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

The former leader of the UK's ruling Labour party and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn said on X that "there is a very simple reason why the UK government refuses to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza".

"If they did, they would be admitting their own complicity in one of the greatest crimes of our time," he added.

He ended his post saying the UK should "end all arms sales to Israel, now".

There is a very simple reason why the UK government refuses to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza.

If they did, they would be admitting their own complicity in one of the greatest crimes of our time.

End all arms sales to Israel, now.

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) November 14, 2024

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Israeli forces bombed several areas of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza overnight, killing three people including a child
• Northern Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital said its surroundings are experiencing starvation-like conditions, and people are trapped alive beneath bombed buildings
• The Israeli army is bombing Beirut's southern suburbs for the fourth morning in a row after issuing strike notices
• An Israeli official denied a Washington Post report saying his country was seeking a truce with Lebanon as a "gift" to US President-elect Donald Trump
• The UN Security Council’s 10 elected members have circulated a new draft resolution expressing "deep alarm" over the "risk of famine" in Gaza

Good evening Middle East Eye readers, 

Israel stepped up its strikes across Lebanon on Thursday amid reports that the US was pressing ahead with a ceasefire proposal and that Israel was weighing an end to fighting as a "gift" to the incoming Trump administration. 

The Biden administration reportedly delivered a truce proposal to Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, a Shia lawmakers and Hezbollah ally. 

Separately, the Washington Post reported Israel is eyeing a Lebanon ceasefire as a “gift” to President Donald Trump before he takes office again in January.

Behind the scenes, more diplomacy is playing out. Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, and a key advisor, met with Christian Lebanese lawmakers this week. 

But the most remarkable development was a meeting between Elon Musk, one of Trump's closest advisors, and Iran’s ambassador to the UN this week, according to the New York Times.

Meeting directly with Iranian officials in public is highly unusual for the US. 

The Biden administration has used Gulf states to speak with Iran and Trump's previous administration had basically no direct public contact with Iran between 2016 and 2020.

Meanwhile, Israel’s strikes are still causing destruction and death across Lebanon. At least 16 people were killed and 18 wounded on Wednesday by Israeli strikes on Lebanon, the country's health ministry said. 

At least 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike in Lebanon on Thursday that hit a civil defence centre in the city of Baalbek.

At least four Palestinians, including children, were killed by Israeli drone strikes on a tent housing displaced people in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. 

Here is what else you need to know:

• Eighty-eight Democratic lawmakers have signed a letter asking US President Joe Biden to sanction far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich
• Two Palestinian minors were injured by Israeli fire in Beit Furik, a town east of the city of Nablus, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS)
• Lebanon has suffered more than $5bn in economic losses as a result of fighting with Israel, the World Bank said on Thursday
• Clashes erupted in the stands of the Stade de France during the France-Israel Nations League football match

Israel launched a raid on Hebron in the occupied West Bank, according to Arabic media reports. 

Israeli forces also raided the city of Qalqilya in the northern West Bank. 

Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Donald Trump's daughter Tiffany and an adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, met with the head of Lebanon's Kataeb Party, a right-wing Christian party. 

Boulos also met with Nadim Gemayel, the son of assassinated pro-US and pro-Israeli Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel. 

"This is an opportunity for Lebanon to be present at the heart of the US administration and its concerns, and for us all to work for stability and peace in the region," Nadim Gemayel wrote on X. 

Boulos has no official role in the upcoming Trump administration, but was a key campaign adviser on Trump's outreach to Arab Americans. 

Clashes erupted on Thursday in the stands of the Stade de France during the France-Israel Nations League football match.

Footage viewed by Middle East Eye showed Israeli fans beating up the French fans in the stands, and booing was heard during the singing of the Israeli national anthem. 

The match comes after Israeli hooligans provoked clashes with Dutch youth in Amsterdam after they chanted racist anti-Arab slogans and tore down Palestinian flags. 

The only Palestinian American member of Congress has called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign for saying that Israel was not blocking aid into the Gaza Strip in a new assessment.

"Palestinian children are forced to eat pet food and bug-infested flour," she said, adding that the Blinken "says there's no need to change our own policy".

"The Biden administration is refusing to comply with US law," she said. 

Elon Musk met with Iran's ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, in what would be a major diplomatic engagement by the incoming Trump administration with the Islamic Republic. 

Musk has been named by President-elect Donald Trump to increase government efficiency, but is a close adviser. 

The New York Times reported Musk's meeting with Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani lasted more than an hour and was held at a secret location. Iranian officials told the newspaper it was "positive" and "good news". 

At least six people were killed by an Israeli strike on the town of Arabsalim, in southern Lebanon, the country's health ministry said.

Four of the dead are paramedics, according to the National News Agency. 

Israel has stepped up its strikes across Lebanon on Thursday, pummeling the east and south of the country. 

At least 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike in Lebanon after it hit a civil defence centre in the city of Baalbek on Thursday, Reuters reported. 

Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack on the city, Lebanon's health ministry reported

The Washington Post has reported that Israel is moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon in order to give President-elect Donald Trump an early foreign policy win.

“There is an understanding that Israel would gift something to Trump … that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon,” an Israeli official told the Washington Post. 

Trump campaigned on ending Middle East wars, but has nominated a string of officials hawkish on Iran and supportive of Israel's annexation of the West Bank. 

Middle East Eye reported earlier that of the wars in Lebanon and Gaza, Israel would be more likely to agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon. 

Trump said during his campaign that he wanted to “stop the suffering and destruction” in the Mediterranean country last month. Trump's son-in-law is Lebanese American. 

Read More: How will Donald Trump approach Israel's wars on Lebanon and Gaza?

Eighty-eight Democratic lawmakers have signed a letter asking US President Joe Biden to sanction far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. 

Biden will depart the White House in January. 

The letter says the ministers are "driving policies that promote settler violence, weaken the Palestinian Authority, facilitate de facto and de jure annexation and destabilize the West Bank". 

The letter was sent by House and Senate lawmakers. The Democrats in January will loose control of the Senate to Republicans who have expressed unlimited support for Israel. 

At least six people have been killed by Israeli strikes across Lebanon, the country's National News Agency reported.

The strikes hit southern and eastern Lebanon, including the Beqaa Valley.

The US ambassador to Lebanon gave a draft truce proposal to the speaker of Lebanon's parliament, Nabih Berri, on Thursday, Reuters reported. 

"It is a draft to get observations from the Lebanese side," a source told Reuters. 

A Biden administration plan calls for a beefed-up UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, the Lebanese army deployed to the country’s southern heartland of Hezbollah, and Israel being granted more freedom to operate in Lebanon, sources familiar with the talks have told Middle East Eye

"Basically, it would turn Lebanon into Syria," a former senior US official in Trump’s previous administration, who is familiar with the talks, told MEE.

"Israel could operate at will if it feels threatened as it does in Syria, but Hezbollah wouldn't surrender its de facto power over government, like Bashar Assad."

Read More: How the US dived into a war to reshape Lebanon's balance of power

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said its soldiers engaged in fire with unknown people on Thursday. 

Unifil said peacekeepers came under fire when they stopped their vehicle to remove some debris on a road.

"When getting back into their vehicles, two or three unknown people fired approximately 30 shots in their direction," the UN peacekeeping force said. 

The peacekeepers returned fire.