Israeli strike kills 3 in Lebanon as Blinken tries to prevent conflict from spreading
An Israeli drone strike hit a car Tuesday morning in southern Lebanon, killing three people inside it, security officials in the area and the state news agency said. The strike on Ghandouriyeh, about 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the border with Israel, came a day after a similar attack killed a commander with the militant Hezbollah group.
On an urgent mission aimed primarily at preventing the Israel-Hamas conflict from spreading into a regional war, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey would consider participating in post-conflict reconstruction and governance of Gaza, which has been decimated by three months of Israeli bombardment.
The United Nations humanitarian office says the intensifying Israeli offensive in central and southern Gaza has had “devastating consequences,” driving up civilian casualties, severely curtailing aid operations in the central region and risking the closure of three major hospitals.
Hamas’ October 7 attack from Gaza into southern Israel triggered the war and killed around 1,200 people, and militants took some 250 others hostage. Israel’s air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.