Israeli military renews orders for Palestinians to leave northern Gaza

 Jerusalem: The Israeli military on Saturday renewed its orders for Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and shelters as troops press on a weeklong offensive against militants.

  Most of the fighting in the past week was centred in and around Jabaliya that was pounded by Israeli war jets and artillery. Residents said they have been trapped inside their homes and shelters.

In Lebanon, authorities said Friday that 60 people were killed and 168 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah to 2,229 dead and 10,380 wounded.

 Israel has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border, after a year of exchanges of fire. Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hamas’ ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities.

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

 It’s been a full year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

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 US military hits Islamic State camps in Syria with airstrikes

BEIRUT – The US military said it conducted a series of airstrikes against multiple camps in Syria belonging to the Islamic State group.

 The US Central Command said the strikes on Friday will “disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organize and conduct attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, and civilians throughout the region and beyond.”

It said battle damage assessments were underway and did not include civilian casualties.

 There are some 900 US forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory.