Israel-Hamas war latest: Israel launches more strikes on Lebanon, state media and witnesses say

After a short-lived calm following a heavy exchange of strikes between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, fighting resumed Monday.

State media and witnesses reported that Israeli strikes targeted the Lebanese border village of Tair Harfa and an area of the coastal city of Sidon on Monday afternoon. A car was hit in the latter strike.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that a man “from one of the Palestinian organizations” had survived the strike on the car. In addition to targeting Hezbollah members, Israel has occasionally targeted members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon. There were no immediate reports of other casualties.

Later Monday afternoon, Hezbollah announced that it had targeted military surveillance equipment in northern Israel with an exploding drone.

On Sunday, Israel launched dozens of strikes on southern Lebanon that it described as a preemptive operation, saying it had averted a major attack planned by Hezbollah in retaliation for the killing of one of its top commanders, Fouad Shukur, in an Israeli strike in Beirut last month.

Shortly afterward, Hezbollah launched a barrage of hundreds of drones and rockets, which it said was in retaliation for the killing of Shukur. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed drones had hit an Israeli military intelligence site near Tel Aviv. Israel said no military target was hit. Neither offered evidence.

Hezbollah declared its retaliatory operation was over, at least for the time being, and neither side launched strikes overnight.

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Here’s the latest:

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff meets with Israeli defense leaders

TEL AVIV, Israel — Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with top Israeli defense leaders on Monday, and visited the military’s Northern Command headquarters.

Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey, Brown’s spokesperson, said the chairman met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi in Tel Aviv, and he participated in operational updates with Israeli Defense Force senior leaders.

“The leaders reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Israeli strategic partnership while also discussing the most recent engagement across the Israeli-Lebanese border and the need to de-escalate tensions to avoid a broader conflict,” said Dorsey.

He said they also discussed Israel’s need to defend itself as well as the need to get more humanitarian support into Gaza and the importance of minimizing civilian casualties. Dorsey said they talked about Brown’s recent meetings with other partners in the region. He visited Jordan and Egypt.

He said the U.S. “continues to coordinate with Israel and other allies and partners on ways to improve regional security and stability, protect U.S. forces in the Middle East, and deter a broader conflict.”

Gallant’s office said the Israeli defense chief thanked Brown for “his unequivocal commitment to Israel’s security,” including through the deployment of U.S. forces in the Middle East.

Israeli airstrike kills 5 Palestinians in the West Bank, health officials say

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian health officials say an Israeli airstrike has killed five Palestinians in the northern West Bank.

The military said late Monday that it struck an “operations room” used by militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the city of Tulkarem. Palestinian health officials said five bodies arrived at a nearby hospital.

Neither Palestinian health officials nor the military immediately identified those killed.

It’s the latest violence to occur in the West Bank, where around 640 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, most from Israeli raids into Palestinian cities and towns.

Israel continues to shrink the humanitarian zone in Gaza, UN says

UNITED NATIONS – Sixteen evacuation orders by Israel’s military this month have squeezed Gazans into even smaller areas of the territory and the latest has shut the U.N. humanitarian operations center. However, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA is still providing health care and other assistance.

As a result of the orders, several hundred thousand already displaced Palestinians have been forced to move again, and the humanitarian zone declared by Israel has shrunk to about 11% of the entire Gaza Strip, Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told reporters Monday.

“And this isn’t 11% of land that is fit for habitation, fit for services, fit for life, really,” Rose said in a briefing from Gaza,

He said it’s precisely in this environment with lack of access to aid, services, water and health care that polio has recently reemerged in Gaza, “with a small number of cases that could spread very rapidly.”

Rose said a U.N. campaign to vaccinate 95% of children under the age of 10 is scheduled to start on Saturday and involves over 3,000 people, including 1,000 from UNRWA, the largest primary health care provider in the Gaza Strip.

He expressed hope that humanitarian pauses needed for the campaign will be heeded by Israel, Hamas and other militants.

A senior U.N. official said Israel’s latest evacuation order on Sunday included the U.N. operations center in Deir al-Balah, which was forced to close on short notice. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the U.N. has been in contact with Israel about the latest order and improving humanitarian operations.

Rose said UNRWA services are continuing with national staff, estimating that 15,000 Palestinians received health services across Gaza on Monday.

But he stressed that the ability of the U.N. humanitarian system to operate in Gaza “is becoming increasingly difficult.”

He said an estimated one million Palestinians a month aren’t getting the food they desperately need because of obstacles at crossing points, with only about 100 trucks with aid getting into Gaza every day instead of the 500 needed.