Middle East live: family of eight killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

US officials believe Israel has narrowed down targets in its potential response to Iran’s attack this month to military and energy infrastructure, NBC reported on Saturday.

The Middle East remains on high alert for further escalation in a year of war as Israel battles Iran-backed groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel has repeatedly said it will respond to Iran’s missile barrage on 1 October, which was launched in retaliation for Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon and the killings of a string of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.

There is no indication that Israel will target nuclear facilities or carry out assassinations, the NBC report said, citing unnamed US officials and adding that Israel has not made final decisions about how and when to act.

US and Israeli officials said a response could come during the current Yom Kippur holiday, according to the report.

When the Sabra family fled Israeli bombardments in the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun for Beirut’s southern suburbs in October last year, a monthly stipend in dollars from Hezbollah meant they did not fear going hungry. When they were displaced a second time, to the mountains around the capital by a wave of Israeli attacks on southern Beirut, regular deliveries of meals, food parcels and even cleaning supplies from organisations connected to the group have kept them afloat.

“They are taking incredible care of us even with everything that is happening. They never leave us alone,” said Hind Sabra, whose name has been changed. Their house of 14 people contains three families, each receiving a $200 (£150) monthly stipend in cash as well as cut-price medications, and food parcels containing rice, oil, tuna and beans.

The food, medication and cash are all part of a network of support long maintained by Hezbollah, including a de facto bank that has flourished amid Lebanon’s years-long financial crisis, a fund that cares for the families of those killed in battle, and a social care organisation responsible for distributing cash payments to tens of thousands displaced earlier this year, according to a Hezbollah official.

Over the past two decades, Hezbollah has come to dominate the various groups that make up Lebanon’s fractured and sectarian politics, as well as exerting control over key industries such as agriculture and construction in the south. Lina Khatib of Chatham House said the group’s status had grown to “influence and control the state in Lebanon from within state institutions as well as outside them”.

Western countries, including the US and UK, have placed sanctions on Hezbollah and regard it as a terrorist organisation. Meanwhile the group, which comprises a paramilitary organisation and a political party, maintains a support base mainly among Lebanon’s working-class Shia Muslim community that see Hezbollah as a defender of their interests, and essential protection against Israeli military power.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

A family of eight, including six children, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on central Gaza, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, as Israel continued its devastating assault on the territory and its siege of the northern Jabalia refugee camp stretched into an eighth day.

Eight members of the Abu Ghali family were killed in a strike on a home in Nuseirat refugee camp, Wafa reported, and their bodies taken to al-Awda hospital. The dead comprised Walid Abu Ghali, his wife, Shireen, and their six children: Mohammad, Ahmad, Yasmeen, Samah, Yara, and Tala.

Israel, meanwhile, kept up strikes on Jabalia, farther north, where aid agencies have said thousands of people are trapped as supplies dwindle and have accused Israel of shooting on those trying to flee. Residents told the news agency Associated Press that bodies were uncollected in the streets as bombing hampered rescue efforts.

“What is happening in northern Gaza now is a genocide within the genocide,” Palestinian UN envoy Majed Bamya wrote in a post on X.

Elsewhere, a top United Nations official said during a visit to Beirut on Saturday that he is concerned that Lebanon’s ports and airport might be taken out of service, with serious implications for food supplies as Israel continues its offensive against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“What I have seen and heard today is devastating, but the sense is that this can get much worse still, and that needs to be avoided,” said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Program, in an interview with AP.

He appealed for “all diplomatic efforts possible to try to find a political solution” to the war and for supply lines to remain open.

“We have huge concerns and there are many, but one of them is indeed that we need the ports and we need the supply routes to continue to be able to operate,” Skau said.

In other developments:

• The African Union has joined 104 UN member states in issuing a joint letter of support for UN secretary general António Guterres after Israel declared him persona non grata. In the letter, the UN member states wrote: “Such actions undermine the United Nations’ ability to carry out its mandate, which includes mediating conflicts and providing humanitarian support.”

• Thirty-four Unifil-contributing countries have signed a joint statement reaffirming the protection of Unifil peacekeepers in Lebanon and condemning the latest attacks against them. The letter, which was initiated by Poland, comes after five peacekeepers in Lebanon were wounded in recent days amid Israel’s attacks on the country.

• Israeli raids on al-Maaysra, in the Keserwan district, in Lebanon have killed at least nine people while wounding 15 others, the Lebanese health ministry announced. The health ministry added that in Deir Bella, Batroun, Israeli attacks have killed at least two people and injured four others.

• The Palestinian Red Crescent Society evacuated 16 patients and 14 of their companions from Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The mission, which lasted 12 hours, comes as Israel expands its deadly invasion into north Gaza. In recent days, Israeli strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians sheltering in north Gaza, including 22 people in the area’s Jabalia refugee camp.

• UN peacekeepers will remain in south Lebanon, despite five of their members being wounded amid Israeli airstrikes on the country. In a statement to Agence France-Presse on Saturday, Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), said that despite Israel’s request to Unifil to withdraw from positions “up to five kilometers from the blue line”, the peacekeepers refused.

• Israeli airstrikes have forced 40% of students from their homes in Lebanon, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on Friday. Additionally, more than 60% of public schools in the country are being used as shelters.

• Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed 2,255 people while wounding 10,524 more since Israel launched its attacks on the country several weeks ago, the Lebanese health ministry reported on Saturday. The rising death toll also comes amid Israel’s forced displacement of 1.2 million people in Lebanon, approximately a quarter of the country’s population.