Pope Francis has suggested the global community should study whether Israel’s military campaign in Gaza constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people, in some of his most explicit criticism yet of Israel’s conduct in its year-long war.
The Israeli military issued call-up notices to more members of the ultra-Orthodox community on Sunday to bolster its forces as it fights on its southern and northern borders, a move that may further inflame tensions between religious and secular Israelis.
Hezbollah media head killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
An Israeli strike on a building in central Beirut on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, though there was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.
Israel has rarely hit senior Hezbollah personnel who do not have clear military roles, and its air strikes have mostly targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has its heaviest presence.
The Israeli military declined to comment in response to questions from Reuters. An Israeli military spokesperson’s account on the social media platform X which often publishes evacuation orders for areas about to be bombed showed no such warning before this strike.
Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire for more than a year, since the Iran-backed group began launching rockets at Israeli military targets on 8 October 2023, a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas carried out a deadly attack on southern Israel.
In late September, Israel dramatically expanded its military campaign in Lebanon, heavily bombing the south and east and the southern suburbs of Beirut alongside ground incursions along the border.
In addition to targeting Hezbollah, the escalation has killed several soldiers of the Lebanese military, including two who died on Sunday when Israel attacked an army post in the southern town of Al-Mari, the Lebanese army said on X. Two other soldiers were wounded, it said.
The strike on Beirut hit the Ras al-Nabaa neighbourhood, where many people displaced from the southern suburbs by Israeli bombardment had sought refuge.
The security sources said a building housing offices of the Ba’ath Party had been hit, and the head of the party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif had been in the building.
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, another political party with ties to Hezbollah, said in a statement that Afif had been killed, but gave no details of how or where. The Lebanese health ministry said the strike had killed one and injured three.
Ambulances could be heard rushing to the scene, and guns were fired to prevent crowds from approaching.
The broadcaster later also said Afif had been killed. It showed footage of a building whose upper floors had collapsed on to the first storey, with civil defence workers at the scene.
Afif was a long-time media adviser to Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut on 27 September.
He managed Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station for several years before taking over the group’s media office.
Afif hosted several press conferences for journalists amid the rubble in Beirut’s southern suburbs. In his most recent comments to reporters on 11 November, he said Israeli troops had been unable to hold any territory in Lebanon, and that Hezbollah had enough weapons and supplies to fight a long war.
Pope Francis suggests international study into possible genocide in Gaza
Pope Francis has suggested the global community should study whether Israel’s military campaign in Gaza constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people, in some of his most explicit criticism yet of Israel’s conduct in its year-long war.
In excerpts published on Sunday from a forthcoming book, the pontiff said some international experts say that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide”.
“We should investigate carefully to assess whether this fits into the technical definition [of genocide] formulated by international jurists and organisations,” said the pope in the excerpts, published by the Italian daily La Stampa.
Last December, South Africa filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice for allegedly violating the Genocide Convention. In January, the judges at the court ordered Israel to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts. The court has not yet ruled on the core of the case — whether genocide has occurred in Gaza.
Israel says accusations of genocide in its Gaza campaign are baseless and that it is solely hunting down Hamas and other armed groups.
“Following today’s report in Vatican News: There was a genocidal massacre on 7 October 2023 of Israeli citizens, and since then, Israel has exercised its right of self-defence against attempts from seven different fronts to kill its citizens,” said Yaron Sideman, ambassador to the Holy See.
“Any attempt to call it by any other name is singling out the Jewish state,” he posted on social media.
The Vatican did not offer comment about Francis’ most recent remarks, but its news website reported on Sunday about the book excerpts, including the genocide comment.
Francis, leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church, is usually careful not to take sides in international conflicts, and to stress de-escalation. But he has stepped up his criticism of Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas recently.
In September, he decried the deaths of Palestinian children in Israeli strikes in Gaza. He also sharply criticised Israel’s air strikes in Lebanon as going “beyond morality”.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after the Hamas-led assault on southern Israeli communities on 7 October 2023. Some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage that day, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s ground and air offensive has since killed more than 43,800 people in the enclave, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israel sends draft orders to more ultra-Orthodox
The Israeli military issued call-up notices to more members of the ultra-Orthodox community on Sunday to bolster its forces as it fights on its southern and northern borders, a move that may further inflame tensions between religious and secular Israelis.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that the defence ministry could no longer grant blanket exemptions to Jewish seminary students from the conscript military, an arrangement in place since around the time of Israel’s establishment in 1948 when the number of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, was tiny.
As Israel fights wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel’s defence ministry said on Friday that 7,000 members of the community would gradually receive notices, starting on Sunday.
A statement from the defence ministry said it would work with community leaders to ensure ultra-Orthodox soldiers could preserve their religious lifestyles while serving.
In July, the military called up 1,000 ultra-Orthodox men. The new policy shift has been opposed by the two religious parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, placing severe strains on the right-wing coalition.
Leaders of the rapidly growing ultra-Orthodox community say that forcing seminary students to serve alongside secular Israelis including women risks destroying their identity as religious Jews.
The government faces increasing pressure from Israeli reservists, of which many have served for the majority of the past year, to draft ultra-Orthodox members.
Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, reported on Sunday that some rabbis were urging those who received notices to refuse.
Dozens killed and wounded in Israeli strikes across Gaza
Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured in an Israeli strike on a multistorey residential building housing at least six families in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya town on Sunday, said medics and residents.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency said about 70 people were living in the property, but the Gaza government media office put the number of those killed at 72.
The Israeli military, which has been fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, said several strikes were conducted overnight on “terrorist targets” in Beit Lahiya with everything possible done to avoid civilian harm.
“All information released by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health should be treated with caution, as it has been repeatedly proven unreliable in previous incidents,” it said.
Video footage of the strike site obtained by Reuters showed locals pulling bodies from a huge pile of rubble, with surrounding houses also damaged, some heavily.
The Israeli army sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, last month in what it said was a campaign to fight Hamas militants waging attacks and prevent them from regrouping.
It said it had killed hundreds of militants in those three areas, which residents said Israeli forces had isolated from Gaza City.
A statement by the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, on Sunday said fighters blew up an Israeli army vehicle during fighting in Beit Lahiya. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the claim.
Later on Sunday, an Israeli strike killed five Palestinians tasked with escorting aid trucks that entered the enclave, according to residents in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Another strike in Gaza City killed two men, they added.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli air strike killed at least 10 people in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip, when a missile hit a house, said medics. Four other people were killed in the nearby Nuseirat camp, they added.
Qatar has told Hamas and Israel it will stall efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until they show “willingness and seriousness” to resume talks.
The two warring sides continue to trade blame. Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.
Israel economy rebounds with 3.8% growth in Q3
Israel’s economy grew more than expected in the third quarter, bouncing back somewhat from a weak spell since the start of the war in Gaza with Hamas last October.
The Central Bureau of Statistics said in an initial estimate on Sunday that gross domestic product grew by an annualised 3.8% in the July to September period, above a 2.9% consensus in a Reuters poll. On a per capita basis, GDP gained 2.6% in the quarter.
Overall growth was led by gains in consumer spending, which rose by 8.6%, a 21.8% jump in investment in fixed assets — especially in residential building — and a 1.7% rise in exports, offsetting a 10.8% drop in government spending.
As a result, the GDP of the business sector alone grew by 5.4% last quarter.
Second-quarter GDP growth was confirmed at 0.3% annualised.
Figures issued on Friday showed Israel’s inflation rate held steady at 3.5% in September but stayed above the government’s annual inflation target of 1-3%.
Government officials have largely blamed war-related supply issues for the spike in inflation at a time when inflation is largely easing globally.
Six people killed, 11 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Baalbek
Israeli airstrikes on the village of Khreibeh in the Baalbek district of eastern Lebanon killed six people on Saturday, including three children, and injured 11 others, said the Lebanese health ministry.
Among the injured were five children, two of whom were in critical condition, said the ministry.
Strikes earlier on Saturday killed two medics in south Lebanon, including one in Borj Rahal and another in Kfartebnit, and injured four other rescue workers, with two still missing, said the ministry.
Israeli airstrikes also targeted areas of the southern suburbs of Beirut controlled by the Iran-backed group Hezbollah for a fifth consecutive day, with at least 15 strikes on Saturday, according to two security sources.
The Israeli military said the attacks were directed at Hezbollah infrastructure, including a weapons storage facility and a command centre.
A soldier was killed during combat in southern Lebanon, said the Israeli military on Saturday.
Lebanon’s health ministry says Israeli attacks had killed at least 3,452 people, by the end of Friday, since 7 October 2023, most since late September. It does not distinguish between civilian casualties and fighters.
Israel says Hezbollah attacks have killed about 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon over the past year.
Two flash bombs fired into garden of Netanyahu’s home
Two flash bombs were fired towards Netanyahu’s home in the northern Israeli town of Caesarea on Saturday and fell into the garden, police said.
Neither Netanyahu nor his family were present and there was no damage reported, police said.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the incident crossed “all red lines” in a post on X early on Sunday.
“It is not possible for the Prime Minister of Israel, who is threatened by Iran and its proxies who are trying to assassinate him, to be subject to the same threats from home,” said Katz.
He also called on security and judicial agencies to take the necessary steps.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog condemned the incident in a post on X and said an investigation was under way.
“The incitement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crosses all boundaries. Throwing a flash bomb into his house tonight is crossing another red line,” said Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on X.
In October, a drone was launched towards the premier’s home in Caesarea, without causing any harm.
Israeli strike kills 10 at Gaza school sheltering displaced families
An Israeli strike killed 10 Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others on Saturday at a school in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp sheltering displaced families, said medics on Saturday.
The UN-run Abu Assi school, where rescue operations were ongoing, may still have people trapped under the rubble, said health officials. There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials.
The Israeli military reported later on Saturday that two rockets fired at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip had been intercepted.
The launches show the ability of Palestinian militant groups to fire rockets into Israel despite more than 13 months of an aerial and ground offensive that turned vast areas in the enclave into wasteland and displaced most of the 2.3 million population.
Palestinian health officials said at least 30 people had been killed by Israeli military strikes across the enclave on Saturday. DM
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