Live: Over 200 Lebanese children killed in two months of Israeli attacks

With President-elect Donald Trump and his team poised to take office in January 2025, there is much speculation about how they intend to address the mounting strategic challenges in the Middle East. These include the ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon, the frozen normalisation process between Israel and some Arab countries and the heated hostility with Iran.

A close examination of US foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere suggests that any change will likely be incremental rather than transformational.

American foreign policy has always been driven by a combination of values and perceived national interests. The second Trump administration, like the first, is likely to prioritise the latter over the former. It is certain to be more assertive in pursuing what the political elite in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans, perceive as key US national security objectives.

First, since the creation of Israel in 1948, the US has provided approximately $160bn in foreign aid and strong diplomatic support. This ironclad informal alliance has been a constant in US foreign policy regardless of who occupies the White House or which political party controls the Congress.

Officially, Washington, like the rest of the world, endorses a two-state solution. But for many years, settlers and right-wing politicians in Israel have expanded settlements and, in the process, have undermined the foundations of a viable Palestinian state. 

Second, in the closing months of the first Trump administration, the president and his team succeeded in getting the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalise relations with Israel (Abraham accords). Morocco and Sudan joined the process as well.

The Biden administration followed a similar strategy and sought, unsuccessfully, to incentivise Saudi Arabia to follow suit. 

Opinion:  Trump beware: Enabling Israel to impose its will on Middle East will backfire by Gawdat Bahgat

The United States wants real and extended pauses in fighting in Gaza so assistance can get to people who need it, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Wednesday.

Reporting by Reuters

Living in Hebron’s Old City, Imad Abu Shamsiyeh has long suffered from humiliating Israeli checkpoints, movement restrictions and settler harassment. 

Access to his house in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood, which is adjacent to settlements and settler-only roads, has been severely restricted for years. 

But earlier this week, Israeli forces took things a step further. They placed barbed wire between his home and his neighbour's, blocking the last route he and others took to avoid running into the soldiers. 

“Every house has been turned into a prison,” Abu Shamsiyeh, 54, told Middle East Eye. 

Since the Israeli war on Gaza began last year, the military has been imposing severe restrictions on movements across the occupied West Bank, including Hebron, the only Palestinian city alongside Jerusalem where Israeli settlers reside in the Old City.

For decades, this has meant direct Israeli control over parts of Hebron’s Old City, where nearly 35,000 Palestinians and some 800 settlers live. 

The settlers are provided with protection by the soldiers, designated segregated roads and given full freedom of movement. 

On the other hand, the Palestinians are forced to go through 28 checkpoints and dozens of military barriers, often being subjected to humiliating and long searches, sexual harassment and even arrest without cause.  

“Women and children are arrested at checkpoints and mistreated,” said Abu Shamsiyeh.

Read more: ‘We live in cages’: Growing Israeli restrictions trap Palestinians in Hebron's Old City 

Russia has asked Israel to avoid launching aerial strikes near one of Moscow's bases in Syria, a top official said on Wednesday.

Syrian state media in mid-October reported that Israel had struck the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia and in turn backs Hezbollah.

Latakia, and in particular its airport, is close to the town of Hmeimim that hosts a Russian airbase.

"Israel actually carried out an air strike in the immediate vicinity of Hmeimim," Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy in the Near East, told the RIA Novosti press agency.

"Our military has of course notified Israeli authorities that such acts that put Russian military lives in danger over there are unacceptable," he added.

"That is why we hope that this incident in October will not be repeated."

Reporting by AFP

A retired NHS surgeon who recently returned from working at a hospital in Gaza said he treated children "day after day after day" who had been deliberately targeted by Israeli drones following bomb attacks.

In harrowing testimony to British MPs on Tuesday, Nizam Mamode said of all the conflicts he had worked in, including the genocide in Rwanda, he and other experienced colleagues in Gaza had "never seen anything on this scale ever."

He said at least once or twice daily, there were "mass casualty incidents," meaning that 10 to 20 people were killed and up to 40 seriously injured. He estimated that at least 60 percent of the people treated at these times were women and children.

"Drones would come down and pick off civilians, children," Mamode told members of the International Development Committee in a hearing focused on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. 

"This is not an occasional thing. This was day after day after day operating on children who would say, 'I was lying on the ground after a bomb dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me'."

Read more: Israeli drones shooting children in Gaza deliberately 'day after day', UK surgeon tells MPs 

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike killed at least six people on Wednesday in a densely packed area south of the capital Beirut.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Aramoun killed six people" and wounded 15 others, the ministry said, giving a preliminary toll, adding that "body parts were recovered from the site and their identities are being verified".

Reporting by AFP

The US military said on Tuesday it had conducted strikes against an Iranian-backed armed group's weapons storage facility in Syria.

"These strikes were in response to a rocket attack on US personnel at Patrol Base Shaddadi. There was no damage to US facilities and no injuries to US or partner forces during the attack," the US military said in a statement.

Reporting by Reuters 

Israeli forces have killed at least 2,000 civilians across the northern Gaza Strip in 38 days since the start of a new offensive there, seen as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians, the Gaza-based government media office said on Tuesday. 

Ismail al-Thawabtah, the directo-general of the office, said: "The continued Israeli aggression on the northern Gaza Strip for 38 days has resulted in the martyrdom of over 2,000 civilians, the majority of whom are children, women, and the elderly."

He reiterated his call for immediate intervention from the international community to stop the "war of genocide" being carried out against Palestinians, particularly in northern Gaza. 

He also placed responsibility for the ongoing violence in the United States, the United Kingdom and several European nations, accusing them of being complicit in the policies of "starvation and genocide."

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon, now in its 404th day:

• Israeli forces continued to pound various locations across the Gaza Strip, with heavy shelling reported in Gaza City and the besieged northern towns.

• The Palestinian civil defence said on Wednesday that Iyad Abu Khater, a football player for the Tuffah club, was killed in an Israeli bombing in northern Gaza. 

• Meanwhile, Israeli settlers torched Palestinian cars in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem overnight, as troops raided Jenin and clashed with local fighters. 

• In Lebanon, Israeli fighter jets heavily bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight, as the health ministry announced the killing of 32 people across the country on Tuesday. 

Our liveblog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are today's key developments:

-There are at least 63 known dead across Gaza as a result of Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday, and 28 known dead across Lebanon, authorities confirmed. 

-The US will not be taking any action to hold Israel accountable for not providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza despite a provision in US law that demands the halt of weapons transfers in such a case and a written US ultimatum to Israel, the State Department said on Tuesday.
“We want to see continued progress” and will “constantly assess” the conditions on the ground, deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.

-US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he is nominating former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for the ambassadorship to Israel. Huckabee is an ardent supporter of Israel and an evangelical Christian Zionist. Trump also chose real estate tycoon Steven Witcoff as his Special Envoy to the Middle East. 

-US President Joe Biden met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in the Oval Office on Tuesday, marking the fourth time these two leaders have met since Biden was elected. Biden reiterated that the US "commitment to Israel is ironclad" and that "first and foremost, we have to get the hostages back home" from Gaza. For his part, Herzog added: “It all starts in Tehran. It all starts in the empire of evil.”

-Hezbollah released a statement saying it sent a "swarm of drones" to attack an Israeli army logistics base, east of Nahariya in northern Israel. The group said it "achieved accurate hits". 

The Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed, citing its own sources, is reporting that US President Joe Biden's Middle East envoy Amos Hochstein will make no further visits to Lebanon or Israel "and will complete his mission by phone", suggesting the file is being handed over to the incoming Trump administration.

مصادر اميركية للجديد : لا زيارات لهوكستين حاليا سواء الى لبنان او اسرائيل وسوف يستكمل مهمته عبر دبلوماسية الهاتف

— Al Jadeed News (@ALJADEEDNEWS) November 12, 2024

US President-elect Donald Trump has announced his pick for the role of special envoy to the Middle East: real estate tycoon, Steven Witcoff. 

The 67-year-old New Yorker has long played golf with Trump at his Florida resort and donated at least $2m to Trump's re-election campaign. 

Israeli attacks killed at least 28 people in Lebanon on Tuesday, the Lebanese health ministry said. 

No longer are the air strikes largely confined to southern Lebanon.

Tuesday's attacks targeted the Nabatieh, Baalbek, and Mount Lebanon regions. On Monday, Israel also targeted coastal areas in nothern Lebanon near the Syrian border. 

Since the Israeli war on Gaza began in October 2023, New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has supported bills targeting pro-Palestinian student encampments that were erected this past spring in protest against the war, calling on their administrations to cut economic ties with Israel or companies they say support the war. 

Stefanik increased her name recognition in December 2023 after aggressively going after several university presidents during a hearing on antisemitism, which focused on the pro-Palestinian protests taking place on US campuses. Those protests were labelled as antisemitic by some US lawmakers, including Stefanik, on the basis that they were critical of Israel. Though there are not as many as in the spring, protests are ongoing. 

Stefanik repeatedly asserted during the hearings that the slogans "from the river to the sea" and "globalise the intifada" were tantamount to calls for genocide.

Read more: Trump chooses pro-Israel congresswoman as US ambassador to UN

US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he is nominating former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for the ambassadorship to Israel. Huckabee is an ardent supporter of Israel and an evangelical Christian Zionist. He is also father to former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has since assumed her father's former post.

Followers of Christian Zionism believe that modern Israel is a manifestation of Bible prophecies and that the US's fate is linked to it.

For the past few years, Mike Huckabee has primarily been seen in the US in late-night infomercials for sleep disorder drugs, among other products. 

"Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!" Trump wrote.