Dozens killed as Israel attacks Gaza, Lebanon and Syria overnight

Thick black smoke blanketed Beirut after the Israeli military launched several strikes on its southern suburbs

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after an Israeli strike. Reuters

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Dozens were killed in separate overnight air strikes launched by the Israeli military on Lebanon, Syria and Gaza as it intensifies its attack on what it claims to be Hamas and Hezbollah positions.

Israel launched 14 air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs late on Friday, shortly after Israel's military warned residents to leave parts of the area. The number of casualties was not immediately clear.

Lebanon's state news agency (NNA) reported an air raid near the Lebanese University, Haret Hreik in the Burj Al Barajneh suburb, and one on Al Jamous neighbourhood. Thick black smoke engulfed areas of the capital, state media added.

The strikes near Beirut came several hours after at least seven people were killed and 46 injured in Israeli attacks on the Lebanese port city of Tyre, NNA reported. The agency said the raids caused huge damage, adding that the injured were transported to hospitals in the city. The Lebanese Health Ministry on Saturday updated an earlier toll.

The Israeli military claimed it was targeting Hamas positions in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Lebanese armed group on Friday claimed it had targeted Israeli naval bases with a salvo of rockets and missiles.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon on Friday said that two Israeli army excavators and a bulldozer destroyed part of a fence and a concrete structure at a Unifil position in Ras Naqoura in southern Lebanon. "The deliberate and direct destruction of clearly identifiable Unifil property is a flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701," the mission said.

Since hostilities escalated between Hezbollah and Israel, Unifil has accused the Israeli military of deliberately attacking its bases, including by shooting at peacekeepers and destroying watchtowers. Israel denies it is intentionally targeting the peacekeeping mission but has told Unifil to leave the area for its own safety. A request the force has rejected.

In Gaza, at least 14 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza city and Khan Younis, south of the strip, the official news agency Wafa reported. Five people were killed when Israeli forces attacked the Fahd Al Sabbah school housing displaced people in Gaza city's Jaffa street and nine others were killed in Khan Younis when Israeli planes bombed tents housing people there.

Numerous attempts at a ceasefire in the past year have borne no results. The US has reportedly told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since the group rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.

Qatar played a key role in mediating efforts to broker a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. The Financial Times, citing a source familiar with the talks, reported on Friday that Doha had asked the Palestinian group to leave the country.

More than 43,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its war there in October last year after a Hamas attack on its territory killed about 1,200 people. Israel's war has since expanded to Lebanon, while it also launches strikes on Syria and the Houthis in Yemen.

The Israeli military also continued its strikes on Syria where, just around midnight, Syrian state media reported an Israeli strike in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib that injured soldiers and caused damage.

"At around 00:45 after midnight, the Israeli army launched an air aggression from the direction of south-east Aleppo, targeting a number of sites in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib," the official Sana news agency said.

The report added that the attack had "resulted in the injury of a number of soldiers and some material losses", without providing further details. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the strikes had targeted military installations.

The war monitor also said members of the Iranian revolutionary guards and pro-Tehran factions were based in the area. The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes but have repeatedly said they will not allow archenemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.