Updates: Israel strikes Palestine, Lebanon, Syria threatening stability

To learn more about what Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said following Israel’s assassination of the group’s top military chief last week, see here.

For a full account of what’s happening during the Israeli army’s major incursion in the occupied West Bank, read this.

And for all the news and analysis on the Israel-Palestine conflict, here is our dedicated page.

This live page is about to close. Here are the day’s main developments:

• Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem says the Lebanese group has the right to respond to Israel’s killing of senior commander Haytham Ali Tabtabai and will “set the timing” for retaliation.
• A UN committee has urged Israel to set up an independent investigatory commission to investigate claims of torture of Palestinians, saying the situation has “gravely intensified” since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza.
• Gulf Arab states have denounced Israel’s attack on a village in southern Syria that killed 13 people, including children, calling it a violation of sovereign territory and international law.
• Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says he intends to change investigation procedures into shootings by troops after the killing in cold blood of two Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank.
• Gaza’s Civil Defence agency issued an urgent appeal as a new winter storm is expected to hit the enclave in the coming days, warning war-displaced Palestinians remain exposed to life-threatening cold.

The Israeli army says nine Palestinian fighters inside a tunnel under the city of Rafah were killed by troops in southern Gaza.

Media reports say between 100 and 200 Hamas fighters are trapped inside the tunnel, and Israel has not yet responded to demands by Hamas and mediator pleas to allow them safe passage to areas under the group’s control.

In a statement, the Israeli army alleged that, in total, more than 30 fighters “who attempted to flee the underground terror infrastructure in eastern Rafah have been eliminated”.

The city of Rafah falls within zones still occupied by the Israeli military inside Gaza. The United States and other ceasefire mediators are trying to negotiate the fighters’ escape to Hamas-controlled areas to keep the truce alive.

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad says its fighters carried out a series of attacks on Israeli soldiers during raids in Jenin and Tubas in the occupied West Bank.

In a statement, the group said its fighters in Tubas targeted an Israeli foot patrol with an antipersonnel explosive device in the Wadi al-Tayaseer area.

Fighters detonated explosives against Israeli military vehicles in the al-Ziyoud and al-Bir areas of the town of Silat al-Harithiya in Jenin, it added.

The armed group also said its fighters disabled an Israeli military four-wheel drive in the al-Ziyoud area, and claimed there were casualties among Israeli troops during clashes.

The number of Palestinians wounded by Israeli forces in the West Bank’s Tubas governorate since the start of the ongoing military attack has risen to 130.

Nidal Odeh, head of ambulance and emergency services in Tubas, told Wafa that emergency teams have dealt with 130 injuries over the past three days.

Of those, 66 people were transferred to hospitals, with the rest treated at the scene.

Israeli forces have maintained a three-day raid and siege on Tubas, turning several Palestinian homes into military outposts.

Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s representative to the UN, has condemned Israel’s latest attack on the southern town of Beit Jinn, saying it further exposes Israel’s disregard for international law and reflects its fear of a strengthening Syria.

The incident is “yet another indication to the world of which country in the region is the one abiding by international law and which isn’t”, Olabi told Al Jazeera.

It highlights “who really wants a peace deal, a security agreement – who wants to be able to get the region into stability – and who doesn’t”, he added.

Israel is acting out of anxiety over Syria’s trajectory and its growing “regional and international prominence”, he said.

“Israel is terrified by a strong and prosperous and stable Syria. We are heading in that direction no matter what.”

He described Israel’s latest assault as a signal aimed not only at Syria, but also at its allies. The attack indicates Israel is “running out of options”.

Internationally, Olabi said, Israel has “no sympathy whatsoever” and “no arguments to rely on in order to justify what they’re doing”.

Mohammed Ibrahim and Tasneem al-Hams, ages 16 and 22, respectively, were both just released from Israeli custody. As they reunited with their loved ones, both described brutal conditions inside the prisons.

Palestinian American teenager Ibrahim was arrested in February for allegedly throwing stones in the occupied West Bank. He spent almost 10 months in an Israeli prison.

An armed group abducted al-Hams from a medical facility in Gaza where she was working as a nurse – and then handed her over to Israel.

For almost two months, Israel moved her from prison to prison, where she described violent treatment and soldiers denying women from wearing their hijabs.

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Gulf Arab states have denounced Israel’s attack on a village in southern Syria that killed 13 people, including children, calling it a violation of sovereign territory and international law.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the escalation “deepens tensions and undermines efforts to achieve security and stability in the region”.

It called on the international community to take immediate action to stop Israeli violations, protect civilians, and hold those responsible accountable under international law.

Saudi Arabia said in a Foreign Ministry statement that it “condemns and denounces the blatant assault” by Israeli forces in its attempts “to undermine the security and stability of Syria and its people”.

In a statement, Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the attack. “These criminal assaults are merely an extension of Israel’s destabilizing approach that threatens the security and stability of the region and undermines regional and international efforts aimed at de-escalation.”

Since the declaration of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on October 10, Israel has violated the agreement many times with near-daily attacks, killing hundreds of people.

The Government Media Office in Gaza said Israel shot at civilians 142 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 21 times, bombed and shelled Gaza 228 times, and demolished people’s property on 100 occasions.

Israeli forces have also detained 35 Palestinians in Gaza over the past month, and continue to block vital humanitarian aid and destroy homes and infrastructure across the Strip.

Read more here.

The UN humanitarian office says that despite the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, its staff and facilities “continue to come under fire”, creating dangerous conditions that are obstructing aid operations.

“Civilians, including humanitarian workers, and civilian infrastructure – including humanitarian convoys, supplies and facilities – must always be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.

Ongoing attacks “expose UN staff, NGO partners, and the people who depend on their services to grave risks, including death and injury, and further impede humanitarian work”, it added.

Israel’s military continues near-daily attacks on Gaza, with hundreds of ceasefire violations since the October 10 truce deal came into effect.

The Israeli military agency COGAT says it has opened a 15th field hospital inside Gaza, without providing its location.

The new medical structure includes 150 beds and 200 medical and support staff, it added.

Only half of Gaza’s hospitals remain partially functional, and there are still no fully functioning hospitals following two years of systematic attacks on healthcare by the Israeli military, according to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).

The Israeli army also killed more than 1,700 healthcare workers, MAP said in a separate report.

Between October 7, 2023 and May this year, the WHO documented 686 attacks on medical centres and vehicles in the Strip.

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says he intends to change investigation procedures into shootings by troops after the killing of two Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank.

“We need to put an end to this distorted procedure where when one of our fighters shoots a terrorist, they immediately take him for questioning,” Ben-Gvir was quoted by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority as saying.

The Israeli army opened an investigation following the release of a video appearing to show soldiers shooting dead two unarmed Palestinians who had already surrendered.

The far-right minister also publicly backed the military and police unit involved in the extrajudicial killings, which took place in Jenin, northern occupied West Bank. “The [Israeli] fighters acted exactly as expected of them – terrorists should die,” he wrote on X.

Najat Aoun Saliba, an independent parliamentarian in Lebanon, says the government is working hard to convince Hezbollah to hand over its weapons as Israel continues to threaten war, and the United States has given a deadline by the end of the year.

“We do understand that Israel is an enemy that is violating all these agreements – more than 5,000 times – but we don’t understand how Hezbollah is continuing to restrain from complying to those resolutions – the ceasefire and [UN] resolution 1701,” she said.

“I think the people are completely tired of destruction and killings. We call on Hezbollah to really put its hand with the hands of all those who want to build a state, so we can put pressure on Israel through the international community to withdraw from the Lebanese territory.”

Aoun Saliba told Al Jazeera that Lebanon’s army has done “a great job” taking over the security of southern Lebanon during the year-old ceasefire with Israel.

“We know they are facing a lot of challenges with the occupation by the Israelis of the good part of many villages and the points they have taken in the south.”

The UN human rights office spokesperson, Jeremy Laurence, had denounced Israel’s national security minister after he praised the killing of two unarmed Palestinian men during raids on the occupied West Bank.

Itamar Ben-Gvir publicly backed the military and police unit involved in the extrajudicial killings on Thursday. “The [Israeli] fighters acted exactly as expected of them – terrorists should die,” he wrote on X.

Laurence told reporters in Geneva that Ben-Gvir’s comments are “nothing short of abhorrent”. He added at least 21 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces so far in November, nine of them children.

A Palestinian man has been wounded after an assault by Israeli settlers in the village of Rujeib, east of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.

Settlers attacked the man while he was on Rujeib Mountain, causing injuries that required his transfer to hospital for treatment, the Wafa news agency reported.

Violence in the West Bank has broken new records this year with Israeli settlers carrying out almost-daily attacks on Palestinians, including killings, beatings, and the destruction of property – often under the protection of the Israeli military.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the West Bank last month alone.

Israeli forces detained several Palestinians in the town of Yabad, southwest of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, local residents told the Wafa news agency.

Soldiers stopped a group of young men near a roundabout and severely beat one of them before holding others for questioning.

Later, troops raided the home of freed prisoner Nazmi Abu Bakr, 25, destroying his belongings before arresting him.

Israelis from illegal settlements also cleared Palestinian land in the town, while Israeli forces continued turning several homes into military outposts after forcibly evicting residents.

Yabad’s Mayor Amjad Attatra said settlers have stepped up assaults on private land as the army maintains its seizure of multiple homes in the area.

A UN committee has urged Israel to set up an independent investigatory commission to investigate claims of torture of Palestinians, saying the situation has “gravely intensified” since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza.

The Committee against Torture said it’s “deeply concerned about reports indicating a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture and ill-treatment” in Israel.

The committee – with 10 independent experts who monitor how countries implement an international convention against torture – stressed it “unequivocally condemned the attack perpetrated by Hamas and other groups on October 7, 2023 against Israel”.

But it also highlighted “the disproportionate nature of Israel’s response to these attacks” while imposing “cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population”.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, rejected the allegations, branding them “disinformation”.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, says since the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel took hold, 535 Israeli violations have been documented.

Attacks since October 10 have killed 350 Palestinians and wounded about 900 others, al-Thawabta said in a statement.

Despite the US and Israel suggesting otherwise, he added that aid flows into the war-battered territory are far below what was agreed upon in the truce.

“The occupation has allowed only 9,930 trucks to enter Gaza out of the nearly 28,000 requested – a mere 35 percent – thus turning aid into a tool of war used for pressure rather than a legal or humanitarian obligation,” said al-Thawabta.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is deteriorating at an unprecedented rate, and the Israeli aggression has destroyed infrastructure and essential services. The continued Israeli violations without international accountability embolden the occupation to persist in killing and targeting civilians.”

During Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem’s televised speech, he warned that the time has come to get ready for a new conflict with Israel.

“Surrender is out of the question for us. We will stand firm and defend ourselves … It is better for our citizens that we unite against the foreign enemy,” he said.

He said Israel’s killing of top commander Haytham Ali Tabtabai last week occurred when he was in a meeting with four aides “to prepare for future actions”.

Qassem insisted the Lebanese group has respected the November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of fighting with Israel, calling for an end to persistent Israeli attacks on the country.

It continues to ignore the ceasefire as it repeatedly attacks Lebanon and occupies its territory in the south with a series of military posts after agreeing to withdrawal.