Rocket fire from Lebanon kills seven people in Israel as US officials try to push for ceasefire

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Rocket attacks from Lebanon into northern Israel killed four foreign workers and three Israelis on Thursday, Israeli medics said, the deadliest cross-border attacks in Israel since it invaded Lebanon. Israel continued to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah militants across Lebanon, where health authorities reported the deaths of 24 people on Thursday.

American diplomats were in the region pushing for a ceasefire in both Lebanon and Gazahoping to relax the wars in the Middle East as the Biden administration enters its final months. Pressure is building in the run-up to the American elections next week.

In northern Gaza, Israeli forces attacked one of the last functioning hospitals, destroying desperately needed supplies delivered to the facility by the World Health Organization, the UN agency said. The strikes caused a fire that hit the dialysis unit, destroyed water tanks, damaged the operating building and injured four doctors who tried to extinguish the fire, said hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment about an attack on the hospital, which it stormed last week after claiming it housed Hamas militants. Gaza’s Health Ministry on Thursday condemned the Israeli attacks on the hospital and called on the international community to protect Gaza’s medical facilities.

Back-to-back deadly rocket attacks hit Israel

Projectiles from Lebanon crashed into an agricultural area in Metula, Israel’s northernmost city, killing four Thai workers and an Israeli farmer, officials said.

Hours later, the Israeli military reported another volley of about 25 rockets from Lebanon, hitting an olive grove on the outskirts of the northern Israeli port city of Haifa. That attack killed a 30-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman and wounded two others, said Magen David Adom, Israel’s top emergency medical agency.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by Iran, Israel’s regional opponent. Hezbollah did not immediately claim responsibility for Thursday’s rocket fire. The Israeli military said 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon on Thursday.

Hezbollah has fired thousands of missiles, drones and rockets into Israel – and carried out fierce Israeli retaliatory attacks – since Hamas’ attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023 sparked Israel’s devastating war in the Palestinian enclave.

The residents of Metula were evacuated in October 2023, with only security officials and farm workers remaining.

In addition to the four Thais killed, another Thai farm worker was also injured by the rocket fire, Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa said in posts on social media on Friday. Maris urged all parties to return to the path of peace, on behalf of the civilians harmed by the ongoing conflict.

The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli organization that advocates for foreign workers, said authorities had endangered them by allowing them to work along the border without proper protection.

Agricultural areas near the Israeli border are closed military zones that can only be entered with official permission. For the few remaining residents, the drone of interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and the blaring sirens of air raid sirens define daily life.

Nevertheless, local officials largely support the continuation of a ground operation in southern Lebanon.

“If the Israeli government joins an agreement drawn up by (the Biden administration) … we will not have that because for us this rehabilitates Hezbollah back to our borders,” said Eitan Davidi, the mayor of the northern city of Margaliot.

Israeli bombs across Lebanon after evacuation warnings

Israeli strikes killed 24 people in Lebanon on Thursday, including 13 people in the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley, according to Lebanese state news agency National News Agency, a day after the Israeli army warned residents there to evacuate.

The warnings sent thousands of people fleeing and panic spread across the city known for its colossal Roman ruins.

The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that 45 people were killed and 110 injured in Israeli bombardments in various parts of the country over the past 24 hours.

Jean Fakhry, a local official in the Bekaa Valley region of Deir al-Ahmar, said Israeli airstrikes pounding the area turned the main road into a “parking lot” for fleeing cars stuck in traffic.

About 12,000 displaced people remain in the area, he said, with most taking refuge in private homes. Families with luggage arrived at one of the shelters in Deir al-Ahmar on Thursday.

“Our houses have been destroyed,” says Zahraa Younis from the village near Baalbek. “We came with nothing – no clothes or anything.”

US officials are seeking a ceasefire in the region

Senior White House officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein were in Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials about the conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah.

The meetings focused on efforts to broker a ceasefire in Lebanon and to assess new proposals from mediators to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza, according to a US official familiar with the planning of the conversations and who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. The meetings were attended by both Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defense Minister; David Barnea, the director of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service; and other officials.

But with Tuesday’s U.S. elections, hopes of immediate progress seemed unlikely – especially in Gaza, where Israel has faced criticism for not allowing more humanitarian aid into the beleaguered north.

The death toll of more than a year The number of wars in Gaza passed 43,000 earlier this week, Palestinian health officials said.

The Awda Hospital in central Gaza said late Thursday that it had received 16 bodies of people killed by Israeli bombardments on two houses in the Nuseirat refugee camp. According to the hospital, more than 30 others were injured, including a doctor and two journalists.

Over the past year, Israel’s expanding campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah has killed 2,865 people there, injured more than 13,000 and destroyed Lebanese towns near the border.

About 1.2 million people in Lebanon have been displaced since Israel escalated the conflict into full-blown war last month. a wave of heavy air raids who killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallahand most of his deputies.

A year of Hezbollah rocket attacks has also forced 60,000 Israelis to evacuate from near the border.

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Frankel reported from Jerusalem and Tawil from Deir al-Ahmar, Lebanon. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee in Washington and Eleanor H. Reich in New York contributed to this report.

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