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

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.

A group of resignees from the Biden administration have released a video demanding that the US president follow the law and restrict arms sales to Israel for its denial of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

This has been longstanding US law and was outlined in a letter from the US to Israel 29 days ago. But it has often been followed with waivers, allowing Israel to carry on with its actions, many of which are tantamount to genocide, according to the United Nations. 

Over the past year, officials resigned from across the Biden Administration in protest of the President's immoral, illegal, and harmful policies towards Gaza and Palestine/Israel more broadly.

Today, on the eve of the expiration of the letter Secretaries Blinken and Austin sent… pic.twitter.com/S1b0IfROuK

— Dr. Annelle Sheline (@AnnelleSheline) November 12, 2024

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. 

Herzog referred to the "sad news of the day", as he said that "two Israelis were murdered by rocket attacks from Lebanon in the northern town of Nahariya, a beautiful seashore town in the northern part of Israel."

“This is what we’re going through from Lebanon, Mr. President, and you know it all too well," Herzog continued. "We're fighting hard, we’re protecting our people….and I know that you're working very hard to make sure that this war will end and that will there will be, first and foremost security for the people, of Israel, as well as for the people in Lebanon.”

Herzog added: “It all starts in Tehran. It all starts in the empire of evil.”

Biden, as he has several times before, said one does not need to be a Jew to be a Zionist, to which Herzog responded: “I know you are, clearly a Zionist, Mr. President.”

Isaac Herzog is the brother of Michael Herzog, who has been serving as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States since November 2021.

The US State Department has released the readout of a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, in which they "reviewed steps that Israel has taken to improve the dire humanitarian situation inside Gaza."

The meeting, which took place on Monday in Washington, was timed for the 30-day deadline of the letter sent by the US to Israel on 13 October. It issued an ultimatum regarding the provision of humanitarian aid in Gaza, because according to US law, foreign assistance cannot be provided to a country depriving civilians of food and medicine. 

While Blinken "emphasized the importance of ensuring those changes lead to an actual improvement in the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza," and "reiterated the importance that Israel take every possible step to minimize civilian harm," it is unclear what - if anything - Israel has actually done to meet the demands within the letter. 

The World Health Organisation said October 2024 saw the fewest number of aid trucks entering Gaza thus far. 

The Israeli army on Tuesday said it has seized and dismantled the "majority" of Hezbollah's weapons and missile facilities in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut, according to a Reuters report. 

This comes as 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".

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 3,287 people and wounded 14,222 others since war began on 7 October last year, the Lebanese health ministry reported on Tuesday.

The ministry said 44 people were killed and 88 wounded on Monday.

France's foreign ministry said it summoned Israel's ambassador to tell him that an incident in Jerusalem involving Israeli security forces entering a French-administered property should never be repeated.

Two French security officials with diplomatic status were briefly detained last week after France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot was due to visit the compound of The Church of the Pater Noster on the Mount of Olives in occupied East Jerusalem. 

The site, one of four administered by France in Jerusalem, is under Paris's responsibility.

The French foreign ministry said the Israeli ambassador had been told the presence of armed Israeli security forces and the arrest of French officials was "unacceptable", especially between allies with strong ties.

"Measures will be put in place to ensure that such acts do not recur," it said.

Israel's foreign ministry said that visiting foreign leaders are accompanied by Israeli security personnel, which it said had been "clarified in advance in the preparatory dialogue with the French Embassy in Israel".

Relations between France and Israel have soured in recent months, particularly since President Emmanuel Macron called for an end to the supply of offensive weapons to Israel. France also recently attempted to ban Israeli weapons firms from exhibiting at a trade fair in Paris. 

Two people were killed in the city of Nahariya, in northern Israel, after a residential building was struck by a rocket impact, Israeli police said in a post on X on Tuesday. 

Two others were wounded from shrapnel in Kabri in the western Galilee.

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian citizen who was desert camping near the Egyptian border on Friday without apparent cause, according to his family. 

The body of Yassin Abu Ruwais, 18, from the village of Bir Haddaj in the Negev region, was found by travellers passing through the area of the Halutza Sands southwest of Beersheba, according to Haaretz.

His father, Suleiman Abu Ruwais told news outlet Arab48 his son had gone on an overnight camping trip with his friends at a desert tourist spot, not far from his village. 

"On Friday evening, news and rumours spread that the Israeli army had shot a young man from the village. A few minutes later, I received the news that he was my son Yassin and that he had been transferred by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba," Suleiman said.

"I went to the hospital immediately and there I learnt that he had died."

"This news came as a shock to us. It is very painful news that I did not expect at all, and I do not wish it on anyone."

Read more: Israeli forces kill Palestinian camper near Egypt border 'without threat'

At least 11 civilians have been killed and several more wounded after an Israeli air attack targeted an area north of Rafah in Gaza, Wafa news agency reported. 

Meanwhile, two Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli bombardment of a house in a neighbourhood south of Gaza City. 

At least five people have been killed and two others wounded by an Israeli strike on the Mount Lebanon town of Baalchmay, Lebanon's health ministry said.

Israel's military has told the residents of 14 villages in southern Lebanon to leave their homes ahead of Israeli military operations in the areas.

The villages include Chaqra, Hula, Majdal Selem, Taloussa, Meiss el-Jabal, as-Sawana, Qabrikha, Yahmour, Arnoun, Blida, Muhaibib, Barashit, Fron and Ghandouriya, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said.

“For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move to the north of the Awali River. To ensure your safety, you must evacuate without delay,” Adraee wrote on X.

Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 43,665 people in the enclave since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday. 

At least 103,076 Palestinians have been wounded since the war began, the ministry added. 

A total of 62 Palestinians were killed and 147 wounded over the past 24 hours. 

On the first anniversary of Israel's war on Gaza, the Palestine solidarity movement held its 21st national demonstration.

Some 300,000 joined the march, according to organisers, making it one of the largest protests of the past 12 months.

Not that any of the marches have been small by historical standards. The smallest of them was 100,000 strong; the largest, on Armistice Day last year, attracted over 800,000 people.

Certainly, in the pre-Iraq war days, any cause that mobilised 200,000 people, such as the largest of the Vietnam war protests, the poll tax march of 1990 or CND’s 1983 anti-cruise missile demonstration, was considered huge.

But the Palestine movement has transformed the metric because no other cause this century has mobilised so many, so often, over such a short period. 

READ MORE: A year on, the Palestine solidarity movement must adapt to a widening Middle East war

Lebanon's National News Agency said that the Israeli army hit Beirut's southern suburbs 13 times today.

The military had sent bombing notices for 11 locations in the suburbs minutes before it started to strike.