First responders recovered the bodies, including 40 children and 30 women, over the weekend, according to the Civil Defence, a rescue agency operated under Gaza’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
The Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has since killed 73,375 people, including civilians and combatants, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Around 7,400 people are still missing and presumed buried under the rubble from the war, according to Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.
Israel discusses withdrawal from Lebanon
Israeli and Lebanese officials met in Rome on Tuesday to continue talks on implementing a US-mediated deal to drawdown the Israeli military from southern Lebanon and disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
A diplomat familiar with the negotiations said Lebanon had asked for the next “pilot zone” — where Israeli forces would withdraw and the Lebanese army would take control — to be either in the town of Khiam or Bint Jbeil. Both areas saw heavy fighting in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war and are currently occupied by Israeli forces.
But US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa suggested ahead of the three-day talks that no new pilot zones would be immediately implemented, saying that “moving too quickly risks jeopardizing the very civilians this process is meant to protect”.
Implementation of the June 26 agreement began last month with an initial pilot zone in an area that was not occupied by Israeli forces but had previously sustained Israeli fire.
Yemen’s Houthis fire at airport in Saudi Arabia
In Yemen, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, said a drone hit a “sensitive target” at the airport in the southwestern city of Najran, without providing evidence.
He said the attack was in response to what he described as Saudi breaching of Yemen’s airspace over the provinces of Saada and Hajjah. There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis recently announced a blockade on Saudi-linked shipping passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that leads to the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia led an international coalition and imposed an air and sea blockade against the rebels after they seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen in a civil war that began in 2014. Major fighting ended in a truce in 2022.
Memorial marks Beirut port explosion anniversary
Families of the more than 200 people killed in the massive explosion at the port in Beirut in 2020 gathered at the blast site to mark six years since tons of improperly-stored ammonium nitrate exploded, devastating large parts of the Lebanese capital.
No one has been convicted in a long-stalled judicial investigation into the incident, but some families expressed renewed hope after government officials promised indictments would be issued by the end of the year.
The tragedy has been overshadowed by recent events, including two wars between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group and an Israeli military occupation of much of the country’s south. (PTI)
