Israeli soldiers attend to tanks parked in a field upon returning to Israel following a ceasefire with Hezbollah, in Metula, northern Israel, on 28 November 2024. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Atef Safadi) 
Israeli military strikes killed at least 26 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up their bombardment of central areas and tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the enclave.
Outgoing European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on all EU member states on Thursday to respect decisions by the International Criminal Court, including the arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel and Hezbollah trade accusations of ceasefire violations
The Israeli military said its air force struck a facility used by Hezbollah to store mid-range rockets in southern Lebanon on Thursday, after both sides accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that aims to halt more than a year of fighting.
Israel said it also 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 legislator 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 that “there are violations today by Israel, even in this form”.
The Lebanese army later accused Israel of violating the ceasefire several times on Wednesday and Thursday.
The exchange of accusations highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and France to end the conflict, fought in parallel with the Gaza war. The truce lasts for 60 days in the hope of reaching a permanent cessation of hostilities.
Israel’s air strike on Thursday was the first since the truce took effect on Wednesday morning. Lebanese security sources and the Al Jadeed broadcaster said it took place near Baysariyah, north of the Litani River.
The ceasefire deal stipulates that unauthorised military facilities south of the Litani River should be dismantled, but does not mention military facilities north of the river.
Earlier, Israeli tank fire hit five towns and some agricultural fields in southern Lebanon, state media and Lebanese security sources said, saying at least two people were wounded.
All the areas lie within 2km of the Blue Line demarcating the border between Lebanon and Israel, in an area the Israeli military has announced as a no-go zone along the border, even after the deal was agreed.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had identified several suspicious activities that posed a threat and breached conditions of the ceasefire agreement.
“Any deviation from this agreement will be enforced with fire,” said Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi.
Later on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had directed the military to be prepared for intense fighting if the ceasefire was violated.
Lebanese families displaced from their homes near the southern border have tried to return to check on their properties. But Israeli troops remain stationed within Lebanese territory in towns along the border and Reuters reporters heard surveillance drones flying over parts of southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military on Thursday renewed a curfew restricting the movement of residents of southern Lebanon south of the Litani River between 5pm and 7am.
The agreement, a rare diplomatic feat in a region racked by conflict, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group in years. But Israel is still fighting its other arch-foe, the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, in response to the deadly Hamas-led raid on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed at least 3,961 people and injured 16,520 others since October 2023, the Lebanese health ministry said on Thursday. The figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Hezbollah strikes have killed 45 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. At least 73 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Israel, the Golan Heights, and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli authorities.
Under the ceasefire terms, Israeli forces can take up to 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon but neither side can launch offensive operations.
Netanyahu says Israelis in the north of the country should be able to return after being evacuated because of rocket fire from Lebanon.
About 60,000 people evacuated from homes in the north have still not been directed to return.
Hezbollah has said its fighters “remain fully equipped to deal with the aspirations and assaults of the Israeli enemy” and that its forces will monitor Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon “with their hands on the trigger”.
The group has been weakened by casualties and the killing by Israel of its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders.
Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and urged Israel and Hamas to seize the moment. Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 21 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up their bombardment of central areas and tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the enclave.
Israel steps up bombing of central Gaza, strikes kill 26 people
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) strikes killed at least 26 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up their bombardment of central areas and tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the enclave.
The escalation came a day after the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in Lebanon, raising hopes among many Palestinians in Gaza for a similar deal with Hamas, which rules the enclave.
Israel’s military campaign – with the avowed intent of eradicating Hamas militants after the group’s deadly raid on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 – has laid waste to the enclave of 2.3 million people.
“I hope a ceasefire will happen like it did in Lebanon... I just want to take my children to see my land, my house, to see what they did to us, I want to live in safety,” said Amal Abu Hmeid, a displaced woman in Gaza.
“God willing we will have a truce,” she said, sitting in the courtyard of a school sheltering displaced families in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The courtyard was filled with dirt and water streamed in from where people did their laundry. Clothes were airing outside classrooms as children played nearby.
“(Life) was beautiful (before the war)... Now there is nothing beautiful, it’s all gone. Our houses are gone, our brothers are gone, and no one is left. Now we hardly get... one meal a day. We can’t even get bread,” said Abu Hmeid.
Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, Biden said he would now renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, urging Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.
Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the enclave’s population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.
On Thursday, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said at least 70% of those killed in Gaza were women and children.
He said the ongoing Israeli offensive in the northern edge of Gaza for the past seven weeks had uprooted 130,000 people.
The Hamas-led militants who attacked southern Israeli communities 13 months ago, triggering the war, killed about 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel has said.
On Thursday, six people were killed in two separate air strikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south, medics said.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli air strike near a tent encampment housing displaced families in eastern Khan Younis killed at least five people and wounded others, medics said.
In Nuseirat, one of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several air strikes, destroying a multistorey building and hitting roads outside mosques. At least 11 people were killed in those strikes, according to health officials at Al-Awda Hospital in the camp.
They said in a statement that dozens of families were trapped in their homes after some tanks advanced from the northern area of the camp and that ambulances were unable to reach them because of continued tank fire.
Contacted by Reuters, the Israeli military said its forces were continuing to “strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip”.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northwest area of the city, residents said.
Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at New York Thanksgiving parade
New York police arrested a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who briefly interrupted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday by attempting to block the parade route just ahead of the Ronald McDonald float.
The 98th annual parade, televised nationwide, is part of the tradition of America’s Thanksgiving holiday, a spectacle of giant balloons of cartoon characters, marching bands and popular music acts performing live. Thousands line the streets of Manhattan to watch.
“The demonstrators were taken into custody without incident,” the New York Police Department said.
The number of detainees was unknown and charges were pending, the NYPD said.
A line of about 20 protesters sat in the street under a steady rain while others behind them held up a banner saying “Don’t celebrate genocide” and “Arms embargo now!”.
Israeli foreign minister looks to Washington to punish the ICC
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday he believed the United States would punish the International Criminal Court (ICC) for having issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister.
Israel has said it will appeal against the ICC decision to move against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
During a visit to the Czech Republic, Saar said other countries were also dismayed by the decision, including the United States.
“I tend to believe that in Washington, legislation is going to take place very shortly against the ICC and whoever cooperates with it,” Saar told a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar added that Israel would finish the 14-month-old war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas and ensuring the Islamist group no longer controls the Palestinian enclave.
Saar said Israel did not intend to control civilian life in Gaza, adding that peace was “inevitable”, but couldn’t be based on “illusions.”
ICC decisions must be respected, says EU’s Borrell
Outgoing European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on all EU member states on Thursday to respect decisions by the International Criminal Court, including the arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We cannot undermine the International Criminal Court. It is the only way of having global justice,” Borrell, whose term as the EU’s top diplomat ends this month, told reporters in Brussels.
“They’re not political. It’s a legal body formed by respected people who are the best among the profession of judges.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last week for Netanyahu, his former defence chief Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
Though all EU member states are signatories to the ICC’s founding treaty, France said on Wednesday it believed Netanyahu had immunity to actions by the ICC, given Israel has not signed up to the court statutes.
Italy has said it was not feasible to arrest Netanyahu as long as he remained head of the Israeli government.
ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza”.
Israel, which launched its offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israeli communities on 7 October 2023, has said it will appeal against the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. DM
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