Thousands of people take part in an anti-Israel rally in support of the Palestinian people, Sana'a, Yemen, 7 October 2024. (Photo: Yahya Arhab / EPA-EFE) 
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday they fired two missiles at Jaffa, a city in central Israel, and Israel said it intercepted a missile aimed at the area from Yemen.
Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.
Israel bombs 40,000 targets in year of Gaza war
In the past year in the Gaza Strip, Israel has bombed more than 40,000 targets, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites, the military said on Monday’s first anniversary of the Hamas-led militant attacks that triggered Israel’s assault on the enclave.
Tallying troops whose names it received permission to publish, Israel’s military said 726 Israeli soldiers had been killed since 7 October 2023. Of those, 380 died in the 7 October attacks and 346 in Gaza combat starting on 27 October.
Injured troops numbered 4,576 since that date. Fifty-six soldiers died as a result of operational accidents, which the military did not define.
In data to mark the 7 October anniversary, the Israeli military said it enlisted 300,000 reservists since the start of the war — 82% men and 18% women, with nearly half of them aged 20 to 29.
Since the start of the war, 13,200 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. Another 12,400 were fired from Lebanon, while 60 came from Syria, 180 from Yemen and 400 from Iran, said the military.
It said it killed more than 800 “terrorists” in Lebanon, where 4,900 targets have been struck from the air along with about 6,000 ground targets. Over the past year, Israel arrested more than 5,000 suspects in the West Bank and Jordan Valley.
The military said it killed eight Gaza militant brigade commanders, about 30 battalion commanders and 165 company commanders over the past year.
The war in Gaza was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages remain held by Hamas.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Yemen’s Houthis ‘fire two missiles’ at central Israel
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday they fired two missiles at Jaffa, a city in central Israel, and Israel said it intercepted a missile aimed at the area from Yemen.
The Israeli military said a surface-to-surface missile set off air raid sirens across central Israel, sending residents running for shelter.
“Following the sirens that sounded in a number of areas in central Israel, the surface-to-surface missile fired from Yemen was successfully intercepted” by the Israeli Air Force, said the military.
It did not say who fired the missile.
The Houthis said one missile was a Palestine 2 and it “reached” its target. The group said the second was a Dhu al-Fiqar missile but did not describe its outcome.
The Yemeni group said the operation “successfully achieved its objectives” and it targeted several drones at Jaffa and Eilat.
Israel only mentioned the intercepted surface-to-surface missile, without referring to the drones or a second missile.
The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has frequently attacked Israel over the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Hezbollah missiles hit Israel’s Haifa in escalating conflict
Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group fighting Israel in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with Fadi 1 missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65km away.
Hezbollah said it targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles later in the day. Israel’s military said around 135 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday as of 5pm. Ten people were reported injured in the Haifa area and two others further south in central Israel.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon, and that two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking the military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 10 firefighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building in the border-area town of Bint Jbeil, and that other aerial attacks on Sunday killed 22 people in southern and eastern Lebanese towns.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation as “localised, limited and targeted” but it has steadily increased in scale since it began last week.
On Monday, the military said soldiers from its 91st Division had moved into southern Lebanon after a year of operations in northern Israel, where Israeli forces have been engaged in cross-border fire with Hezbollah for the past year.
Last week, the military said regular armoured and infantry units had moved into Lebanon after commando units crossed the border a day earlier.
Also on Monday, around 100 Israeli fighters carried out a wave of strikes, hitting 120 targets in southern Lebanon within the space of an hour, including Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
The spiralling conflict has raised concerns that the US, Israel’s superpower ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing Middle East.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on 1 October. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. One possible target is Iran’s oil facilities.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with a surprise attack on Israel a year ago, meanwhile targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, the group said, setting off sirens in central areas of the country.
“Our counterattack on our enemies in Iran’s axis of evil is necessary for securing our future and ensuring our security,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a special cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on October 7 does not happen again,” said Netanyahu.
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon and as the bombing campaign intensifies, many are afraid their country will face the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel’s air and ground onslaught there.
Israeli forces also issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to stay away from a swathe of the southern Lebanese coast, saying its navy would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel on 8 October 2023 in solidarity with Hamas. After a year of exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel mostly limited to the frontier region, the conflict has significantly escalated in Lebanon.
Israel steps up Gaza bombing on war’s first anniversary
Israel stepped up air and ground attacks on Hamas in Gaza, killing at least 52 people according to Palestinian medics, on the first anniversary of a war that has left most of the territory in ruins and shattered the lives of its people.
On Monday, Israeli tanks advanced into Jabalia, the largest of Gaza Strip’s eight historic urban refugee camps, after encircling it, residents said. Soon after the rocket volley, the Israeli military expanded evacuation orders in Jabalia to cover areas in the northern towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Residents said Israeli forces pounded Jabalia from the air and the ground, and medics said several Palestinians had been killed, with rescuers unable to reach some of the victims.
The Israeli military said it killed dozens of militants and dismantled military infrastructure in Jabalia, saying the operation would continue to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
In the central city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million displaced people are sheltering, an Israeli air strike hit tents inside Al-Aqsa Hospital, wounding 11 people, said Palestinian medics. The Israeli military said it struck at Hamas militants operating from a command centre embedded inside the hospital.
The Israeli army later ordered residents in some eastern neighbourhoods of Khan Younis in southern Gaza to again leave their homes, and many families started doing so, loading belongings on donkey carts and rickshaws.
US-backed Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt have been unable so far to broker a Gaza ceasefire that could also help defuse the Lebanon hostilities and see the release of hostages held in Gaza as well as many Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame for the failure so far to reach an agreement, with each accusing the other of adding conditions that are impossible to meet.
Hamas wants a deal that ends the war and gets Israeli forces out of Gaza, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only with the eradication of Hamas.
Israel marks 7 October anniversary under shadow of escalating war
Israelis on Monday marked the first anniversary of the devastating Hamas attack that triggered a war which has sparked protest worldwide and risks igniting a far wider conflict in the Middle East.
Ceremonies and protests in Jerusalem and Israel’s south began around 6.29am, the hour when Hamas launched rockets into Israel at the start of its 7 October assault last year and burst across the border, rampaging through towns.
Outside Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, around 300 people led by families of hostages holding up photos of their loved ones, observed a minute of silence for the dead as a siren sounded.
“We’re still stuck in October 7th, 2023, in one unending day of terror, of fear, of anger, of despair,” said Yuval Baron, whose father-in-law Keith Siegel is a hostage in Gaza.
“We wanted to start this day together to remind ourselves, our prime minister, the public of Israel that even though it is a day of grief there is still a holy mission to bring back the hostages,” said Baron.
In Reim, the site of the music festival where more than 360 people were killed and dozens taken hostage, President Isaac Herzog presided over the memorial ceremony which began with the last track that was played at the party a year ago.
Ceremonies took place at kibbutz villages and towns near the border throughout the day.
In Tel Aviv, the main memorial organised by bereaved families, meant to have tens of thousands in attendance, was held in front of a much smaller crowd as gatherings around the country are now limited in size for security reasons.
Twice on Monday long-range missile fire set off air raid sirens in central Israel, sending residents running for shelter.
The Hamas attack on Israeli communities around Gaza and Israel’s relentless campaign in response have destabilised the Middle East while the scale of the killing and destruction have horrified people worldwide.
Vigils were also held outside Israel and demonstrations were expected against its offensive in the Gaza Strip which has laid waste to the densely populated coastal enclave.
Army shuts access to areas in northwest Israel
Israel’s military declared areas around several towns in northwest Israel as closed to the public on Monday, after carrying out a security assessment.
It announced that the closed military zones along the border with Lebanon would now include the towns of Shlomi, Rosh Hanikra, Hanita, Arab al-Aramshe and Adamit.
Many parts of northern Israel have been evacuated due to heavy rocket and missile fire from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
US targets Hamas with sanctions on anniversary of Gaza war
The US on Monday imposed sanctions on an international Hamas fundraising network, accusing it of playing a critical role in external fundraising for the Palestinian militant group, in action marking the first anniversary of the Gaza war.
The US Treasury Department said it imposed sanctions on three people and what it called a “sham charity” that it accused of being prominent international financial supporters of Hamas, as well as on the Al-Intaj Bank in Gaza that it said was controlled by the group.
Also targeted were a longstanding Hamas supporter, a Yemeni national living in Turkey, and nine of his businesses, said the Treasury.
World Bank looking to free up emergency funds for Lebanon
The World Bank was looking to free up emergency funds for Lebanon, potentially including up to $100-million through the use of special clauses in existing loan deals, its managing director of operations told Reuters.
The Washington-based development lender currently has $1.65-billion in loans to the country including a $250-million loan approved this week to help connect dispersed renewable energy projects in the country.
Amid fighting across southern Lebanon, the bank was discussing ways in which it could help support the economy, including through the use of so-called Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC) clauses.
“We can use our existing portfolio and free up some money for really critical, short-term liquidity needs,” said Anna Bjerde said.
CERCs are present in around 600 of the bank’s existing projects, globally, and allow it to redirect funds that have yet to be disbursed, if requested by a government, for example after a health or natural disaster, or during conflict.
Lebanon had yet to make such a request, Bjerde said.
Force alone will not lead to Israel’s security, says France
Israel’s security could not be guaranteed with military force alone and would require a diplomatic solution, said France’s foreign minister on Monday, and Paris would continue efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Speaking at the end of a four-day tour of the Middle East, Jean-Noel Barrot was in Israel on Monday.
“Force alone cannot guarantee the security of Israel, your security. Military success cannot be a substitute for a political perspective,” Barrot told a news conference in Jerusalem.
“To bring the hostages home to their loved ones, to allow the displaced to return home in the north [of Israel], after a year of war, the time for diplomacy has come.”
Barrot’s arrival in Israel, where about 180,000 French citizens live, came at a tricky time in Franco-Israeli relations after President Emmanuel Macron was firmly rebuffed by Netanyahu at the weekend.
Macron had called for a de facto arms embargo on Israel and, in a veiled attack on the US, said countries that both supplied weapons and called for a ceasefire where they were being used in conflict were being incoherent. French arms supplies to Israel are minimal.
Barrot reiterated that it was odd to call for a ceasefire while giving offensive weapons. He said that France, as a staunch defender of Israel’s security, felt it was vital to be frank about the ongoing suffering of civilians in Gaza, but also the military operation now in southern Lebanon.
Israel can’t confirm death of Hezbollah’s Safieddin
Israel could not confirm whether the potential successor to the slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had been killed, a government spokesperson said on Monday, following reports that he was targeted in an Israeli air strike last week.
Asked if Israel could confirm the death of Hashem Safieddine, spokesperson David Mencer told an online briefing: “We don’t have that confirmation yet. When it is confirmed, as and when, it will be on the IDF [Israeli military] website.”
A Hezbollah official told Reuters on Sunday that Israel was obstructing search and rescue efforts in an area where Safieddine is thought to have been when Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday. DM
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