Rocket fire from Lebanon kills 7 in Israel as US officials try to push for ceasefire

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Four foreign workers and three Israelis were killed Thursday by rocket fire from Lebanon into northern Israel, Israeli medics said. Israel continued airstrikes targeting Hezbollah militants across Lebanon, where health authorities reported 24 deaths on Thursday.

US diplomats were in the region insisting on a ceasefire in both Lebanon and Gazahoping to relax wars in the Middle East as the Biden administration enters its final months. The pressure was building up ahead elections in the USA next week

In northern Gaza, Israeli forces struck one of the last functioning hospitals, destroying much-needed supplies that the World Health Organization delivered to the facility, the UN agency reports. The strikes caused a fire that affected the dialysis unit, destroyed water tanks, damaged the surgery building and injured four medics who tried to put out the fire, said hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.

Israel’s military did not respond to a request for comment on the strike on a hospital it stormed last week after it said it was harboring Hamas militants. The Gaza Ministry of Health on Thursday condemned the Israeli attacks on the hospital and called on the international community to protect medical facilities in Gaza.

Israel was hit by deadly missile strikes one after another

Shells from Lebanon fell on agricultural land in Metula, Israel’s northernmost city, killing four Thai workers and an Israeli farmer, officials said.

Hours later, the Israeli military reported another volley of about 25 rockets from Lebanon hit an olive grove on the outskirts of the northern Israeli port city of Haifa. A 30-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman were killed in the attack, and two others were injured, Magen David Adom, Israel’s main emergency medical organization, said.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by Iran, Israel’s regional adversary. Hezbollah did not immediately claim responsibility for Thursday’s rocket fire. The Israeli military said 90 shells were fired from Lebanon on Thursday.

Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, drones and missiles at Israel — and retaliated against Israel — since a Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, triggered Israel’s devastating war in the Palestinian enclave.

The residents of Metula were evacuated in October 2023, and only security personnel and agricultural workers remained.

In addition to the four dead Thais, another Thai farm worker was injured in the rocket fire, Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa said on social media on Friday. Maris called on all parties to return to the path of peace in the name of the civilian population affected by the ongoing conflict.

The Refugee and Migrant Hotline, an Israeli organization that protects foreign workers, said authorities had put them at risk by allowing them to work along the border without adequate protection.

The agricultural areas near the Israeli border are closed military zones, which can only be entered with official permission. For the few remaining residents, daily life is punctuated by the thud of intercepts from Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and the wail of air raid sirens.

Still, local officials largely support the continuation of the ground operation in southern Lebanon.

“If the Israeli government joins the deal made (by the Biden administration) … we will not have it, because for us it is again the rehabilitation of Hezbollah on our borders,” said Eitan Davidi, mayor of the northern city of Margaliot.

Israel bombs Lebanon after warning to evacuate

Israeli strikes killed 24 people in Lebanon on Thursday, including 13 in the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported, a day after the Israeli military warned residents to evacuate.

The warnings sent thousands fleeing and caused panic in the city known for its colossal Roman ruins.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that 45 people were killed and 110 injured in the last 24 hours as a result of Israeli bombings in various parts of the country.

Jean Fakhri, a local official in the Deir al-Ahmar region of the Bekaa Valley, said Israeli airstrikes pounding the area had turned the main thoroughfare into a “parking lot” of fleeing cars stuck in traffic.

According to him, about 12,000 displaced persons are in the area, most of them have taken shelter in private houses. Families with luggage were still arriving at one of the shelters in Deir el-Ahmar on Thursday.

“Our houses were destroyed,” said Zahraa Younis from a village near Baalbek. “We came with nothing—no clothes, nothing else.”

US officials are in the region seeking a ceasefire

Senior White House aides Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein were in Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials on the conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah.

The meetings focused on efforts to reach a cease-fire agreement in Lebanon and evaluating new proposals put forward by mediators for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, according to a U.S. official familiar with the planning of the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not have the right to comment publicly. The meetings were attended by Netanyahu, as well as Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister; David Barnea, director of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence; and other officials.

But after Tuesday’s U.S. election, hopes for immediate progress appeared remote — especially in Gaza, where Israel has come under fire for not allowing more humanitarian aid into the besieged north.

The number of dead from more than a year The war in Gaza surpassed 43,000 earlier this week, Palestinian health officials said.

Awda Hospital in central Gaza said late Thursday that it had received the bodies of 16 people killed in an Israeli bombardment of two houses in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The hospital reported that more than 30 people, including a doctor and two journalists, were injured.

Over the past year, Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon has killed 2,865 people, wounded more than 13,000 and devastated Lebanese towns near the border.

About 1.2 million people in Lebanon have been displaced since Israel escalated the conflict into full-scale war last month when it began a wave of powerful airstrikes who killed the main leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallahand most of his deputies.

A year of Hezbollah rocket attacks also forced 60,000 Israelis to evacuate border areas.

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Frankel reported from Jerusalem and Tawil from Deir al-Ahmar, Lebanon. Associated Press writers Aamer Madani and Matthew Lee in Washington and Eleanor H. Reich in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war