IDF bombards homes in north Gaza - medics; Hezbollah strikes Israeli military position over 'ceasefire breach'

Hezbollah said it carried out a “defensive warning strike” on an Israeli military position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on Monday, citing repeated Israeli ceasefire violations including airstrikes and shelling in Lebanon.

Hamas said on Monday that 33 hostages in Gaza had been killed during the almost 14-month-old war between the Palestinian militant group and Israel in the enclave, without giving their nationalities.

Israeli army bombards homes in north Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombarded houses in overnight attacks in the northern Gaza Strip, including one airstrike that killed at least 15 people in a home sheltering displaced people in the town of Beit Lahiya, said Palestinian medics on Monday.

The three barely operational hospitals in the area were unable to cope with the wounded from the attack, and a number of other people were still missing with rescue workers unable to reach them, said the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service.

Residents said clusters of houses were bombed and some set ablaze in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, three towns on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip where the Israeli army has been operating for weeks.

They said Israeli drones had also dropped bombs outside a school sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahiya, part of what residents have described as a campaign to scare people into leaving.

Palestinians say Israel’s army is trying to drive people out of the northern edge of Gaza with forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone. The Israeli army denies this and says it has returned to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping in an area where it had previously cleared them out.

Israel launched its campaign in the densely populated Palestinian enclave after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 44,400 Palestinians and displaced most of the population, say Gaza officials. Vast swathes of the enclave lie in ruins.

Palestinian and United Nations officials said there were no safe areas in the Gaza Strip for the 2.3 million population, most of whom have been internally displaced.

Ten other Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli strikes across the enclave, medics said, raising the death toll on Monday to 25.

Hezbollah strikes Israeli position over ceasefire breach

Hezbollah said it carried out a “defensive warning strike” on an Israeli military position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area on Monday, citing repeated Israeli ceasefire violations including airstrikes and shelling in Lebanon.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah launched two missiles but caused no casualties.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would respond “strongly” to the strike.

Earlier, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that Israeli forces fired two artillery shells towards the southern Lebanese town of Beit Lif in the Bint Jbeil district, while heavy machine gun fire targeted Yaroun.

No injuries were reported in either incident, said NNA, but a separate Israeli strike injured others in the town of Talousa.

Lebanese authorities also said Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed at least two people on Monday as the ceasefire, which follows more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, appeared increasingly fragile.

The truce, which came into effect early on 27 November, stipulates that Israel will not carry out offensive military operations against civilian, military or other state targets in Lebanon, while Lebanon will prevent any armed groups, including Hezbollah, from carrying out operations against Israel.

Lebanon and Israel have already traded accusations of breaches, and on Monday Lebanon said the violations had turned deadly.

One person was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, about 10km from Israel’s northern border, said Lebanon’s health ministry.

Lebanon’s state security said an Israeli drone strike had killed a member of its force while he was on duty in Nabatieh, 12 km from the border. State security called it a “flagrant violation” of the truce.

The Lebanese army said an Israeli drone hit an army bulldozer in northeast Lebanon near the border with Syria, wounding one soldier.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the incidents in Marjayoun and Nabatieh.

It issued a statement saying it had attacked military vehicles operating near Hezbollah military infrastructure in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and military vehicles near the border with Syria.

The Israeli military acknowledged that a Lebanese soldier was wounded in one of its attacks and said the incident was under review.

Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah and Beirut’s main interlocutor in the ceasefire talks, said Lebanon had logged at least 54 Israeli violations so far.

Hamas says 33 hostages killed in course of war in Gaza

Hamas said on Monday that 33 hostages in Gaza had been killed during the almost 14-month-old war between the Palestinian militant group and Israel in the enclave, without giving their nationalities.

Hamas added that other hostages had gone missing.

“With the continuation of your crazy war,” it said in a statement addressed to Israel, “you could lose your hostages forever. Do what you have to do before it is too late.”

Hamas shortly afterwards published a video it said detailed when and how the hostages had been killed, blaming Netanyahu for their fate.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment, which came as Israeli military strikes continued in Gaza.

Hamas has called for an end to the war and total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal to release remaining hostages. Netanyahu has said the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated and poses no more threat to Israel.

Trump promises ‘hell to pay’ if Gaza hostages not promptly released

US President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip were not released before his 20 January inauguration.

During their deadly 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas-led militants captured more than 250 people, according to Israeli tallies, including dual Israeli-American nationals.

Around half of the 101 foreign and Israeli hostages still held incommunicado in Gaza are believed to be alive.

Making his most explicit comments on the fate of the hostages since his election in November, Trump said on social media: “[If] the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity.

“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.”

Iraqi fighters head to Syria to battle rebels

Hundreds of Iran-backed Iraqi fighters crossed into Syria on Monday to help the government fight rebels who seized Aleppo last week, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah has no plans for now to join them, according to sources.

Iran’s constellation of allied regional militia groups, aided by Russian air power, has been integral to the success of pro-government forces in subduing rebels who rose up against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

But that alliance faces a new test after last week’s lightning advance by rebels in northwest Syria, with Russia focused on the war in Ukraine and Hezbollah’s leadership decimated by a war with Israel that ended in a ceasefire last week.

The rebel storm of Aleppo is the biggest success of anti-Assad fighters for years. Government forces had held complete control of Aleppo since capturing what was then Syria’s largest city in a siege in 2016, one of the major turning points of a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The head of Syria’s main opposition group abroad, Hadi al-Bahra, told Reuters the rebels were able to seize the city so quickly because Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups were distracted by their conflict with Israel.

Syria’s civil war had been frozen since 2020, with Assad in control of most territory and all major cities. Rebels still held an enclave in the northwest, Turkey-backed forces held a strip along the northern border and US-backed, Kurdish-led forces controlled a pocket in the northeast.

Any prolonged escalation in Syria risks further destabilising a region roiled by the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, with millions of Syrians already displaced and with regional and global powers backing rival forces in the country.

Iraqi and Syrian sources confirmed the deployment of more Iran-backed Iraqi fighters to Syria. Iran’s Foreign Minister said Tehran “will provide any support needed” and that “resistance groups” would come to Assad’s aid.

At least 300 fighters, primarily from Iraq’s Badr and Nujabaa groups, crossed late on Sunday using a dirt road to avoid the official border crossing, said two Iraqi security sources, adding that they were there to defend a Shi’ite shrine. DM

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