Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment within the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, on Sunday.

Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

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Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment within the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, on Sunday.

Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike killed an elite Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Monday, the most recent in an escalating trade of strikes alongside the border which have raised fears of one other Mideast struggle even because the preventing in Gaza exacts a mounting toll on civilians.

The strike on an SUV killed a commander in a secretive Hezbollah drive that operates alongside the border, based on a Lebanese safety official, who spoke on situation of anonymity based on laws. Hezbollah recognized the slain fighter as Wissam al-Tawil with out offering particulars.

He is probably the most senior militant within the armed group to have been killed since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault into southern Israel triggered all-out struggle in Gaza and lower-intensity preventing between Israel and Hezbollah, which has escalated since an Israeli strike killed a senior Hamas leader in Beirut last week.

This image launched by Hezbollah Military Media exhibits senior Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil who was killed in Kherbet Selem village in south Lebanon on Monday.

/Hezbollah Military Media by way of AP

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/Hezbollah Military Media by way of AP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who’s again within the area this week, appears to be trying to head off a wider conflict.

Israel says it has largely wrapped up major operations in northern Gaza and is now specializing in the central area and the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli officers have mentioned the preventing will proceed for a lot of extra months as the military seeks to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken through the militant group’s Oct. 7 assault that triggered the struggle.

The offensive has already killed over 23,000 Palestinians, devastated huge swaths of the Gaza Strip, displaced practically 85% of its inhabitants of two.3 million and left 1 / 4 of its residents going through hunger.

‘Sickening scenes’ in Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals

Medics, sufferers and displaced individuals fled from the primary hospital in central Gaza because the preventing drew nearer, witnesses mentioned Monday. Losing the power can be one other main blow to a well being system shattered by three months of struggle.

Doctors Without Borders and different help teams withdrew from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in latest days, saying it was too harmful. That unfold panic amongst individuals sheltering there, inflicting many to hitch the a whole lot of hundreds who’ve fled to the south of the besieged territory.

Tens of hundreds of individuals have sought shelter in Gaza’s hospitals, that are additionally struggling to deal with dozens of individuals wounded every day in Israeli strikes. Only 13 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, based on the U.N. humanitarian workplace.

Omar al-Darawi, an worker at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, mentioned the power has been struck a number of occasions in latest days. He mentioned hundreds of individuals left after the help teams pulled out, and that sufferers have been targeting one ground so the remaining medical doctors can are inclined to them extra simply.

“We have large numbers of wounded who can’t move” he mentioned. “They need special care, which is unavailable.”

More useless and wounded arrive every day as Israeli forces advance in central Gaza following heavy airstrikes. Gaza’s Health Ministry mentioned Monday that 249 Palestinians have been killed and 510 others have been wounded throughout the territory within the final 24 hours.

World Health Organization workers who visited Sunday noticed “sickening scenes of people of all ages being treated on blood-streaked floors and in chaotic corridors,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the pinnacle of the U.N. company, mentioned in a press release. “The bloodbath in Gaza must end.”

Dire situations within the remoted north

The scenario is much more dire in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces lower off from the remainder of the territory in late October.

Entire neighborhoods have been demolished, and a whole lot of hundreds of individuals have fled, whereas those that stay face extreme shortages of meals and water. The WHO mentioned late Sunday it has not been capable of ship provides to northern Gaza in 12 days.

Even there, Israel continues to be battling what it describes as pockets of militants.

An airstrike early Sunday flattened a four-story house full of displaced individuals within the city Jabaliya refugee camp, killing at the very least 70, together with girls and kids, based on Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil protection. There was no rapid affirmation from the Health Ministry, which has struggled to take care of its operations within the north.

Palestinians seek for our bodies and survivors within the rubble of a home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.

Fatima Shbair/AP

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Fatima Shbair/AP

Palestinians seek for our bodies and survivors within the rubble of a home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.

Fatima Shbair/AP

Search efforts have been nonetheless underway on Monday. The civil protection circulated a graphic video displaying the aftermath of assault, with a number of our bodies scattered among the many rubble.

Jabaliya, which was constructed for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 struggle surrounding Israel’s creation and is now a dense, built-up neighborhood, has seen weeks of heavy preventing.

More than 23,00 Palestinians have been killed, and greater than 58,000 wounded, for the reason that struggle started, based on the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The demise toll doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Health officers say about two-thirds of these killed have been girls and minors.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties as a result of the group operates in closely populated residential areas, however the army hardly ever feedback on particular person strikes. The army says it has killed some 8,000 militants, with out offering proof, and that 176 of its personal troopers have been killed within the offensive.

Seeking to go off a wider struggle

Blinken, who met with the leaders of Jordan and Qatar on Sunday, as soon as once more spoke of the necessity for Israel to regulate its army operations to reduce hurt to civilians and permit extra help into the territory.

But his essential focus gave the impression to be stopping the struggle from spreading.

A Hezbollah rocket barrage hit a delicate air visitors base in northern Israel on Saturday in one of many largest assaults in three months of low-intensity preventing alongside the border. The militant group mentioned was an “initial response” to the killing of Hamas’ deputy political chief Saleh Arouri in Beirut final week.

Israel has largely sought to restrict the preventing in its north, however its leaders say their endurance is carrying skinny, and that if the tensions can’t be resolved by diplomacy, they’re ready to go to struggle. They have expressed explicit concern in regards to the Radwan Force, the elite Hezbollah unit during which al-Tawil was a commander, which operates alongside the border.

Hezbollah started firing rockets shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault ignited the struggle. Hamas and different militants killed about 1,200 individuals in southern Israel that day, largely civilians, and took some 250 individuals hostage, over 100 of whom have been launched throughout a cease-fire in November.

Hezbollah has mentioned its assaults, which have pushed tens of hundreds of Israelis from their properties, goal to ease strain on Gaza. But the group seems cautious of risking an all-out struggle that might carry large destruction to Lebanon.