The head of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, November 6, to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and “respect for international humanitarian law,” he announced on France 2. This trip comes as Israel continues its air raids and its ground offensive in Lebanon, against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement. The IDF also claimed to have struck Hezbollah intelligence targets in Syria on Monday. At the same time, the war is still raging in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas accuses Israel of having struck a hospital in an indiscriminate manner. The UN will meet on Wednesday to discuss the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the territory, after Israel banned UNRWA activities.
Information to remember
⇒ Pro-Iranian Iraqi groups claim drone attack on southern Israel
⇒ New Israeli attacks on Gaza, Lebanon and Syria
⇒ The head of French diplomacy will travel to the Middle East on Wednesday to request a ceasefire
1:35 p.m.
Lebanon: strike on apartment building south of Beirut
A raid targeted this Tuesday a residential building in the coastal town of Jiyeh, about twenty kilometers south of the Lebanese capital, reported the official Lebanese agency Ani, while Israel is in open war against Hezbollah for over a month. “A strike targeted an apartment in a building in the town of Jiyeh,” Ani said. An AFP correspondent reported seeing thick smoke rising from the center of the town, at the location of the strike.
12:15 p.m.
Gaza: 13 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes according to Civil Defense
At least 13 Palestinians, including displaced people, were killed by nighttime Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip devastated by more than a year of war, Civil Defense in the besieged Palestinian territory said Tuesday.
Of the 13 people killed, four died when an Israeli strike hit a family home in the east of Gaza City (north), Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP. Three other people were killed and several injured when a tent sheltering displaced people was hit by another Israeli strike in the east of the town of Khan Younes (south), according to Mahmoud Bassal. In Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Bassal reported at least four deaths after a tent was hit by an Israeli raid overnight. Finally, the Civil Defense spokesperson reported two people killed by other Israeli airstrikes.
10:40 a.m.
Iran does not “seek” escalation but “has the right to self-defense”
Iran does not “seek” escalation but “has the right to self-defense”, the head of Iranian diplomacy said on Tuesday from Pakistan regarding a possible response to the Israeli strikes of October 26 against Iran. . “Unlike Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not seek escalation but we reserve our inalienable right to self-defense,” Abbas Araghchi said at a press conference alongside his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar in Islamabad. “We will respond, for sure, to Israeli aggression, in a timely and appropriate manner, in a very measured and well-calculated manner,” he continued.
10:00 a.m.
Iraq: pro-Iranian groups claim drone attack on southern Israel
The “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, a coalition of pro-Iranian armed groups, claimed responsibility in a press release for a drone attack carried out on Tuesday against a “vital target” in southern Israel. Fighters of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” announced that they had carried out a “drone attack on a vital target in the south” of Israel, ensuring that it was the sixth attack of its kind on Tuesday alone . Without identifying the origin of the shot, the Israeli army had indicated earlier that it had intercepted a drone in the Dead Sea region.
08:45
The head of French diplomacy in the Middle East on Wednesday
The head of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and “respect for international humanitarian law”, he announced on France 2. “France’s vocation is to carry messages and that is why I will go tomorrow evening to Israel and the Palestinian territories to meet the authorities, humanitarian actors, to carry the voice of France in this region where the war has has already lasted far too long,” declared Jean-Noël Barrot. The head of diplomacy went there on the occasion of the first anniversary of October 7.
07:00
New Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon and Syria
On its northern front, Israel carried out new air raids on southern Lebanon on Monday, where its troops have also been engaged on the ground since September 30. The Israeli army launched a massive bombing campaign against pro-Iranian Hezbollah on September 23. The latter, however, continues these attacks, and said on Monday that he had launched a salvo of rockets on Safed.
The Israeli army also claimed on Monday to have struck Hezbollah intelligence targets for Syria in Damascus. The raid killed two Hezbollah fighters according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
06:50
Blinken deplores Hamas’s rejection of temporary ceasefire in Gaza
In a phone call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “noted that Hamas had once again refused to release even a limited number of hostages to secure a ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza,” according to a State Department statement. Hamas said Friday that it had refused to study a proposal for a short truce in the Gaza Strip from mediating countries because it did not include a permanent ceasefire.
The movement also claimed Monday that it had spoken with its rival Fatah in Cairo about the war in Gaza and efforts to reach a Palestinian national consensus.
06:40
The UN will hold a session on UNRWA on Wednesday
The UN General Assembly is due to hold a session tomorrow on the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), a week after the Israeli Parliament passed a law banning the activities of the agency, ending an agreement dating back to 1967 with the United Nations. UNRWA has for decades provided essential assistance in the Palestinian territories – education, health, social services, food and cash assistance.
“If the law is implemented, it risks causing the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in Gaza, of which UNRWA is the backbone,” warned Jonathan Fowler, a spokesperson for the agency. “There is simply no alternative to UNRWA,” reacted on X Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for whom the ban “will not make Israel more secure” but will “only increase the suffering” of the Palestinians. Israel told the UN that the ban on the agency will come into force after “a period of three months”. For Hamas, Israel’s decision “is an attempt to deny refugees the right to return to their homes.”
06:30
Israel accused of bombing hospital in northern Gaza
The Hamas Ministry of Health on Monday accused the Israeli army of “bombing and destroying” the Kamal Adwan hospital, the only one still operating in the north of the Gaza Strip, reporting “many injuries among the medical staff and patients. The Israeli army said it was verifying this information. It had previously indicated “operating against the infrastructure and terrorist agents in the north and center” of the Palestinian territory, a sector where it launched an offensive on October 6, claiming to want to overcome units of the Palestinian Islamist movement.
The director of the establishment, located in Beit Lahia, Houssam Abou Safia, described a “catastrophic” situation after strikes without prior warning. “The third floor of the facility was reportedly hit again, injuring six children,” World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.