Middle East latest: Hezbollah's acting leader says the group is focused on hurting Israel

Hezbollah’s acting leader declared Tuesday that the Lebanese militant group is focused on “hurting the enemy” by targeting Haifa and other parts of Israel, including Tel Aviv.

Sheikh Naim Kassem, Hezbollah’s deputy chief, vowed in a televised speech to “defeat our enemies and drive them out of our lands.” It was his third appearance since Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a southern suburb of Beirut.

The United Nations human rights office meanwhile called for an independent probe into an Israeli airstrike that hit an apartment block in Aito in northern Lebanon, killing at least 22 people, including 12 women and two children.

Israeli strikes continued in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people overnight, including six children and two women, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday.

In northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, residents said families were still trapped in their homes and shelters.

It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people.

In solidarity with Hamas, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire with Israel almost daily for the past year. Israel has escalated its campaign against the group in recent weeks.

Meanwhile several villages in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley are witnessing intensified airstrikes.

According to the state-run National News Agency, an Israeli airstrike on Qana in Tyre province on Tuesday killed at least one person and wounded 30, with many believed to be trapped under the rubble.

In the same province, incessant airstrikes targeted villages including Al-Qasimiyah, Ain Baal, Aita al-Jabal, Majdalzon, and Al-Mansouri, according to the agency.

The Lebanese Health Ministry says an Israeli strike on Riyak in the Bekaa Valley killed five people, including three children, and wounded 16.

The situation has led United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to again warn that attacks on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon violate international law and may constitute a war crime.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric delivered the warning Tuesday. He told reporters that not only have five UNIFIL peacekeepers been wounded in southern Lebanon but U.N. premises “have been impacted on at least 20 occasions since Oct. 1,” when Israel launched its ground offensive.

Also Tuesday, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix met with Israel’s Ambassador Danny Danon.

Danon said Hezbollah militants “find shelter behind UNIFIL positions,” and even though there are regular contacts between UNIFIL and the Israeli military, “Israel still insists that the UN peacekeeping forces temporarily withdraw from their positions.”

Lacroix told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that Guterres said UNIFIL peacekeepers would remain where they are, even though Israel asked them to move 5km north.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza within the next 30 days or risk losing access to US weapons funding.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that the changes must occur. The letter, which restates US policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza.