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

In a speech to new military officers on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran that Israel can reach anywhere within the country, should the need arise. 

"Israel today has more freedom of action in Iran than ever. We can reach any place in Iran as necessary," Netanyahu said. "The supreme goal I gave to the Israel Defence Forces and the security branches is to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon."

A rocket launched by Hezbollah killed two people in an olive grove in the Haifa area, bringing the day's toll of people killed in Israel to seven, Israeli emergency services said.

Hezbollah said it attacked the area of Krayot, north of the Israeli city of Haifa, with a large missile salvo.

Earlier on Thursday, five people were killed, including four foreign workers and one Israeli, in a Hezbollah attack on the northern Israeli town of Metula.

Unicef, the United Nations children's agency, said that Israeli attacks have killed at least one child a day in Lebanon over the past month.

"Since October 4th of this year, at least one child has been killed and 10 injured daily," Unicef said, adding that "the ongoing war in Lebanon is upending children's lives, inflicting severe physical wounds and deep emotional scars".

At least 166 children have been killed and 1,168 have been wounded in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since October 2o23, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Unicef said the war has also inflicted deep emotional scars on children, who have been displaying "alarming signs of emotional, behavioural, and physical distress".

"Unicef teams have met children who are gripped by overwhelming fear and increased anxiety, including separation anxiety, fear of loss, withdrawal, aggression, and difficulty concentrating," the UN agency said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farahan Al Saud on Thursday condemned Israel's offensive in northern Gaza as genocide, telling foreign investors that some bilateral agreements it has been negotiating with Washington are "not that tied" to normalisation of its relations with Israel.

"Some of them we can progress probably quite quickly, and some of them we are working on - especially those related to trade, AI, et cetera - which are not tied to any other third parties," said Prince Faisal, addressing an investment conference in Riyadh.

The foreign minister reiterated the kingdom's position that it would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state, adding that Saudi Arabia is "quite happy to wait until the situation is amenable," before moving ahead with the proposed step.

Prince Faisal also that said Israeli actions in northern Gaza could only be described as a form a genocide that was feeding a cycle of violence.

"We look at just what's happening now in north (Gaza) where we have a complete blockade of any access for humanitarian goods coupled with a continued military assault without any real pathway for civilians to find shelter, to find safe zones, that can only be described as a form of genocide," he said.

British banking giant Barclays has sold all of its shareholdings in Israel’s largest weapons company Elbit Systems Ltd.

According to Palestine Action, a British activist group that has been protesting against the bank's investments in Israel, Barclays has until recently owned over 16,000 shares in Elbit Systems. 

In the latest US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, Barclays owned zero shares in Elbit Systems Ltd (ELST), down 16,345 since the previous filing, dated 15 May 2024, worth over $3.4m.

"The most recent SEC filings and NASDAQ data record an immediate total sale of Barclays’ ELST shares, abruptly sold just when Palestine Action’s campaign hit them hardest," Palestine Action said. 

Read more: Barclays sells all shares in Israeli weapons firm Elbit amid pro-Palestinian pressure

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed Thursday in Israeli strikes on Syria's Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon.

The Britain-based monitor said a strike targeted "a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr", killing three people.

Reporting by AFP

Six Lebanese health workers were killed and four wounded in Israeli strikes across south Lebanon on Thursday, the health ministry said in a statement.

The total number of health workers killed by Israel since October 2023 rose to 178 and 279 wounded, the ministry added.

Reporting by Reuters

Israel has recorded its worst month for military deaths this year amid continuing fierce fighting in southern Lebanon and northern Gaza.

At least 62 soldiers have been killed since the start of October, according to official figures, making this the deadliest month for the Israeli military since last December when 110 soldiers were killed at the height of its war against Hamas in Gaza.

It also marks a steep increase in recorded fatalities compared with recent months. Just nine deaths were recorded by the Israeli military in September, and 63 in total between June and August.

At least 35 Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon or on the Lebanese border since Israel invaded its northern neighbour at the start of the month in an escalation of its war against Hezbollah. The Lebanese militant group has said it has killed more than 90 Israeli soldiers, although these figures are unverified.

At least 19 soldiers have also died this month in continuing fighting with Hamas in Gaza, where Israel is accused of carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing and extermination against Palestinians trapped in the north of the enclave.

Read more: Israeli forces in Lebanon and Gaza suffer deadliest month of 2024 

Five people were killed, including four foreign workers and one Israeli, in a Hezbollah attack on Israel's northern town of Metula on Thursday, according to Israel's Channel 12.

Reporting by Reuters

Gaza, Lebanon and Sudan will take decades to recover from the conflicts raging on their soil, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday after downgrading the region's growth forecast.

Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and Sudan's civil war would have enduring impacts, the IMF said.

"The damage caused by these conflicts will leave lasting scars at their epicentres for decades," the global lender said in a statement.

The IMF has lowered its predicted growth for the Middle East and Central Asia to 2.1 percent for 2024, a drop of 0.6 percent due to the wars and lower oil production.

Depending on the conflicts, growth should rise to 4.0 percent next year, according to the IMF's Regional Economic Outlook which was compiled in September.

"This year has been challenging with conflicts causing devastating human suffering and lasting economic damage," Jihad Azour, the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia Department director, told reporters in Dubai.

"The recent escalation in Lebanon has greatly increased the uncertainty in the whole MENA region."

IMF forecasts for Lebanon, where conflict with Israel has sharply escalated this month, have been suspended. But "conservative" estimates show a 9.0-10 percent contraction this year, Azour said.

"The impact (on Lebanon) will be severe and it will depend how long this conflict will last," said the former Lebanese finance minister.

Saudi-led oil cuts through the OPEC+ cartel, aimed at propping up prices, "are contributing to sluggish near-term growth in many economies", the IMF said.

For the region's oil exporters, "medium-term growth is projected to moderate, as economic diversification reforms will take time to yield results", it added.

Downside risks continue to dominate, the lender said, including fluctuating commodity prices, conflicts and climate shocks.

Reporting by AFP

A senior Hamas official said on Thursday that the group rejects any proposal for a temporary halt to more than a year of fighting in Gaza and insists on a lasting ceasefire.

"The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one," Taher al-Nunu, a senior leader of the movement, told AFP.

Mediators seeking to broker a Gaza ceasefire are expected to propose a truce of "less than a month" to Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Wednesday.

Meetings between Mossad head David Barnea, CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatar's prime minister in Doha, which concluded on Monday, discussed proposing a "short-term" truce of "less than a month", the source said on condition of anonymity because of the talks' sensitivity.

The proposal involves exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and increasing aid to Gaza, the source added.

"US officials believe that if a short-term deal can be reached, it could lead to a more permanent agreement," the source said.

Nunu said the group had not received any proposal so far, adding if it gets such a plan, it would respond.

However, he reiterated the demands the group has been insisting on for months - "a permanent ceasefire, withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from Gaza, the return of displaced people, sufficient humanitarian aid to Gaza and a serious prisoner exchange deal".

Sources close to the Palestinian group told Middle East Eye on Wednesday that they had officially dismissed the proposal put forward by Qatar, Egypt and the US, despite reports in Israeli media that it was still under consideration.

Reporting by AFP and MEE

Syrian state media said Israeli strikes hit the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border on Thursday, the latest in a series of raids in the area.

"An Israeli aggression targeted the Qusayr area in the southern Homs countryside," causing "material damage to the industrial city and some residential neighbourhoods," the official Sana news agency said.

Reporting by AFP

Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors working in a north Gaza hospital has been detained by Israeli forces.

Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopaedic surgeon working at Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, was detained during an Israeli military raid on the site on 26 October, MSF said.

"We are extremely alarmed by the detention of our colleague," it said.

"We call for the safety and the protection of our colleague, and for all medical staff in Gaza who work under impossible conditions and are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care."

Reporting by Reuters

Germany, France and Britain call for the urgent renewal of correspondent banking services between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories for at least one year, the German foreign office said on Thursday.

"Failure to renew would suspend cross-border trade and be catastrophic for the Palestinian economy," the ministry said in a post on social media platform X.

Reporting by Reuters

The Israeli army issued an expulsion order for several areas of south Lebanon Thursday, including the Rashidie camp for Palestinian refugees. 

It claimed it was poised to hit Hezbollah targets in those areas. Hezbollah denies placing military assets in civilian areas.