Updates: Israel kills 27, again hits UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon

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You can read more here about the devastating impact of Israel’s ongoing 12-day siege on northern Gaza, where the UN estimates some 400,000 people are trapped without food, water and medicine.

You can also read more here about the inaugural European Union–Gulf Cooperation Council Summit (EU-GCC), where European and Gulf countries called for a ceasefire in Israel’s ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

We will be closing this live page shortly and moving to a new one, but before we do, here’s a summary of today’s key events:

• The Lebanese Health Ministry has said Israeli strikes across the country have killed 27 people and injured 185 over the last 24 hours, including in Nabatieh, where an attack killed 16 people – including the town’s mayor – and injured 52 people.
• The UN’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, has said Israeli forces once again fired on one of its positions in the south, damaging a watchtower.
• Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed 65 people and wounded 140 in the besieged enclave during the latest 24-hour period.
• In northern Gaza, where an Israeli siege is entering its 13th day, civil defence crews say they are unable to recover dozens of bodies trapped under rubble and in the streets of the besieged Jabalia refugee camp, as 200,000 Palestinians go without food, drinking water or medicine.
• European and Gulf countries have called for a ceasefire in Israel’s ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon at the first European Union and Gulf Cooperation Council summit.
• Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has said there has been no engagement in Gaza ceasefire talks over the last three to four weeks.

A 14-year old boy was shot in the thigh when Israeli forces fired live ammunition during a raid on Salfit in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Wafa news agency is reporting.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it transferred the boy to hospital, Wafa added.

On Telegram, the group says that it fired a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona. Israeli media confirmed the attack, saying about 10 rockets were seen being fired towards the city.

Hezbollah also said that its fighters targeted an Israeli tank on the Labbouneh Heights with an antitank missile, “which led to its burning and the deaths and injuries of its crew”.

Fierce fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli army continues as Israel keeps up its ground offensive in southern Lebanon.

The rescue organisation says in a statement there are dozens of uncounted dead bodies in the Jabalia refugee camp, killed by Israel’s intense siege, that cannot be reached by its crews. The bodies are trapped under rubble, and some are lying on the roads.

Here are a few of the civil defence’s points:

• 200,000 Palestinians have been without food, drink or medicine for the 12th consecutive day in Jabalia camp.
• For the 12th consecutive day, the Israeli army has been bombing and destroying buildings and infrastructure in the northern Gaza Strip.
• Jabalia is being destroyed and subjected to systematic death.

The US news outlet Politico has reported that a Biden administration official told humanitarian groups that the White House would not consider suspending arms transfers to Israel, even if it was blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Under US law, blocking humanitarian aid, as Israel has been doing for months, is supposed to trigger the suspension of weapons transfers.

The report focuses on an August 29 meeting between humanitarian official Lisa Grande and more than a dozen aid organisations, where Grande allegedly stated that the US could use pressure in forums such as the UN but would not consider ending arms supplies.

Critics have said for months that the administration’s efforts to pressure Israel to let more aid into Gaza are useless so long as arms transfers, the largest source of US leverage over Israel, are not in danger of being suspended.

Progressive US Congresswoman Cori Bush has called on the Biden administration to use leverage such as arms sales to Israel to push for a ceasefire.

“We introduced our #CeasefireNOW Resolution #OTD [on this day] a year ago. A permanent ceasefire then could have saved thousands of lives [and] helped free hostages and those arbitrarily detained,” Bush, who lost her recent re-electing bid to a pro-Israel opponent after a massive spending campaign by pro-Israel groups, said in a social media post.

“President Biden can save lives today by imposing an arms embargo [and] securing a permanent ceasefire.”

Israeli forces detonated a massive amount of explosives in the Lebanese village of Mhaibib, saying they were targeting underground Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructure”.

Israeli soldiers recorded themselves celebrating the village’s apparent destruction with smiles and laughter.

Watch below to see their reactions:

The advocacy groups Independent Jewish Voices and Just Peace Advocates have called on the Canadian government to take action against organisations that support illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In a report in collaboration with Brock University professor, Miles Howe, on surging anti-Palestinian violence and displacement by Israeli settlers, the groups said that Canada has a responsibility to “take immediate and meaningful action”.

“The violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, enabled and perpetuated by organizations like the World Zionist Organization’s [WZO] Settlement Division, has reached unprecedented levels,” the report states. “As settlers continue to commit atrocities – including murder, arson, and the systematic displacement of Palestinian communities – Canada must no longer remain complicit.”

A senior official with the UN children’s agency is urging the international community to respond to the massive humanitarian crisis created by Israel’s military operations in Lebanon.

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said at present about 1.2 million people had been displaced, among them 400,000 children.

“Nearly 190,000 of those forced from their homes are in more than makeshift shelters hoping for a semblance of safety – mostly public schools, while countless others seek refuge with anyone who can offer a roof and a place to rest. Some have no option but the beachfront or the street,” he said at the UN.

He said there is a massive need for food, water, medical supplies and emergency shelters, and said it is vital money was found to secure them.

“Winter is coming, it is getting cold here, it will get cold in Beirut soon enough and we need to be ready to support families as it gets cold,” he said

“We call upon the international community to act with urgency. Funding is critical, UNICEF’s appeal is 8 percent funded right now. Funding must be free from conditionalities that hinder swift action.”

Palestine’s Wafa news agency reports that Israeli forces stormed the camp, deploying tear gas and clashing with locals.

Wafa said that one young girl was treated for suffocation and that another young man was beaten by Israeli soldiers.

We will bring you more on this raid as soon as we have additional information.

Progressive United States Senator Bernie Sanders has said that the US must end the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel, which he accused of carrying out a “cruel and illegal” war.

“When Congress returns, the Senate will be voting on my resolution to block offensive arms sales to Israel. How many thousands more children must Netanyahu starve, kill, or orphan before the US changes its policy?,” Sanders said in a social media post.

“We must end our complicity in this cruel and illegal war.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a US-based Muslim rights group, has taken aim at an upcoming event promoted by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party in support of resettling Gaza.

“The Israeli government has made it clear that it intends to expand its war across the region and resettle territories whose native populations they decimate,” the group’s national executive director said in a statement.

“These are the actions of a rogue government that the Biden administration must stop enabling before more innocents are slaughtered and more chaos spreads.”

Earlier today, Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s UN envoy, warned the Security Council that Israel’s aim is to annex the Gaza Strip after ethnically cleansing it.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said that there has been no engagement in talks over the last three to four weeks for a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel has vowed to continue fighting.

“On the prospects of the negotiation … basically in the last three to four weeks, there is no conversation or engagement at all, and we are just moving in the same circle with the silence from all parties,” Al Thani told reporters at a summit between the European Union and Gulf Cooperation Council.

Hezbollah has said it has attacked a group of Israeli troops in the area of Khallet Warde, opposite the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab, which has been bombed repeatedly by the Israeli army.

Writing on its Telegram channel, Hezbollah said it targeted “a gathering of Israeli enemy soldiers” with a rocket.