Updates: Israel attacks Gaza journalists, resumes bombing Lebanon’s capital

This live page is now closed.

You can read about US President Joe Biden’s call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu here.

You can also see how Lebanese people displaced by Israeli bombardment are forced to sleep on streets and beaches here.

We will shortly be closing this live page and moving to a new one, but before we do, here’s a summary of today’s key events:

• Five people have been killed and 12 wounded in an Israeli attack on Wardaniyeh in southern Lebanon, while Israeli strikes in Beirut continue.
• At least 15 people have been killed by an Israeli strike on Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
• The Israeli army has attacked a group of journalists in Jabalia in northern Gaza, killing one and critically wounding Al Jazeera camera operator Fadi al-Wahidi in the neck.
• Israeli Special Forces have killed four Palestinians and wounded a fifth in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.
• Israel’s defence minister says the response to Iran’s attack last week will be “deadly, precise and above all surprising”.
• A senior commander with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says Iran is prepared to mount operations much larger than the one last week if attacked by Israel.

Meet some of the Beirut residents forced from their homes by Israeli bombardment, some living on the streets without shelter.

I think a lot of focus has been on Lebanon in recent days and weeks.

But clearly, as that’s happening, Israel continues its daily bombardment of Gaza, particularly now in the north, and that’s why this meeting was called.

We heard the briefing from Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, who pointed out that while so many Palestinians are struggling to survive every day, there are certainly going to be long-term effects.

He pointed out that 650,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have been out of school for a year now because those schools have been turned into shelters.

Many of those school-turned-shelters have been bombed by Israel.

So this is having long-term implications for Palestinian children for years to come.

Palestine’s Wafa news agency reports that Israeli soldiers have stormed several West Bank localities this evening.

They include eastern Nablus, Birzeit and Kobar north of Ramallah.

Wafa reports the deployment of Israeli bulldozers and the use of sound grenades and tear gas against Palestinian residents.

Earlier in Nablus, Israeli special forces carried out the assassination of four men in a raid on the city.

In Wardaniyeh, five people have been killed, and at least 12 people have been injured in an Israeli strike there.

This is about 40 kilometres (about 25 miles) south of where I am in the capital, Beirut.

It’s slightly inland from the coast, but it’s important to note that it is outside of an area that Israel is trying to completely empty of residents.

In the city of Tyre, which is quite close to the Israeli border, five paramedics were killed.

The World Health Organization has warned against the killing of paramedics or any civil service people in these areas, especially those who are trying to help the wounded in this war.

Now, the Israelis said that they are not directly targeting any paramedics or firefighters.

However, at least 100 have been killed in the past year, the majority of those in the past two weeks alone.

Over the past year, Israel’s bombs have caused vast amounts of asbestos to be released into the environment.

When undisturbed, the mineral poses little risk to humans but it is highly carcinogenic when broken into tiny, airborne particles.

According to United Nations estimates, some 800,000 tonnes of the bombed-out debris across Gaza may be contaminated with asbestos.

Leading experts say cases of cancer will likely be reported “for decades” in the besieged enclave.

Read more here.

The White House released the statement, giving a readout of what the conversation was about.

Interestingly, the readout says that President Biden unequivocally condemned Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel on October 1. However, that is the only mention of Iran in the readout.

There’s no indication that there was a discussion about possible Israeli action against Iran in response.

President Biden discussed Lebanon, apparently saying that a ceasefire should be put in place to allow residents on both sides of the Blue Line to return to their homes.

They also spoke about Gaza.

And there’s one word that leaks out of the readout: the word imperative.

The readout says the president discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the imperative to restore access to the north, including reinvigorating the corridor from Jordan immediately.

The president reiterated his call for a ceasefire in Gaza, allowing those being held captive to return, and those Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons set free.

More than one year on, Israel’s war on Gaza shows no sign of abating.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has escalated into a regional war. Israeli boots are on Lebanese soil, and Israeli warplanes are bombarding parts of the country’s south and east, as well as the capital, Beirut.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels are targeting ships in the Red Sea, and earlier this week, they launched missiles at central Israel. Other Iran-linked armed groups in Iraq have targeted Israel.

A range of diplomatic efforts to stop the violence has proved unsuccessful.

So, what’s next?

Watch Al Jazeera’s Inside Story to hear the debate:

Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned from Israel and the occupied West Bank.

In the afternoon, dramatic scenes unfolded on Faisal Street, a main artery in Nablus city.

A few armed men got out of a car and started shooting continuously.

We later found out that one of the four men who was killed in that attack was the head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed group operating across the occupied West Bank, as well as three other members of the group.

Of course, these scenes were very shocking for residents of Nablus, seeing as this is a main artery. People would have been going about their business, heading off from work back home on this weekday, which is a business day in Nablus.

The army’s Arabic language spokesperson tells residents of southern Beirut’s Haret Hreik to evacuate to a distance of 500 metres from a building he claimed is part of Hezbollah’s “infrastructure”.

A map added by the spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, shows a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut very close to Bahman Hospital.

Warnings like these typically preceded massive air strikes. However, Israel has continued to bomb areas in Beirut for nearly the entire day without providing warnings, according to our correspondent on the ground in the city.

Stay here for updates on the situation in Beirut.

The Israeli military says it intercepted a drone that approached Israel over the Red Sea but did not cross into Israeli territory.

The incident occurred just minutes after the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it targeted Israel’s Eilat with drones.

The southern suburb of Beirut is now pretty much considered to be a warzone by people who have fled this area since Israel began its intensive aerial assault about two weeks ago.

This area was once home to about 700,000 people.

Usually, we don’t have any warnings from the Israeli military about when or where they’re going to strike in this area. In the past, evacuation warnings have been issued, but they are usually useless.

Many people have told us that when they continue to strike areas, they don’t announce, so nobody takes the warnings seriously.

As a result of these air strikes, we have now almost a million and a half people displaced internally.

Children’s schools have also been affected. We’ve just had a statement from Save the Children, who say that 1.5 million Lebanese children are now going to have their education disrupted yet again.

A call by the US and France for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah “is still on the table,” said the top UN official in Lebanon.

“We need a realistic roadmap for the implementation, by both sides, of resolution 1701. And this must include clear implementation and enforcement mechanisms,” said UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

A UN peacekeeping mission is mandated by Security Council resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, to help the Lebanese army keep its southern border area with Israel free of weapons or armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state.

France and the United States last month proposed a 21-day ceasefire. But those talks quickly appeared to stall as Israel heavily bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

“The joint call for a 21-day ceasefire, as launched by the US or led by the US and France, I think is still on the table and very relevant, so we should not dismiss it. I don’t think that new initiatives will add to it,” Hennis-Plasschaert said.

“The many appeals and calls for ceasefire are crystal clear. We need a window for diplomatic efforts to succeed,” she said.

Since then, however, comments from US officials have cast doubt on the country’s enthusiasm for a ceasefire in Lebanon, instead expressing approval for Israel’s expanded attacks on all areas of the country in pursuit of punishing Hezbollah.

World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the UN agency’s mission to evacuate patients in critical condition from Kamal Adwan, al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals in northern Gaza have been impeded on Tuesday and today.

The Israeli military had asked medics at the three hospitals to evacuate, and doctors have been trying to transport patients to al-Ahli and al-Shifa hospitals.

The WHO director general said: “Another mission is planned for tomorrow. WHO is gravely concerned. We urge Israel to facilitate critical humanitarian missions, and ultimately, to work for a ceasefire.”

The Public Health Emergency Operations Center of Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health says five people have been killed and 12 wounded in an Israeli attack on Wardaniyeh in southern Lebanon.

The centre’s statement added that in addition to the dead and wounded who are able to be identified, there were also “body parts” left in the wake of the attack and DNA tests are being conducted to identify who they belong to.

To date, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 2,000 people, according to the Health Ministry.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has given a speech to the Security Council.

In it, he said senior Israeli officials have described destroying UNRWA as a war goal, adding that legislation to end UNRWA’s operations is ready for final adoption by the Israeli Knesset.

He said the Israeli government seeks to ban the UN agency’s presence and operations, revoking its privileges and immunities in violation of international law.

Lazzarini said these policies set a grave precedent for other conflicts in which governments may wish to eliminate an inconvenient UN presence.