Israeli strike in Beirut kills 9 as troops battle Hezbollah in southern Lebanon

Beirut: An Israeli airstrike on an apartment in the Lebanese capital has killed nine people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September but has rarely struck in the heart of Beirut.

There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit the building close to the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defence unit said seven of its members were killed.

Israel is also conducting a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, while also conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said eight soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Here is the latest:

Israeli army says another of its soldiers has been killed in southern Lebanon

JERUSALEM — The Israeli army says one of its soldiers was killed in battle in southern Lebanon.

The 21-year-old officer was killed Wednesday. The military did not explain how the officer died.

The military says a total of nine Israeli soldiers have been killed since the army started limited ground incursions in south Lebanon to battle Hezbollah militants earlier this week. Hezbollah says it has killed 17 Israeli soldiers but has provided no proof.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated in recent weeks as Israel has expanded airstrikes across southern Lebanon, south Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Lebanon’s caretaker PM wants to resume efforts to find a new president

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister is calling for a national dialogue between the country’s divided political groups to agree on who should become the country’s new president.

Lebanon’s presidency has been vacant since October 2022, when the six-year term of President Michel Aoun ended.

Najib Mikati made his comments Thursday night after meeting Cardinal Bechara al-Rai, the head of the Maronite Catholic church, Lebanon’s largest. It is unclear where such a dialogue would take place or if any political groups would agree to participate.

 “We want a president that does not provoke anyone,” Mikati said. Lawmakers have failed to elect a new head of state in more than a dozen sessions over the past two years.

According to Lebanon’s power-sharing agreement, the president should be a Maronite Catholic, the parliament speaker a Shiite Muslim and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim. Christians, Sunnis and Shiites each make about a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people.

Turkey asks the UN to take action to prevent further Israeli violence

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey is urging the United Nations Security Council and other “actors” shaping global politics to take swift action to prevent further Israeli attacks that it says are escalating conflict in the Middle East.

In a statement issued Thursday, Turkey says it will stand by the people and government of Lebanon against “Israel’s inhumane attacks.”

The statement also condemns Israel’s decision to ban U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from entering the country as the latest example of “Israel’s lawlessness.”

Lebanon’s health minister says nearly 2,000 killed in almost a year of conflict with Israel

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s health minister says nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in almost a year of conflict.

Health Minister Firas Abiad said Thursday that more than 9,000 have also been wounded in Israeli attacks since Oct. 8, 2023.

He says of the 1,974 killed, 261 were women, 127 were children, and 102 paramedics and health care workers also died. Most of them were killed in the last month.

 “This is a war crime, there is no doubt about that,” Abiad told journalists Thursday. “International laws are clear to protect these people, I mean, paramedics. Who gave Israel the right to be the judge and the executioner at the same time?”

Israeli army says it has rescued a Yazidi woman held captive in Gaza

JERUSALEM — The Israeli army says it has rescued an Iraqi Yazidi woman who was being held captive in Gaza.

Israel’s military said Thursday that the 21-year-old woman was freed in an Israeli-led rescue operation this week that was coordinated with the United States. She arrived back in Iraq on Wednesday.

Islamic State militants enslaved and killed thousands from the Yazidi religious minorities as they seized much of northern Iraq and eastern Syria in 2014.

According to the Israeli army, the woman was abducted by the Islamic State group when she was 11 and at some point, was trafficked to a Palestinian member of Hamas and taken to Gaza. How she reached the coastal enclave remains unclear.

The military says the Hamas member was killed, apparently by an airstrike.

Israel’s military says the woman was taken through the Kerem Shalom border, which connects Gaza with Israel. From there she traveled to Jordan and then Iraq, where she was reunited with her family.

The Iraqi government has said only that she was freed “in one of the countries of the region.”

Colombians return to their country as Israel battles Hezbollah in southern Lebanon

BOGOTA, Colombia — More than a hundred Colombians have returned to their country from Lebanon on a flight arranged by the government.

 “I live in Lebanon completely happy, and I had to flee with my children, leaving my husband in great pain there,” Islam el Hamed Mourad, a Colombian married to a Lebanese man, said after arriving Thursday at a military base in Bogota on a Colombian Air Force plane.

The plane brought a total of 117 Colombians, including more than 50 children and minors, according to the government.

Mourad, who has lived in Lebanon for eight years and has three children, asked the Colombia government to continue with more humanitarian flights to safeguard other Colombians who remain in Lebanon.

 “Israel is bombing in an incredible way, without mercy,” said Mourad, who was dressed in a black hijab.

WHO says 28 health workers have been killed in Lebanon in the past day

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says 28 health workers in Lebanon have been killed in the past day, and it called for a ceasefire.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described a dire situation in treating casualties, with three dozen health facilities closed in southern Lebanon and five hospitals either partly or fully evacuated in Beirut.

Tedros says health workers are not showing up at their jobs because they’ve fled areas that have been bombed.

WHO had to scrap plans to fly in medical and trauma supplies Friday because the Beirut airport is mostly closed.

Tedros says Iran’s “dangerous escalation” had serious consequences for the region.

 “WHO calls for a de-escalation of the conflict, for health care to be protected and not attacked, for access routes to be secured and supplies delivered,” Tedros said. “And for a ceasefire, a political solution and peace. The best medicine is peace.”

Charter flight is being organized to repatriate Italians from Lebanon

ROME — Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says a charter flight was being organized to repatriate 180 Italians from Lebanon.

That is what Tajani told Parliament on Thursday. He said he hopes they will arrive home “this evening.”

He said the ministry has also recommended that an estimated 700 Italians in Iran leave the country on commercial flights that are gradually resuming.

Biden says he does not expect Israel to retaliate against Iran on Thursday

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden says he doesn’t expect Israel to retaliate immediately against Iran and rejects the suggestion the U.S. Would grant permission for such an attack.

Biden was speaking to reporters Thursday, two days after Tehran bombarded Israel with almost 200 ballistic missiles. Iran said the barrage was in response to Israel’s recent assassination of Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

Israel says it intercepted many of the missiles, while Iran says most of them hit their targets.

The barrage has raised concerns about the escalating conflict in the Middle East and the role of the U.S. In Israel’s defense.

 “First of all, we don’t allow’ Israel, we advise Israel,” Biden said. “And nothing’s going to happen today.”

Israel says an airstrike in Gaza killed a Palestinian convicted of killing soldiers

JERUSALEM — Israel says one of its airstrikes in Gaza killed a Palestinian who was convicted in the killing of two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank at the start of the 2000 uprising.

Abdel-Aziz Salha was part of an angry mob that stormed a Palestinian police station in the West Bank city of Ramallah and killed two Israeli reservists. The two had been detained after accidentally entering an area administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Salha waved his blood-stained hands from the window of the police station in what became one of the defining images of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule.

The killing of the reservists marked a major escalation in Israeli-Palestinian tensions as the peace process of the 1990s collapsed.

The military said Thursday that Salha was killed in an overnight strike on the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. The military identified him as a Hamas militant.

Salha was arrested by Israeli