "the daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits," pointing to the town of Beit Hanoun in the north which Israel has besieged for a month and where the U.N. delivered the first food supplies and water on Monday.

"But today, Israeli soldiers forcibly displaced people from those same areas," she said.

"Conditions of life across Gaza are unfit for human survival," Msuya said, pointing to insufficient food and shelter items needed for the coming winter.

She stressed that problems including the violent armed looting of U.N. convoys, driven by the collapse of law and order, can be solved "with the right political will."

The Security Council meeting was called by Guyana, Switzerland, Algeria and Slovenia following last Friday's report by hunger experts that called the humanitarian situation throughout Gaza "extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating" and warned that there is a strong likelihood of imminent famine in parts of the north.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon called the report's claims "baseless and slanderous," accusing the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification network, or IPC whose independent Famine Review Committee issued Friday's alert, of prioritizing "smearing Israel over actually helping those in need."

He told reporters before the council meeting that the situation in Gaza, including the north, has shown improvement since October. "Yet, instead of recognizing this, the IPC chooses to ignore facts, pushing a narrative detached from reality and hostile to the truth," he said.

Trump picks ex-Arkansas Gov. Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel

WASHINGTON - President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he picked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and his longtime friend Steven Witkoff to be a special envoy to the Middle East.

Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel, and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel's interests as it wages wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years," Trump said in a statement. "He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!"

Huckabee has led paid tour group visits to Israel for years, frequently advertising the trips on conservative-leaning news outlets.

UN says amount of aid entering Gaza last month was the lowest so far this year

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations says October saw the lowest amount of aid entering Gaza this year, and the territory is receiving "nowhere near what we need to support more than two million Palestinians"

That was the assessment Tuesday from U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric who said that for a second month the U.N. World Food Program was only able to reach half the people that rely on the United Nations for assistance, and only with reduced rations.

Dujarric said that a 14-truck convoy had planned to deliver supplies to shelters in Beit Hanoun and the Indonesian Hospital in Jabaliya in northern Gaza on Monday, where an Israeli offensive is under way, but only two trucks with ready-to-eat meals and wheat flour and one carrying water made it to two shelters.

It was the first time in over a month that people in Beit Hanoun received any food assistance.

The 11 other trucks didn't make it because of delays in receiving authorization and crowds along the route, Dujarric said. WFP was planning another mission to Beit Hanon to reach the rest of the shelters and the hospital on Tuesday, but he said "those missions have been denied" by Israel.

He said WFP reported that 15 trucks carried food parcels and wheat through a newly opened crossing into central Gaza at Kissufim for the first time.

"We continue to call for the immediate opening of more land routes into Gaza and for the lifting of administrative and physical restrictions within Gaza to efficiently reach the most vulnerable people and areas," Dujarric said.

Many civilians in Gaza are hungry, sick, "and desperately need assistance," he said.

"We want all of the access points to be fully open," Dujarric said. "We want to have the volume of aid going in that matches the needs. Right now, that's not the case."

Israeli strike kills 15 in Lebanon

BEIRUT - An Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Mount Lebanon's Chouf province killed at least 15 people, including eight women and four children, and wounded at least 12 others, Lebanon's Health Ministry said.

The strike came without warning. Lebanese state media said the building was sheltering displaced families.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack, and the target remains unclear. The village of Joun is home to Greek Catholic, Shiite Muslim and Maronite Christian communities. It lies 13 kilometers (8 miles) northeast of the port city of Sidon and nearly two kilometers (1.2 miles) north of the Awali River, meaning the village was outside areas where Israel had previously issued evacuation warnings.

Israeli strikes killed least 33 people across Lebanon on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said. It announced 44 people had been killed and 88 wounded the previous day, bringing the total casualties in the 13-month conflict between Hezbollah and Israel to more than 3,290 dead and 14,200 injured.

One-quarter of them are women and children, the Health Ministry said, listing at least 2,346 men, 644 women and 203 children killed.

US won’t limit weapons to Israel, saying there’s been progress on flow of aid to Gaza

WASHINGTON - The Biden administration says Israel has made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and it will not limit arms transfers to Israel as it had threatened to a month ago if the situation had not improved.

The State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Tuesday that the progress to date must be supplemented and sustained but that "we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of U.S. law." It requires recipients of military assistance to adhere to international humanitarian law and not impede the provision of such aid.

"We are not giving Israel a pass," Patel said, adding that "we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve."

The department's decision comes a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top national security adviser, Ron Dermer, in Washington to go over the steps that Israel has taken since Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned in October of possible repercussions if the aid situation had not improved in 30 days.

Israel’s Netanyahu threatens Iran’s leadership

JERUSALEM - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Iran’s leadership on Tuesday as tensions escalate between the two regional enemies following back-and-forth aerial attacks.

"There is one force putting your family in grave danger: the tyrants of Tehran. That's it," Netanyahu said in a direct address to the Iranian people.

On Oct. 1. Iran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted. The attack prompted a retaliation that saw Israeli strikes on several military targets across Iran. The Islamic Republic has vowed to strike back but given few indications of their plans.

"Imagine how your children's lives would look if billions of dollars were invested in them instead of being wasted on wars that can't be won," Netanyahu said.

Iran and Israel remain locked in the conflicts roiling the Mideast. Israel is pressing its war in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas and its ground invasion and airstrikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Tehran, and Israel has killed most of their senior leadership.

Iran's economy has struggled for years under crippling international sanctions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, which now enriches uranium at near weapons-grade levels.

An attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels sees explosions near ship in Red Sea

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 wage a monthslong assault targeting shipping through a waterway - which 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.

Biden and Israeli president meet in Washington

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.

Rocket fired from Lebanon kills 2 in north Israel

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.

An Israeli airstrike east of Beirut, far from Hezbollah’s main strongholds, kills 6

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.

More Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza, bringing the death toll there to at least 31 in the past 24 hours

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.

A drone fired from Lebanon smashes into a nursery school near the Israeli city of Haifa; no injuries are reported

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.

Israel announces the opening of a fifth crossing point for aid into Gaza

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 contributed.

Israeli warplanes strike Beirut’s southern suburbs

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.

Israel’s military says it delivered aid to northern Gaza on a US-imposed deadline

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;

Israel denied or impeded 85% of aid convoys to northern Gaza last month, UN says

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,.