18 killed in Israeli airstrike on northern Lebanon apartment building

At least 18 people were killed Monday in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon far from Hezbollah militant strongholds in the south and east of the country, the Lebanese Red Cross reported.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, and it was not clear what the target was. The attack hit a small apartment building in the village of Aito.

Hours earlier, an Israeli airstrike on a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip killed at least four people and triggered a fire that swept through a tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving more than two dozen with severe burns, according to Palestinian medics.

The latest strikes came a day after a Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in northern Israel killed four soldiers — all of them 19 years old — and severely wounded seven others in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.

A total of 61 people were wounded in Sunday's attack. Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel over the past year, but most have been intercepted or hit in open areas causing few casualties.

Even as attention has shifted to Lebanon, Israel is still battling Hamas in the Gaza Strip more than a year after its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel triggered the war there and set off escalations across the region. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies, and both are backed by Iran.

The Hamas attack a year ago killed 1,200 people in Israel and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, with more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters.

Israel, without providing evidence, said Monday’s strike at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah in Gaza targeted militants hiding out among civilians. In recent months, Israel has repeatedly struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks.

The hospital was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter that killed at least 20 people when the early morning airstrike hit, and fire engulfed many of the tents.

Several secondary explosions could be heard after the initial strike, but it was not immediately clear if they were caused by weapons or fuel tanks.

With the Gaza fighting now in its 13th month, Israel has ordered the entire remaining population of the northern third of the territory along the Mediterranean Sea, estimated at around 400,000 people, to evacuate to the south. Israel has not allowed any food to enter the north since the start of October.

Hundreds of thousands of people from the north heeded Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war and have not been allowed to return.

In a phone call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed his condolences for Sunday’s attack that killed the four Israeli soldiers, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Austin also “raised concern for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and stressed that steps must be taken soon to address it,” Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in the statement.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday the agency reached two hospitals in northern Gaza to deliver aid needed to keep the hospitals functioning.

Tedros said the deliveries were made “amid ongoing hostilities” and that WHO and Palestine Red Crescent Society drivers “were subjected to humiliating security screening and temporary detention at a checkpoint — which is unacceptable.”

The United States, Israel’s chief arms supplier, announced Sunday it is sending an advanced missile defense system to Israel and about 100 American troops to operate it, the first U.S. forces deployed to Israel since the Hamas attack a year ago.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, is a ground-based interceptor designed to defend against ballistic missiles. Its deployment comes after Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 after an Israeli attack on Beirut killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, with Israel now planning a retaliatory attack on Tehran.

The THAAD system is used to shoot down ballistic missiles. It does not have any warheads and is not used to conduct offensive attacks.

When asked about the missile deployment decision Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden said only that he had ordered the Pentagon to deploy the system “to defend Israel.” He declined to answer follow-up questions.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.