Live: Israel ramps up strikes on Gaza after Iran attack

Halima Abu Dayya thought she lived the worst day of her life when Zionist militias expelled her from her home during their ethnic cleansing campaign of Palestine in 1948, known to Palestinians as the Nakba. 

But that day turned out to be merely a glimpse of the hardships she endured during the ongoing Israeli campaign of bombardment, starvation and forced displacement in Gaza. Hardships that eventually led to her death in Gaza City, according to her family.

Middle East Eye spoke to the grandmother, a resident of Gaza City, in 2018, when she was 91. Then, she recalled her forced displacement from her home in Dayr Sunayd, a village in the Gaza subdistrict, as Zionist massacres and destruction of Palestinian towns paved the way for the creation of the state of Israel. 

“We were forced at gunpoint to get in cars that drove us to a place near the borders with Gaza, where we stayed for three days, and then were moved again to the Gaza Strip,” Abu Dayya told MEE at the time.

“I had three children and was pregnant when we were displaced. It was the hardest day of my entire life.”

Read more: ‘Twice witness to Nakba’: Gaza grandmother's story of survival and death in 1948 and 2024

We need to change the security situation. We need to be fully prepared for [ground] manoeuvres and action,” Major General Uri Gordon, the Israeli army’s northern front commander, recently told troops as he ordered them to prepare for a “new phase” of conflict in Lebanon.

The campaign so far has been an interconnected series of multi-domain attacks, with the aim of degrading Hezbollah’s resources as Israeli brigades remain engaged in two other offensives in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. 

Over the last 10 days, Israel believes it has inflicted significant damage on its strongest regional enemy: Hezbollah. 

On 17 and 18 September, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria, killing dozens and injuring thousands. Two days later, an Israeli air strike killed at least 45 people, including two top Hezbollah commanders, Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi.

Read more: Israel's war on Lebanon: Lethal tactics, no endgame

Over the past 72 hours, more than 30,000 people, primarily Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon due to ongoing clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, according to the UN refugee agency, Reuters reported on Friday.

Israeli military vehicles entered the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya early Friday morning, according to the Wafa news agency.

During the operation, Israeli forces targeted the Kafr Saba neighborhood, raiding a workshop and a food warehouse, where they destroyed its contents.

In separate incidents, Israeli forces also raided the villages of Safa and Kafr Nima, west of Ramallah. No arrests have been reported.

Israel's Channel 12 has reported that Moody's credit rating agency is expected to downgrade Israel's credit rating today, dealing a significant blow to the country's economy.

Last month, Moody's warned that a full-scale military conflict between Israel and either Hezbollah in Lebanon or Iran could have "credit implications" for Israeli debt issuers.

"We continue to assume that ongoing tensions will not escalate into a full-scale military conflict between the two sides or extend to include Iran, which will limit the immediate credit downside impact on the region," the agency stated.

Social media users around the world have showered praise on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri after she declined to accept an award on Wednesday from a New York City museum that fired employees for wearing keffiyehs, the black-and-white chequered scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.

The author was due to receive the Noguchi Museum's prestigious 2024 Isamu Noguchi Award, which recognises highly accomplished individuals who share Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s spirit of innovation, imagination and commitment to creativity. 

However, a statement emailed by the museum on Wednesday said that “Jhumpa Lahiri has chosen to withdraw her acceptance of the 2024 Isamu Noguchi Award in response to our updated dress code policy. We respect her perspective and understand that this policy may or may not align with everyone’s views.”

In August, the Noguchi Museum, which was founded almost 40 years ago by the artist Isamu Noguchi and is in the borough of Queens, fired three employees and announced they could not wear clothing or symbols that express overt political messages, slogans or symbols during office hours.

Read more: Author Jhumpa Lahiri praised for rejecting NYC museum award over keffiyeh ban

Japan has joined the list of countries urging its citizens to leave Lebanon as Israeli strikes intensify. 

“We’re currently assessing the safety of Japanese citizens living in Lebanon and urging them to exit the country while regular commercial flights are still operational,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi stated on Friday.

The Japanese government is also preparing to send military aircraft to Jordan, where they will remain on standby for the possible evacuation of Japanese citizens stranded in Lebanon, according to reports, including those from Kyodo News.

US magazine The Atlantic reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he does not personally care about what he referred to as the "Palestinian issue". 

During a visit to Saudi Arabia in January, Blinken and the crown prince discussed the prospect of normalisation with Israel amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. 

If a normalisation deal were to occur, the crown prince expressed a desire for calm in Gaza. 

According to The Atlantic, Blinken enquired whether the Saudis could tolerate Israel periodically reentering the territory to strike the besieged Gaza Strip. 

“They can come back in six months, a year, but not on the back end of my signing something like this,” Mohammed bin Salman responded. 

“Seventy percent of my population is younger than me,” the Saudi crown prince explained to Blinken. “For most of them, they never really knew much about the Palestinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.” 

A Saudi official described this account of the conversation as “incorrect”.

In public, at least, Mohammed bin Salman has stated that Saudi Arabia will not normalise relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. 

"The Kingdom will not cease its diligent efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital," he said at a recent annual address before the Shura Council in Riyadh. 

"We confirm that Saudi Arabia will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until that goal is achieved."

At least five Syrian soldiers died in an Israeli air strike that targeted a military site along the Syrian-Lebanese border early Friday morning, as reported by the Syrian state news agency Sana.

Nine family members were killed overnight in the southeastern town of Shebaa when an Israeli air raid struck the three-story house they were occupying, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Since Israeli strikes started last week, at least 700 people have been killed. 

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has announced its third strike on Israel, stating that it deployed drones targeting the occupied Golan Heights.

Previously, the militias reported firing a missile "at a vital target" in the occupied territories and utilising drones against another site in the Golan Heights.

The group emphasised that it "confirms the continuation of operations in pounding the strongholds of the enemies at an escalating pace."

There has been no immediate response from Israel regarding these claims.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called on Israel and Hezbollah to accept a 21-day ceasefire proposal introduced by several countries this week.

During her address at the UN General Assembly in New York, she stressed that a broader regional escalation would fail to deliver lasting security for anyone involved.

The ceasefire proposal is supported by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and various western nations, including the US, France, Canada, Germany, and Japan.

Baerbock acknowledged the disappointment surrounding the stalled ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, reiterating Germany's dedication to pursuing a peaceful solution that allows Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in two states.

Lebanon, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, has been invaded by Israel repeatedly since its southern neighbour was established in 1948.

Now, after a week of bombardment which has killed more than 650 people, the Israeli government and military are suggesting that a ground invasion of Lebanon is imminent.

Hezbollah, which was formed during Israel's 18-year occupation of Lebanon's south from 1982 until 2000, has repeatedly fired rockets into northern Israel since October 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians being bombarded in the Gaza Strip.

During the past few weeks, Israel has stepped up its operations against Hezbollah and Lebanon, including the widely reported detonation of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used in the country on 17 and 18 September that left at least 42 dead and thousands injured.

On Wednesday, Israel's General Herzi Halevi told soldiers that Israel’s air strikes on Lebanon were being conducted “to prepare the ground for your possible entry”.

Read more: Why did Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006 matter so much?

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan has emphasised the significance of a joint European and Arab initiative to create an international coalition aimed at establishing a Palestinian state. 

“We will not stand idly by in the face of Israel’s rejection of the two-state solution,” said Prince Faisal.

An 87-year-old French woman was killed in a “strong explosion” in southern Lebanon, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Thursday. The region has been heavily bombarded by Israel since Monday.

According to the ministry, “The building in which our countrywoman lived collapsed after a strong explosion that occurred nearby.”

Reuters reports that approximately 20,000 French nationals are registered as residents in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Health Ministry has reported over 700 deaths in Israeli attacks since Monday, with 92 fatalities in the last 24 hours alone.