Israeli army strikes killed at least 20 people in Gaza on Sunday, civil defense said, as they hit a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut’s international airport.

Israel has been fighting on two fronts since September, stepping up attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon after nearly a year of cross-border clashes alongside its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In the latest violence in Gaza, the civil defense service said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 20 people, including four women and three children.

A year after the Gaza war was sparked by October 7 attacks by Hamas in its south, Israel vowed to stop Islamist militants from regrouping in the north of the Palestinian territory and launched a major attack on them.

Sunday’s deadliest strike killed 10 people in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where another strike on a house killed a woman, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

An Israeli drone strike killed five people in the southern city of Rafah, Bassal said, adding that another strike killed three women and a child in the Nuseirat camp.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, run by Hamas, said on Saturday that the total death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,799.

Most of the dead are civilians, according to the ministry’s figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that triggered the war left 1,206 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

– The saviors of Lebanon cried –

Gaza’s civil defense said 24 people were killed in Saturday’s strikes.

On Israel’s second front in the north, AFPTV footage showed several strikes hitting the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut shortly after the Israeli military warned people to evacuate.

Plumes of smoke were seen rising over the capital’s southern suburbs, home to Lebanon’s only international airport.

Further south, overnight Israeli airstrikes and shelling hit the flashpoint town of Khiam, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

The bombing came after the Israeli military reported a “heavy rocket barrage” on Haifa on Saturday night and said a synagogue had been hit, injuring two civilians.

Israel has stepped up its bombing of Lebanon since September 23 and has since sent ground troops, after nearly a year of limited cross-border firefights started by Hezbollah militants in support of Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.

Its army said Saturday that Hezbollah had “already paid a heavy price” but vowed to keep fighting until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the north can return home.

Israeli forces also bombed the southern area of ​​Lebanon along the Litani River, NNA said on Sunday.

The news agency earlier reported strikes in the southern city of Tyre, including in a neighborhood near ancient ruins included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Israeli military said late Saturday that it struck Hezbollah positions in the area.

In eastern Lebanon, the Health Ministry said an Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley killed six people, including three children.

Hezbollah said it fired a guided missile that set an Israeli tank on fire in the southwestern Lebanese village of Chamaa.

Late Saturday, Hezbollah said it had targeted five military bases, including the Stella Maris naval base.

In eastern Lebanon, funerals were held for 14 members of the civil defense killed in an Israeli attack on Thursday.

“They were not involved in any (armed) party… they were just waiting to answer calls for help,” said Ali al-Zein, a relative of one of the dead.

– Famine alert in Gaza –

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with the most casualties recorded since September.

Israel announced the death of a soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing the death toll in the battle with Hezbollah to 48.

A UN-backed assessment on November 9 warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza amid heightened hostilities and a near halt in food aid.

Israel rejected a report by Human Rights Watch this week that said the mass displacement of Gazans amounted to a “crime against humanity”, as well as findings by a special UN committee that indicated war practices “consistent with the characteristics of genocide” .

A Foreign Office spokesman dismissed the HRW report as “completely false”, while the United States — Israel’s main military supplier — said the allegations of genocide “are certainly unfounded”.

In Israel, police said they arrested three suspects after shots were fired near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the central city of Caesarea, south of Haifa, while he was away.

The incident comes about a month after a drone targeted the same residence, which Hezbollah claimed.

Protesters in Tel Aviv on Saturday reiterated demands that the government reach a deal to free dozens of hostages still being held in Gaza.

The protest came a week after mediator Qatar suspended its role until Hamas and Israel show “seriousness” in talks on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages.

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