Gaza live: Several dead including Hezbollah commander after Israeli strike on southern Beirut

On Thursday The New York Times, citing US officials, reported that Israel conducted a commando raid in Syria on Sunday, targeting and destroying a Hezbollah missile production facility.

Israeli forces landed at the site, seizing materials from the facility as part of the operation, which required ground troops to gather crucial intelligence. No Israeli soldiers were harmed during the mission.

Syria’s state news agency, Sana, reported on Monday that at least 18 people were killed and dozens more wounded.

The operation also involved air strikes on a scientific research centre near Masyaf, Syria.

According to the NYT report, Israel informed senior US officials, including the commander of US Central Command, prior to the mission.

The facility was reportedly producing precision-guided missiles for Hezbollah, and Israeli officials believed an air strike alone would not suffice to destroy the site.

United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres has called for an end to the violence in Gaza following a deadly attack on a UN shelter housing thousands of displaced civilians.

“The secretary-general calls on all parties to avoid using schools, shelters, and surrounding areas for military purposes. All parties involved in the conflict are obliged to adhere to international humanitarian law at all times,” said Guterres' spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric.

“The secretary-general renews his call for an immediate ceasefire and for the unconditional release of all hostages in Gaza. This horrific violence must stop."

Israeli forces have withdrawn from the city of Tubas in the occupied West Bank following a 42-hour assault.

The raid resulted in the deaths of four people from Tubas, one person from Far’a camp, and another from the town of Tamoun.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), achieved a significant victory in Jordan’s historic parliamentary elections this week, winning the most votes while falling short of a majority.

For the first time in the country’s history, voting was conducted using a proportional representation system, after years of criticism of the “one-man one-vote” structure, seen to favour tribal affiliations over political parties.

The IAF won 31 out of 138 seats in the Jordanian parliament, tripling its representation from the 2020 elections. 

This marks the largest victory for Islamists in the country since 1989, when the Muslim Brotherhood gained 22 out of 80 seats in parliament.

Murad al-Adaileh, the IAF’s secretary general, told Middle East Eye that his party’s success was a result of both its performance in the previous parliament and its pro-Palestinian stance amid Israel’s war on Gaza.

Read more: How Jordan's elections sent a message of defiance to Israel 

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported that at least three people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the village of Kafr Jouz, located in southern Lebanon's Nabatieh region.

The attack targeted two motorcycles, and a passing vehicle was also hit, according to NNA. Additionally, at least three others were injured in the strike.

Israeli Channel Kan reported that the chief of staff of the Israeli army, General Herzi Halevi, will announce his resignation in December. His decision comes in the aftermath of the events of 7 October, which were seen as a significant failure under his leadership.

An investigation conducted by The Washington Post has raised new doubts about Israel’s claim that US-Turkish activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was killed “during a violent riot” in Beita, Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.

According to the report, Eygi was shot more than a half-hour after the height of violence between Israeli soldiers and protestors - and 20 minutes after protesters had moved further down the road. The report also confirmed that Eygi was more than 200 yards away from Israeli soldiers when she was shot in the head.

The Washington Post spoke with 13 eyewitnesses and Beita residents and reviewed more than 50 videos and photos provided by the International Solidarity Movement, which Eygi volunteered with in the occupied West Bank. 

One volunteer the Post spoke to said that she and Eygi had explicitly decided beforehand they did not want to be "near any action".  

The report corroborates testimony previously provided to Middle East Eye by witnesses on the ground.

Read more: US activist was not near 'violent riot' when killed by Israeli fire: Report

Israel said that the Hamas "Rafah Brigade" has been severely weakened after nearly six months of military operations.

The Times of Israel reported that Israel killed at least 2,308 Palestinians, whom the military claims are fighters. Israel often does not differentiate between fighters and civilians, and its claims about targeting Hamas members have rarely been supported by concrete evidence.

Israeli military officials in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, said that over 13 kilometres of tunnels had been destroyed.

"The Rafah Brigade has been defeated. Their four battalions have been destroyed, and we now have full operational control over the urban area," the Israeli military claimed.

Israeli combat engineers discovered 203 separate, interconnected tunnels in the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs from the Egyptian border to 300 meters outside Rafah. Contrary to Israel’s previous statements, no tunnels crossing from Gaza into Egypt have been found.

The UN Trade and Development Agency (UNCTAD) has warned of severe economic devastation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, following Israel’s military actions.

The report highlights the destruction of up to 96 percent of Gaza's agricultural assets and damage to 82 percent of its businesses, leading to a dramatic reduction in economic output by mid-2024, shrinking to less than one-sixth of its 2022 level.

The West Bank, which had been showing signs of economic improvement, saw a sharp decline after 7 Octobe, with 96 percent of businesses reporting reduced activity and over 42 percent cutting their workforce.

Poverty is now widespread in Gaza and is rising rapidly in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that four Palestinians were shot and wounded by Israeli forces in the town of Tamoun, located south of Tubas in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces killed at least five Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas on Wednesday, as it continued mass raids across the territory, including by detaining emergency service workers in Tulkarm. 

The five men were killed in an Israeli air strike at dawn near al-Tawhid mosque in Tubas.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it received the bodies after Israeli authorities initially prevented ambulances from reaching the site. 

Wafa news agency identified the killed men as Mohammad Sawafta ,19; Majd Sawafta, 23; Qais Sawafta, 24; Yassin Sawafta, 22; and Talaba Basharat, 18.

The air strike came during a wider Israeli operation in the outskirts and neighbourhoods of Tubas, including the use of reconnaissance planes and military helicopters. The raid involved a siege on the Turkish government hospital, with roads surrounding the medical facility being blocked off. 

Read more: Israeli army kills Palestinians and detains medics in fresh West Bank raids

Gaza's economy has shrunk to less than a sixth of its pre-war size, while unemployment in the occupied West Bank has nearly tripled, according to a UN report published on Thursday. 

The report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said the Palestinian Authority (PA) is under "immense pressure" in the West Bank, jeopardising its ability to function.

In addition to the economic slowdown caused by the war, the PA is also struggling with reduced international aid and tax revenues withheld by Israel, totalling more than $1.4bn since 2019, the report stated.

UNCTAD called for "immediate and substantial intervention by the international community to halt the economic freefall, address the humanitarian crisis and lay the groundwork for lasting peace and development".

Over 300,000 jobs have been lost in the West Bank since the war began, pushing the unemployment rate up from 12.9 percent to 32 percent, according to the report.

In July John Woodcock, a UK government adviser on political violence, wrote to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warning of a potentially deadly new threat to MPs.

Writing on 13 July in the wake of the victory of four independent MP in that month’s general election, Woodcock (a former Labour MP who now sits as an independent peer in the House of Lords under the title Lord Walney) said there was a “concerted campaign by extremists to create a hostile atmosphere for MPs within their constituencies to compel them to cave into political demands”.

To drive home the gravity of the problem Woodcock added that the “conduct of the election campaign in many communities has underlined the gravity of the threat to our democracy”.

In an interview with the Guardian the next day Woodcock went further, identifying a particular pattern of abuse “created by aggressive pro-Palestine activists”.

Middle East Eye has analysed the dossier. 

A close examination of its contents raises many questions about the methodology, and indeed the elementary competence, of the government adviser on political violence. 

Read more: Lord Walney's UK election abuse dossier blaming pro-Palestine protesters, examined

At least four civilians were killed after an Israeli air strike hit a home in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Thursday, Wafa news agency reported. 

Two of those killed were brothers. Several others were wounded by the strike in eastern Khan Younis, Wafa added. 

The death toll in Gaza since 7 October rose to 41,118 on Thursday, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, has expressed "outrage" at an Israeli attack on a school in central Gaza which killed 18 people, including six UN workers. 

"Outraged by the killing of 6 @UNRWA staffers," he wrote on X, adding: "The disregard of the basic principles of IHL, especially protection of civilians, cannot & should not be accepted by the int. community." 

Outraged by the killing of 6 @UNRWA staffers after IL strikes hit - for the 5th time - a school in Nuseirat sheltering 12,000 displaced people

The disregard of the basic principles of IHL, especially protection of civilians, cannot & should not be accepted by the int. community.

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) September 12, 2024