Middle East latest: Sirens sound across Tel Aviv as projectiles are intercepted near Blinken’s hotel

Air raid sirens echoed across Tel Aviv on Wednesday as United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to end a visit. Smoke, apparently from an intercepted projectile, could be seen in the sky above the hotel where Blinken was staying.

Blinken urged Israel to use its recent tactical victories against Hamas to seek a war-ending deal and bring back dozens of hostages, before leaving Wednesday for Saudi Arabia as part of his 11th visit to the region since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Both sides appear to be dug in. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to annihilate Hamas and recover dozens of hostages held by the group. Hamas says it will only release the captives in return for a lasting cease-fire, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

The war began after Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023, blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not differentiate between militants and civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization postponed the third phase of a polio vaccine campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip, saying current conditions made it “impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination.”

Here’s the latest:

UNDP says Lebanon’s economy could shrink by 9.2% if Israeli offensive continues until year’s end

UNITED NATIONS – Lebanon’s economy could shrink by as much as 9.2% if the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah continues until the end of the year, the U.N. Development Program says.

In a rapid appraisal of Lebanon’s economy released Wednesday, the UNDP said a major decline this year would come on top of a 28% contraction between 2018 and 2022 and would wipe out gains in economic stability achieved last year.

UNDP warns that the economic impact of the current conflict is expected to be greater than in the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 when GDP dropped between 8% and 10%. The New York-based U.N. agency pointed to the scale of current fighting, the geopolitical context, the humanitarian impact and the economic fallout.

“The impacts of the conflict on the economy and longer-term development in Lebanon are potentially very serious,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said in a statement. “Lebanon now needs committed support from the international community, and the assistance must include both immediate humanitarian aid and more comprehensive support to social, economic and institutional stability.”

UN envoy for Syria warns that regional spillover of conflicts ‘could get much worse’

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. envoy for Syria warned Wednesday that the regional spillover of the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon “could get much worse.”

Geir Pedersen warned the U.N. Security Council that “heat” from “the fires of conflict” raging in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon is being felt in Syria – and a spillover to Syria could have “serious implications” for international peace and security.

In an unusually strong statement, Pedersen urged the U.N.’s most powerful body to pay serious attention to a possible spillover.

Pedersen said hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians living in Lebanon have fled escalating Israeli attacks and airstrikes and gone to neighboring Syria.

The Syrian government has reported more than 116 Israeli attacks on its territory, resulting in more than 100 deaths since the war between Hamas and Israel began more than a year ago, Pederson said.

Pedersen said Israeli strikes on the road between the Lebanese capital of Beirut and the Syrian capital of Damascus have hindered fleeing civilians and “strangled a critical commercial artery between the two countries.” He said commercial traffic has decreased and gas prices in Syria have doubled.

“We are seeing all the ingredients for a military, humanitarian and economic storm breaking on an already devastated Syria,” said Pedersen.

1 killed in Israeli airstrike that targeted Al-Mayadeen TV office

BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike targeting an office belonging to a Beirut-based TV station killed one person, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.

The ministry said five other people, including a child, were wounded in Wednesday’s strike. The child was seriously injured and admitted to the hospital.

Pan-Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen, which is politically allied with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, said its office in the area between Jnah and Ouzai on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs was targeted.

“Al-Mayadeen holds the Israeli occupation accountable for the attack on a known media office for a known media outlet,” Al-Mayadeen TV said.

The name of the person killed is unknown.

Al Mayadeen said that the office had been evacuated. The Israeli army did not issue a warning before the strike.

On Nov. 21, an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed two Al-Mayadeen journalists who were reporting on military activity along the border with Israel.

The health ministry also reported that 16 people were wounded in Israeli strikes on Tyre city and its surroundings. Twenty-four other people were wounded in an Israeli strike on Nahle-Baalbeck road in the Bekaa Valley.

UN reports death, injury and destrustruction in northern Gaza

UNITED NATIONS – U.N. humanitarian officials are reporting “harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction” in northern Gaza as Israel wages another major operation there.

Two water stations can’t operate because of a lack of fuel and Israeli authorities are denying fuel deliveries, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Wednesday.

“Civilians are trapped under rubble,” he said. “The sick and wounded are going without life-saving health care. Families lack food. Their homes have been destroyed. They have no shelter. And nowhere is safe.”

Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war’s opening weeks.

The U.N. World Food Program got one convoy into Gaza City on Oct. 15, Haq said. The program also reported very limited humanitarian supplies entering the south.

Haq said the World Food Program is warning that September and October have seen some of the lowest levels of humanitarian aid entering Gaza since late 2023 as well as a drastic reduction in commercial cargo.

So far this month “only 20% of the agency’s operational food needs have entered Gaza,” he said.

Israeli strike hits Al-Mayadeen TV office

BEIRUT — Israel’s military carried out a strike on an office belonging to a Beirut-based TV station.

Pan-Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen, which is politically allied with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, said its office in the area between Jnah and Ouzai on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs was hit.

“Al-Mayadeen holds the Israeli occupation accountable for the attack on a known media office for a known media outlet,” Al-Mayadeen TV said.

It added that the office had been evacuated. The Israeli army did not issue a warning before the strike.

On Nov. 21, an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed two Al-Mayadeen journalists who were reporting on military activity along the border with Israel.

28 people killed in Lebanon in 24 hours, Health Ministry says

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says 28 people were killed and 139 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,574 killed and 12,001 wounded.

Lebanon’s crisis response unit recorded 74 airstrikes and shelling bombardments in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon and the Nabatiyeh province.

Some 1,097 centers are sheltering 191,503 people, including 44,247 families, displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the report said. Among these shelters, 922 are full.

The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, including more than 400,000 children, according to the U.N. children’s agency.

Bodies of mom and child recovered after Israeli strike near Beirut hospital

BEIRUT — Rescuers have recovered the bodies of a woman and her 7-year-old child two days after an Israeli airstrike hit a densely populated slum near Beirut’s main public hospital, an official says.

The strike killed at least 18 people, including four children, and wounded over 60 others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. It also damaged Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Beirut’s primary public medical facility.

Saad al-Ahmar, the commander of the Lebanese Civil Defense’s southern district fire and rescue unit, told The Associated Press that the mother and child were from the Mokdad family, seven of whom were killed in Monday’s attack. He also noted that four to five Syrians and one Sudanese individual remain unaccounted for.

The Israeli military claimed it targeted a Hezbollah site, without providing further details, and stated that the hospital was not the intended target.

Hezbollah confirms death of Hashem Safieddine in Israeli airstrike

BEIRUT — Hezbollah has confirmed that Hashem Safieddine, one of its top officials who had been widely expected to be the group’s next leader, was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Wednesday’s statement came a day after Israel said it had killed Safieddine in a strike this month in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Safieddine, a powerful cleric within the party ranks, had been expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders. Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.

Over the past several weeks, Israeli strikes have killed much of Hezbollah’s top leadership.

Israeli army says it arrested over 150 suspected militants in Jabaliya

JERUSALEM — Israel’s army said it has arrested over 150 suspected Palestinian militants and facilitated the evacuation of an additional 20,000 residents over the past day from Jabaliya, an area of northern Gaza where troops have intensified attacks in recent weeks.

The military said in a statement Wednesday that some of the 150 detained had surrendered. The U.N. estimates that 60,000 people have fled from the far north of Gaza southwards, to Gaza City, over more than a two-week period.

A Palestinian resident of Beit Lahiya, near Jabaliya, told The Associated Press that Israel’s military has rounded hundreds of men in northern Gaza, separating women as families try to flee the area.

Hisham Abu Zaqout, a father of four, said he was held for at least three hours with dozens of men in a school near the Indonesian Hospital.

The Israeli army says it is trying to uproot Hamas militants from Jabaliya and other parts of northern Gaza.

Jabaliya, a refugee camp that has turned into a densely built neighborhood, has been the scene of on-and-of fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants for months.

Blinken discusses common efforts to end conflicts with Saudi Crown Prince

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped a two-hour meeting Wednesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, where the two men discussed “common efforts” to end the growing conflicts in the region at a time of growing instability, according to spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Riyadh and Washington have been working in tandem in the past year to try and strike a lasting cease-fire in Gaza, which has become more elusive in recent weeks as Israel’s invasion of neighboring Lebanon significantly escalated.

Miller said in a statement that the two leaders also discussed the larger goal of ensuring Saudi Arabia’s “greater integration among countries in the region.”

Many choose to remain in Tyre despite intensifying bombardment

BEIRUT — The head of the disaster management unit in the Lebanese city of Tyre told The Associated Press that despite many fleeing Israeli airstrikes, thousands of residents and people who have been displaced have chosen to stay in the city.

Tyre is home to over 15,000 people, including hundreds of families, who have fled villages in South Lebanon and are now seeking refuge in schools-turned-shelters, Mortada Mhanna said.

Many families are staying put in the schools, he said, as the Israeli army intensifies its aerial bombardment on the city.

“It’s very difficult for many to leave. They’re worried about being subjected to further chaos and displacement,” Mhanna added.

A strike was heard in the background as he spoke on the phone. “That one was huge, can you check where it hit?” he asked a colleague.

Mhanna said his team has also chosen to stay in the city to take care of people, but “it’s a big risk. It’s not safe here anymore,” he said.

Israel’s defense minister says an attack on Iran would show military readiness

JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister told a group of pilots Wednesday that an Israeli attack on Iran would demonstrate the “preparation and readiness” of the country’s air force.

“After we attack in Iran, both in the State of Israel and in other places will understand what your preparation process includes, and your preparation and readiness,” Yoav Gallant told air force pilots and operators at the Hatzerim airbase in southern Israel. “The Air Force is a key element in this matter and anyone who tries to harm us will be harmed.”

It was the latest statement from Israel’s leadership to suggest that the country plans to retaliate with force against Iran for the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel Oct. 1.

Israel’s options range from symbolic strikes on military targets to crippling attacks on Iran’s vital oil industry or its secretive and heavily fortified nuclear program, an option US President Joe Biden has urged Israel against.

Blinken to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to meet Wednesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh as tensions in the region continue to intensify with no breakthrough on a ceasefire deal.

The meeting is one of many Blinken will have with Arab officials in the next few days as the U.S. struggles to achieve some sort of progress just two weeks before the presidential election and in the final stretch of President Joe Biden’s administration.

The two are expected to discuss the growing concerns over humanitarian aid for Gaza as well as a post-war plan for Palestinians.

Multiple buildings in Lebanon hit i

n coastal city hit in airstrike

TYRE, Lebanon — Israeli jets struck multiple buildings in the coastal city of Tyre on Wednesday, sending large clouds of black smoke into the air.

The state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike on the nearby town of Maarakeh killed three people. There were no immediate reports of casualties in Tyre.

Tyre, a provincial capital, had largely been spared in the Israel-Hezbollah war that erupted last month, but strikes in and around the city have intensified recently.

The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings a few hours prior for dozens of buildings in the heart of the coastal city. It told residents to move north of the Awali River, dozens of kilometers (miles) to the north.

The buildings are surrounded by ancient historical sites and beach resorts.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on the platform X that Hezbollah assets were in the area of the evacuation warning, without elaborating or providing evidence.

World Health Organization postpones third phase of polio vaccination campaign

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The World Health Organization on Wednesday said it and other aid agencies had to postpone the third phase of a polio vaccine campaign in the Gaza Strip due to the war there.

The WHO issued a statement saying the decision was made in concert with UNICEF, the United Nations’ Palestinian aid agency UNRWA, Palestinian officials and others after the inoculations were to begin Wednesday.

“The current conditions, including ongoing attacks on civilian infrastructure continue to jeopardize people’s safety and movement in northern Gaza, making it impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination, and health workers to operate,” a WHO statement said.

The WHO said this phase of the vaccinations aimed to vaccinate over 119,000 children across northern Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian affairs in Gaza, said that the vaccination campaign in north Gaza would begin in the coming days “after a joint assessment and at the request of the WHO and UNICEF.”

The campaign began in September after Gaza reported its first polio case in 25 years. Health officials have expressed alarm about disease outbreaks as uncollected garbage piles up and the bombing of critical infrastructure sends putrid water flowing through the streets. Polio is spread through fecal matter.

Germany’s foreign minister calls for a diplomatic solution to fighting on her visit to Beirut

BERLIN — German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

Baerbock, upon her arrival Wednesday in Beirut, said that “we must now work with our partners in the USA, Europe and the Arab world to find a viable diplomatic solution that safeguards the legitimate security interests of both Israel and Lebanon.”

The foreign minister warned that “a complete destabilization of the country would be fatal for the most religiously diverse society of all states in the Middle East and also for the entire region.” She also asked all parties involved in the conflict to protect the United Nations peacekeeper troops stationed in the Israeli-Lebanese border region.

The 5 Nordic countries are ‘deeply concerned’ about legislation that would prevent UNRWA from operating

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The five Nordic countries said Wednesday that they are “deeply concerned” by bills introduced to Israel’s parliament that would prevent the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.

In early October, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved two bills that would sever Israeli government ties with UNRWA, ban UNRWA activity on Israel territory and strip it of legal immunities. The bills passed preliminary approvals by a large margin but must pass several more readings before they become law.

A joint letter signed by the foreign ministers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden said that if the U.N. body “would no longer be able to exercise its core tasks” it could further destabilize the situation in the region, “and may fundamentally jeopardize the prospects for a two-state solution.”

Blinken urges Israel to end war as he leaves for Saudi Arabia

TEL AVIV, Israel — Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel needs to pursue an “enduring strategic success” after its recent tactical victories against Hamas, urging it to seek a deal to end the war and bring back dozens of hostages.

He spoke to reporters Wednesday before traveling from Israel to Saudi Arabia on his 11th visit to the region since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered the war in Gaza.

The United States hopes to revive cease-fire efforts after the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli military operation in Gaza the previous week. But there’s no indication that either of the warring parties have modified their demands since the talks stalled over the summer. Hamas has said its demands have not changed following Sinwar’s death.

Blinken, who met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials Tuesday, said he had pressed Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and reiterated his warning that the failure to do so could lead to a reduction in U.S. military aid.

“There’s progress made, which is good, but more progress needs to be made,” on that front, he said.

Sirens sound across Tel Aviv as projectiles are intercepted near Blinken’s hotel

TEL AVIV, Israel — Air raid sirens echoed across Tel Aviv on Wednesday as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to depart from his hotel to the airport.

The Israeli military said it intercepted two projectiles fired from Lebanon. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Smoke, apparently from one of the interceptions, could be seen in the sky above the hotel where Blinken was staying.

He is on his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, hoping to renew cease-fire efforts after the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.