Middle East latest: Israeli strikes on southern Gaza kill at least 15 people overnight

Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 15 people overnight, including six children and two women, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday. In northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, residents said families were still trapped in their homes and shelters.

It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 people captive inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

In solidarity with Hamas, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire with Israel for the past year. Israel escalated its campaign against the group in recent weeks.

Rumors circulated for weeks over head of the expeditionary arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Gen. Esmail Qaani’s status after an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September. But Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, was seen in a black bomber jacket, wiping away tears at an event early Tuesday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.

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Here’s the latest:

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 15 people overnight, including six children and two women, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday.

A strike early Tuesday hit a house in the southern town of Beni Suhaila, killing at least 10 people from one extended family, according to Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis. The dead include three children and one woman, according to hospital records. An Associated Press camera operator at the hospital counted the bodies.

In the nearby town of Fakhari, a strike hit a house early Tuesday, killing five people, including three children and a woman, according to the European Hospital, where the casualties were taken.

The Israeli military rarely comments on individual strikes. It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of sheltering in civilian areas.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — In northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, residents said families were still trapped in their homes and shelters Tuesday.

Adel al-Deqes said his relatives tried to move to another place in Jabaliya in the morning, but the military shelled them.

“We don’t know who died and who is still alive,” he said.

Ahmed Awda, another Jabaliya resident, said they heard “constant bombing and gunfire” overnight and Tuesday morning. He said the military destroyed many buildings in the eastern and northern parts of the camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

“They bombed many buildings; some of them empty buildings,” he said.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The head of the expeditionary arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has appeared in television footage aired Tuesday by Iranian state television.

Rumors circulated for weeks over Gen. Esmail Qaani’s status in the time since an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September. But Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, was seen in a black bomber jacket, wiping away tears at an event early Tuesday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.

While Iranian state television did not acknowledge the rumors, it made a point to film Qaani for over a minute and later share the footage from the airport ceremony online.

Qaani was on hand for the repatriation to Iran of the body of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, 58, who was killed in the airstrike.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Australia’s government has imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on five Iranians contributing to the country’s missile defense program, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Tuesday.

Iran’s launch of at least 180 ballistic missiles against Israel on Oct. 1 was “a dangerous escalation that increased the risk of a wider regional war,” Wong said in a statement.

The fresh sanctions target two directors and a senior official in Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, the director of the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, and the commercial director of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group.

The decision brings to 200 the number of Iran-linked individuals and entities now sanctioned by Australia.

“Australia will continue to hold Iran to account for its reckless and destabilizing actions,” Wong said.

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