Middle East latest: 5 killed in Israel by projectile from Lebanon; Israeli strikes kill 8 in Lebanon

The Israeli military said its forces were targeting militants in the area of the Nur Shams refugee camp, which has seen repeated battles in recent months. The military said it eliminated a Hamas militant who was involved in planning attacks on Israelis.

The developments come as mediators are ramping up efforts to halt the wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, circulating new proposals to wind down the regional conflict.

Hezbollah’s newly named leader, Naim Kassem, said the militant group will keep fighting in its war with Israel until it is offered cease-fire terms it deems acceptable.

Some 1.2 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Lebanon, according to government estimates. Lebanon’s Heath Ministry said more than 2,800 people have been killed and 12,900 wounded since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel, drawing retaliation. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October.

The death toll from more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has passed 43,000, Palestinian officials reported Monday, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.

___

Here’s the latest:

JERUSALEM -- Israel’s military said Thursday that it struck Hezbollah weapons depots and bases in Syria.

According to a military statement, the air force hit targets near Qusair, a city in western Syria along the border with Lebanon. The military claims Hezbollah recently began storing weapons along the Syrian-Lebanese border in an attempt to smuggle arms into Lebanon.

Since the start of Israel’s ground invasion into Lebanon, the military has struck border crossings between Lebanon and Syria multiple times, claiming they served as arms-smuggling routes. The strikes, humanitarian groups say, intensified an already severe humanitarian crisis by blocking key routes for supplies and impeding access for those fleeing to safety.

Three of the six official border crossings between the two countries have closed as a result of airstrikes, forcing people fleeing from Lebanon to take long detours or cross on foot.

DEIR EL AHMAR, Lebanon — Thousands of Lebanese have flocked to a Christian area in the eastern Bekaa Valley after Israel warned civilians to leave the city of Baalbek and surrounding areas ahead of airstrikes this week.

Jean Fakhry, head of the Union of Municipalities of the area of Deir El-Ahmar, described a “massive human influx” in the wake of the warning, with the road turning "into a parking lot.”

"This is the first time we’ve witnessed such a major disaster,” Fakhry said.

About 12,000 displaced people are now staying in the area — about 2,500 of them in shelters and the rest hosted in private homes, he said.

At one of the shelters, displaced families were still arriving toting luggage on Thursday while women cooked and tidied up mattresses and blankets.

“Our homes were destroyed,” said Zahraa Younis, from the village of Bouday. “We came with nothing — no clothes or anything else — and took shelter here.”

Fadwa Qasim from the village of Douris said, her family came with their neighbors.

“We hope the situation calms down so we can return to our homes, if we still have homes,” she said. "My children are scattered, each in a different area.”

Lebanese officials estimate that 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon as a result of the ongoing war.

JERUSALEM — Projectiles fired from Lebanon into northern Israel killed five people on Thursday, including four foreign workers, authorities said. It was the deadliest such attack since Israeli troops invaded Lebanon earlier this month to battle the Hezbollah militant group.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel for more than a year, drawing retaliatory strikes. Sixty-eight people have been killed in rocket attacks in northern Israel since the conflict began last year.

The Metula regional council reported the attack. The nationalities of the workers were not immediately known.

Metula, Israel’s northernmost town, which is surrounded by Lebanon on three sides, has suffered heavy damage from rockets. The town’s residents evacuated in October 2023, and only security officials and agricultural workers remain.

BEIRUT — The Israeli military has warned people to evacuate from more areas of southern Lebanon, including a built-up Palestinian refugee camp. Israeli airstrikes, meanwhile, killed at least eight people in different parts of the country on Thursday.

The Rashidiyeh refugee camp near the port city of Tyre is one of several dating back to the 1948 Mideast war, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out of what is now Israel.

Israel invaded Lebanon at the start of October, after nearly a year of trading fire with Hezbollah. The militant group began firing rockets, missiles and drones on northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Iran backs both groups.

Israel has warned people to evacuate from large areas of the country, including major cities in the south and east. Over a million people have already fled their homes.

Israeli strikes killed seven people in eastern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News agency. Another strike killed a man on a motorcycle on the coastal highway between Tyre and Sidon.

The news agency also reported a strike on a car on a main highway running through the mountains outside the capital, Beirut. It said the strike closed the highway, diverting traffic through nearby villages. There was no immediate word on casualties.

JERUSALEM — Israeli police said Thursday they have arrested a couple accused of spying on Israeli intelligence sites and collecting information on an Israeli academic on behalf of Iran.

Israeli security services say they have uncovered several Iranian spy networks in recent months. The two archenemies have waged a long-running shadow war that has burst into the open since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. They exchanged fire directly for the first time in April and then again this month.

In a statement released Thursday, the police and the Shin Bet internal security agency said that the man arrested, Rafael Guliev, from the central city of Lod, had surveilled Israel’s Mossad spy headquarters for the Iranians and collected information on an academic working at the Institute for National Security Studies, a prominent Israeli think tank. It did not identify the scholar.

The statement said Guliev was also entrusted with finding an assassin, though the statement did not make clear if he had actually done so.

Guliev’s wife, Lala, assisted in the activities, the statement said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials said an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people.

The military said its forces were targeting militants in the area of the Nur Shams refugee camp, which has seen repeated battles in recent months. The military said it eliminated a Hamas militant in the area who was involved in planning attacks on Israelis.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday that two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike and third by Israeli gunfire.

Israel said its forces were still in the area.

At least 763 Palestinians, including over 165 children, have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there, according to the Health Ministry.

Most appear to have been militants killed during army operations, but the dead also include civilian bystanders and people killed during violent protests.

Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis since the start of the war.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. Israel has built scores of settlements there that are now home to over 500,000 Israeli settlers.

The 3 million Palestinians in the territory live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercising limited self-rule in population centers.