Live: Thousands return home as Lebanon ceasefire takes hold

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 3,558 people and injured 15,123 since 7 October, 2023, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.  

In the past 24 hours alone, 14 people were killed and 87 wounded, the ministry reported.

The Biden administration is lobbying senators to approve continued US weapons shipments to Israel, emphasizing the stakes ahead of an unprecedented congressional vote on the policy, the Huffington Post has reported.  

According to talking points obtained by the Huffington Post, administration officials argue that opposing the arms transfers could embolden adversaries like Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.

The White House distributed the document to multiple Democratic Senate offices on Tuesday, urging lawmakers to support President Joe Biden’s request for military equipment shipments.

The vote is scheduled for Wednesday and is seen as a key test of congressional support for Biden’s Israel policy, two Senate aides told Huffington Post on condition of anonymity.

US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood explained the US's decision to veto a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the Security Council, arguing it would have sent a “dangerous message to Hamas”.

“This resolution would have told Hamas there is no need to come back to the negotiating table,” Wood said, adding that it could be interpreted as “a vindication of its cynical strategy” to exploit the situation while holding Israeli captives in Gaza.  

“We must not let that happen,” he stressed. “We will not forget them.”  

Wood also said the US remains committed to diplomatic efforts for a resolution amid Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.  

Oxfam has issued a statement denouncing the US' veto of the latest UN Security Council ceasefire proposal for Gaza as a "profound failure". 

"It is shameful that the United States has once again used the veto to block consensus on a life-saving ceasefire, while they continue to approve deadly arms transfers to fuel the violence and humanitarian catastrophe," Brenda Moyfa, head of Oxfam's New York Office, said.

"This vote underlines Israel's continued impunity to commit atrocities in Gaza. We need urgent reform within the UN Security Council," the statement read.

The US deputy ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, told the Security Council that the US cannot support a resolution for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza that does not explicitly call for the immediate release of hostages.

The US vetoed a UN Security Council vote on a resolution calling for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire". 

Only the US voted against, using its veto as a permanent council member to block the resolution.

Wood added that his country "deeply regrets" the position of the council following the vote.

Israeli forces have killed at least 33 Palestinians across Gaza on Wednesday, including a rescue worker, Reuters is reporting citing health officials.

According to medics, at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the area of Jabalia in northern Gaza, while at least 10 people remained missing as rescue operations continued.

Another attack on the so-called "safe zone" in Mawasi killed seven Palestinians including a child.

Meanwhile, medics reported that an air strike on a house in Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City killed four people, and another strike on a school sheltering displaced families in central Gaza killed three Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others.

The US has vetoed the UN Security Council vote on the Gaza ceasefire resolution, ending with 14 votes for and one against.

It’s the fifth US veto on a Gaza UN ceasefire resolution in the past 13 months.

The US vetoed the Security Council draft resolution that would have demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and the release of all hostages, the UN News service said.

It summarised the UN resolution as follows:

• Recall the Security Council’s primary responsibility to uphold international peace and security and demands an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties and further reiterate its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages

• Demand that the parties fully, unconditionally, and without delay implement all the provisions of Security Council resolution 2735, leading to, inter alia, the release of hostages, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners, the return of the remains of hostages who have been killed, the return of Palestinian civilians to their homes and neighbourhoods in all areas of Gaza, including in the north, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza

• Demand immediate access by the civilian population in the Gaza Strip to basic services and humanitarian assistance indispensable to its survival, while rejecting any effort to starve Palestinians, and further demands the facilitation of full, rapid, safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian assistance at scale to and throughout the Gaza Strip and its delivery to all Palestinian civilians who need it, including to civilians in besieged north Gaza, who are in urgent need of immediate humanitarian relief, under the coordination of the United Nations.

An Israeli attack on the city of Palmyra in central Syria has killed 36 people and injured 53 others, Syrian state media is reporting.

Citing a military source, SANA news agency said that the strike targeted a number of buildings in the city, causing significant damage.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has pledged to respond to Israeli strikes on Beirut with an attack targeting "central Tel Aviv".

In a speech on Wednesday, Qassem acknowledged that the damage inflicted by Israeli attacks on Lebanon has been "painful and hurtful," but added that "we have many cadres who are very brave" and who "can continue at this pace for a long time".

On the state of the ceasefire negotiations, Qassem said that the group had passed on their comments to US envoy Amos Hochstein via the speaker of Lebanon's parliament Nabih Berri, adding that "we are willing to follow this path of indirect negotiations".

He said that it was currently unclear whether the talks would see an end to Israel's hostilites in Lebanon, as the decision is now in Israel's hands. 

Qassem pledged that Hezbollah would continue fighting, adding that should the negotiations succeed, they would view that success as a result of their fighting on the battlefield.

“Today, we are resisting in Lebanon to defend Lebanon and the people of Lebanon," he said. “During the battle, we think of the future of our country...we believe in the solidarity between the army, the people and the resistance.”

The Israeli military has claimed its troops are not targeting the Lebanese army despite killing at least four Lebanese soldiers in two different attacks in the last 24 hours.

“We emphasise that the [Israeli army] is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation and is not operating against the Lebanon Armed Forces,” the military told AFP news agency in a statement.

Forty two Lebanese soldiers have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023.

The United States will veto a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Israel's war on Gaza if it is brought to a vote in its current form, a senior US official said on Wednesday, adding that Washington would not support a text that does not call for the immediate release of hostages.

Reporting by Reuters

Three Palestinians have been killed, and others injured in an Israeli strike targeting a group of people in southern Gaza's Rafah, Wafa news agency is reporting citing medical sources.

In northern Gaza, one person was wounded in a drone attack targeting homes in the Tel al-Zaatar area.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), has said that despite the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the rights of Palestinian children "are violated day in, day out".

In a post on X to mark World Children's Day, he said: "Gaza has become a graveyard for children. They are being killed, injured, forced to flee & deprived of safety, learning & play. They have been robbed of their childhood + are on the verge of becoming a lost generation as they lose another school year."

He added that in the occupied West Bank, 170 children have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023, while others "are losing their childhood in Israeli detention centres".

"The occupied Palestinian territory is no place for children. They deserve better, they deserve peace & justice + a better future," Lazzarini concluded.

Three decades ago, the world made a commitment to respect & uphold children’s rights by adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Today, the rights of Palestinian children are violated day in, day out. #Gaza has become a graveyard for children. They are being killed,… pic.twitter.com/XeRJSKDJbq

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) November 20, 2024

Israeli forces have detained at least 15 Palestinians, including former prisoners, during overnight raids across the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups.

The Palestinian Prisoners' Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said in a joint statement that the detentions were conducted across the governorates of Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus and Tulkarm.

The organisations added that detainees and their families were threatened and subjected to physical abuse and property damage.

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has visited the grave of far-right figurehead Meir Kahane to commemorate the anniversary of the US-born rabbi's death.

Ben Gvir was pictured on Tuesday with a number of other Israelis reading religious passages over Kahane's grave at the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem.

Kahane was the founder of the political party Kach and the militant Jewish Defence League, which have both been banned as terrorist organisations in a number of countries, including Israel and the US.

Kahane promoted a violent, anti-Arab ideology that advocated the transformation of Israel into a theocracy in which non-Jews would either be expelled or accept no civil and voting rights.

Kach was banned from participating in elections in Israel in 1988 over its racist policies, before being banned outright in 1994 following the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in which a Kahane supporter shot dead 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron

READ MORE: Israeli minister Ben Gvir visits far-right figurehead Meir Kahane's grave