Latest news from the Middle East: Dozens dead in Gaza as Israel says it attacks a weapons facility

Palestinian health authorities said at least 30 people were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, including against a house where displaced families were taking refuge.

Ten people were killed early Tuesday, including four children and two women, and an attack late Monday in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed at least 20 people, including eight women and six children, health authorities said. The Israeli military said it had targeted an arms depot from which a militant had been operating and that it had taken “numerous steps to reduce the risk of injury to civilians.”

Israel has been waging a massive offensive for nearly a month in northern Gaza, already the most isolated and devastated part of the territory.

Despite growing pressure from the United States and other members of the international community for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, increased Israeli attacks against the militant Hezbollah group are expanding beyond Lebanon's border areas. Israel is also waging a seemingly endless war against Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in 2023, at least 3,000 people have been killed and around 13,500 injured in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports.

More than a year of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children. The war began after Palestinian militants stormed Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapping 250 others.

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Here's the latest:

GENEVA – The World Health Organization says it is working to organize medical evacuations for more than 100 people from Gaza on Wednesday. This would be the largest such operation of its kind in six months.

Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territories, said the U.N. health agency was helping coordinate evacuations through the Kerem Shalom border crossing based on a list of priority candidates drawn up by the health ministry in Gaza.

In a video call from Gaza to reporters in Geneva, Peeperkorn said medical evacuations had been ordered for 282 people since Israeli forces forced the closure of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 6.

Before the closure of Rafah, nearly 4,700 people had been transported from Gaza in medical evacuations since the attacks on October 7 last year, he said.

The largest disaster since May affected 97 people who were evacuated on September 11th. Thousands of people remain on waiting lists to get out.

According to the WHO, people with chronic diseases such as cancer and patients after trauma – injuries – were also among those who had to be evacuated. Peeperkorn said most would be taken to the United Arab Emirates for further treatment, while about 30 were scheduled to go to Romania. (edited)

ISLAMABAD – Iran's foreign minister reiterated on Tuesday that his country does not seek escalation in the Middle East but reserves the right to defend itself against Israel's attack with a “measured and calculated” response.

Iranian officials are increasingly threatening another attack against Israel following the Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic, which attacked military bases and other sites and killed at least five people.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a press conference during his visit to Pakistan that “the Islamic Republic of Iran, unlike the Israeli regime, does not seek escalation.”

“We reserve our inherent rights to legitimate defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and will certainly respond to Israeli aggression in due course and in an appropriate, very measured and very calculated manner,” he said.

Araghchi met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who called for an urgent ceasefire to de-escalate tensions in the region.

BEIRUT – The Lebanese Red Cross will send another convoy to Wata al-Khiam in southern Lebanon on Tuesday to search for and remove the bodies of 15 people killed in an Israeli airstrike, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said .

Paramedics went to the scene two days earlier and removed five more bodies, but had to return with larger vehicles to clear the debris. The NNA said the operation was in coordination with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, which was standard procedure.

The Red Cross did not immediately comment on the news, but expressed concern in recent weeks about several incidents in which Israel struck in or near areas where medics were deployed to search for wounded and victims.

The Israeli military said it warned residents there in late October to evacuate ahead of attacks on Hezbollah militant targets and ordered ambulances to avoid the area.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Palestinian health officials say an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip has killed at least 20 people, mostly women and children.

Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of a nearby hospital that received the injured, said the strike late Monday hit a house in the town of Beit Lahiya where several families were seeking refuge.

The dead included eight women and six children, according to a list from Gaza's Health Ministry's emergency services.

The Israeli military said it had targeted an arms depot from which a militant had been operating and that it had taken “numerous steps to reduce the risk of injury to civilians.”

Israel has been waging a massive offensive for nearly a month in northern Gaza, already the most isolated and devastated part of the territory. It ordered the complete evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the nearby town of Beit Hanoun and the Jabaliya urban refugee camp and allowed almost no humanitarian aid into the area for over a month.

Tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement in the war that began with the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas-led militants on Israel's south.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes killed 10 people in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, including four children and two women.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health Emergency Services, an attack hit a house in the Tufah district of Gaza City, killing two children and their parents. Two other children were injured, it was said.

In the central town of Zuweida, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent where a displaced family was taking refuge and killed four people, including a mother and her two children, in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Another attack hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing two people, the hospital said.

An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies in the hospital morgue.

The Israeli military says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. Individual attacks, in which women and children are often killed, are rarely commented on.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 hostage. There are still around 100 hostages in the Gaza Strip, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

According to Gaza's Health Ministry, over 43,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, more than half of whom were women and children. No distinction is made between civilians and combatants.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have killed four people in the occupied West Bank.

Two people were killed in an airstrike early Tuesday near the northern city of Jenin, a flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, two more people were fatally shot in the village of Tamoun.

The Israeli military said it had ordered an air strike on a militant cell near Jenin. It also said two armed militants were killed in an airstrike in the Tamoun area.

Since Hamas' attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7 sparked the war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces have carried out almost daily military raids in the West Bank. According to the Health Ministry, at least 767 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then. Most appear to be militants killed in clashes with Israeli forces, but the dead also include innocent civilians and people killed during protests.

Israel says the raids are aimed at crushing Hamas in the West Bank and preventing attacks. Since the war began, Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.