GAZA STRIP, BEIRUT  -  Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured in an Israeli strike on a multi-story residential build­ing housing at least six families in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya town on Sunday (November 17), medics and residents said. The Palestinian Civil Emergency said around 70 people were living in the property but the Gaza government media office put the number of those killed at 72.

The Israeli military, which has been fighting Palestinian fighters group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, said several strikes were conducted overnight on “terrorist targets” in Beit Lahiya with everything possible done to avoid civilian harm.

The Israeli army sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refu­gee camps, last month in what it said was a campaign to fight Hamas fight­ers waging attacks and prevent them from regrouping. It said it has killed hundreds of fighters in those three areas, which residents said Israeli forces had isolated from Gaza City.

Truce talks have halted in recent months as the two warring sides con­tinue to trade blame. Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.

The Gaza health ministry said 43,800 people have been confirmed killed since Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas fight­ers killed around 1,200 Israelis that day, and still hold dozens of some 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Separately, an Israeli strike on a building in central Beirut on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources told a wire service, though there was no immediate con­firmation from Hezbollah.

Israel has rarely hit senior Hez­bollah personnel who do not have clear military roles, and its air strikes have mostly targeted Beirut’s south­ern suburbs where Hezbollah has its heaviest presence.

The Israeli military declined to comment in response to questions from a wire service. An Israeli mili­tary spokesperson’s account on the social media platform X that often publishes evacuation orders for ar­eas about to be bombed showed no such warning before this strike.

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire for more than a year, since the Iran-backed group began launching rockets at Israeli military targets on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas carried out a deadly attack on southern Israel.

In late September, Israel dramati­cally expanded its military campaign in Lebanon, heavily bombing the south and east and the southern sub­urbs of Beirut alongside ground in­cursions along the border.

In addition to targeting Hezbol­lah, the escalation has killed sever­al soldiers of the Lebanese military, including two who died on Sunday when Israel attacked an army post in the southern town of Al-Mari, the Lebanese army said on X. Two other soldiers were wounded, it said.

The strike on Beirut hit the Ras al-Nabaa neighbourhood, where many people displaced from the southern suburbs by Israeli bombardment had sought refuge.

The security sources said a build­ing housing offices of the Ba’ath Par­ty had been hit, and the head of the party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif had been in the building.

The Syrian Social Nationalist Par­ty, another political party with ties to Hezbollah, said in a statement that Afif had been killed but gave no de­tails of how or where. The Lebanese health ministry said the strike had killed one and injured three.

Ambulances could be heard rush­ing to the scene, and guns were fired to prevent crowds approaching.

The broadcaster later also said Afif had been killed. It showed footage of a building whose upper floors had collapsed onto the first storey, with civil defence workers at the scene.

Afif was a long-time media adviser to Hezbollah secretary-general Has­san Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern sub­urbs of Beirut on Sept. 27.

He managed Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station for several years before taking over the group’s media office.

Afif hosted several press confer­ences for journalists amid the rub­ble in Beirut’s southern suburbs. In his most recent comments to report­ers on Nov. 11, he said Israeli troops had been unable to hold any terri­tory in Lebanon, and that Hezbollah had enough weapons and supplies to fight a long war.