Heavy Israeli bombardment in northern Gaza

Palestinians in northern Gaza say there has been heavy Israeli bombardment in the hours after air strikes killed at least 22 people, as Israel warned people there and in southern Lebanon to get out of the way of offensives against the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups.

In Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping force said that its headquarters in Naqoura was hit again, with a third peacekeeper struck by gunfire late on Friday and in stable condition.

It wasn’t clear who fired. The shooting occurred a day after Israel’s military fired on the headquarters for a second straight day.

Israel, which has warned peacekeepers to leave their positions, didn’t immediately respond to questions.

Hunger warnings emerged again in northern Gaza as residents said they hadn’t received aid since the beginning of the month.

The UN World Food Programme said that no food aid had entered the north since October 1. An estimated 400,000 people remain there.

Israel’s military renewed its offensive in northern Gaza almost a week ago while escalating its air and ground campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Amid Israel’s war with Hezbollah, a top UN official, Carl Skau, told The Associated Press that he’s concerned that Lebanon’s ports and airport might be taken out of service putting pressure on food supplies. More than one million people have been displaced.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that an Israeli air strike hit an apartment building on the edge of Barja south of Beirut, and the Health Ministry said that four were killed.

The ministry said an air strike on Maisra village northeast of Beirut killed five people.

The total toll in Lebanon over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is now 2255 killed, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

More than 1400 people have been killed since mid-September. It wasn’t clear how many were fighters.

Israel’s military said that Hezbollah fired more than 300 projectiles over the Yom Kippur holiday.

The military said that it killed 50 militants in Lebanon. Claims on either side couldn’t be verified.

“We will keep standing with the Lebanese people during these difficult circumstances and also with the Palestinian people,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said Saturday while touring the scene of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

In northern Gaza, residents told the AP many were trapped in their homes and shelters with dwindling supplies while seeing bodies uncollected in the streets as the bombing hampered emergency responders.

Those who rushed to the scene of the latest deadly air strikes in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya found a hole 20 metres deep where a home once stood.

At least 20 bodies were recovered as of Saturday morning, while others likely were trapped under rubble, emergency service officials said.

Elsewhere in Jabaliya, a strike on a home killed two brothers and wounded a woman and newborn baby, the officials said.

Another strike in the afternoon hit a Jabaliya home and killed at least four people, including a woman, said Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the emergency service.

Israel’s military said that it killed more than 20 militants in the Jabaliya area over the past day.

The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

Once again, some families moved south on foot, in donkey carts or crowded in vehicles that navigated piles of rubble. Others refused to go.

“It’s like the first days of the war,” said a Jabaliya resident, Ahmed Abu Goneim.

“The occupation is doing everything to uproot us. But we will not leave.”