Israel-Hamas war: Forces ‘kill’ two Palestinian teens in West Bank; bomb Hezbollah targets in Lebanon
Three Palestinians, including two teenagers, were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday, Palestinian official news agency WAFA said, while the military said it attacked Hezbollah targets in the border area with Lebanon.
Protesters staged anti-Israel rallies around the Middle East on Wednesday, some of them turning violent, to voice rage at an explosion that killed hundreds of Palestinians at a hospital in the deadliest incident inside Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.
US President Joe Biden said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to allow a first batch of around 20 humanitarian aid trucks through.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel on Thursday before heading to other countries in the region in an effort to deescalate the Israel-Gaza conflict, his office has said.
Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for Tuesday’s explosion in northern Gaza. Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the latest flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israel is preparing a ground assault in the Gaza Strip in response to a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on October 7.
Israeli forces have carried out their fiercest bombardment of Gaza in response, killing more than 3,000 Palestinians and imposing a total siege on the blockaded enclave that Hamas controls, fuelling anger among Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israel-Hamas war: Latest updates on October 19:
Among the targets on Hezbollah was a military observation post from which a guided anti-tank missile was fired toward the northern town of Rosh Hanikra on Wednesday, the Israel military said. The Israel Defence Forces added that the strikes were carried out in response to shooting incidents in Israel over the past day.
Israeli forces stormed the village of Budrus, west of Ramallah, shooting dead a young man, Gebriel Awad, and wounding another, WAFA said. In other incidents, a 14-year-old was killed by a bullet wound in the head in a refugee camp south of Bethlehem and a 16-year-old succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the town of Tulkarm, the news agency added. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
The first 20 trucks will be a test of a system for distributing aid without allowing the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas, which controls Gaza, to benefit, Biden said. The United Nations is set to distribute aid on the Gaza side of the border. “If Hamas confiscates it or doesn’t let it get through or just confiscates it, then it’s going to end, because we’re not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas if they’re going to be confiscating it. That’s the commitment that I’ve made,” Biden said. He added that the 20 trucks represented a “first tranche,” but “150 or something” trucks are waiting in total. Whether the rest are allowed to cross will depend on “how it goes.”
In Lebanon, security forces fired tear gas and water canon at protesters who were throwing projectiles as a protest near the US Embassy north of Beirut turned violent, footage by Lebanese broadcaster al-Jadeed showed. “America is the devil, the real devil, because it supported Israel, and then all the world is blind. You don’t see what happened yesterday?” said Lebanese demonstrator Mohammed Taher.
On his visit to Israel, Sunak will stress the international community must “not let Hamas’ barbaric terrorism and disregard for human life become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region”, a statement said.
Expected in Israel early on Thursday morning, Sunak is due to meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.