The latest on the wars in the Middle East

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Forty countries whose soldiers serve as UN peacekeepers in Lebanon say they “strongly condemn” recent attacks on peacekeepers, in a joint statement released on Saturday.

The statement was posted on X by Poland’s mission to the UN, after the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported a fifth member of the peacekeeping force was injured in southern Lebanon on Friday.

“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” the statement said, adding: “We urge the parties of the conflict to respect UNIFIL’s presence, which entails the obligation to guarantee the safety and security of its personnel at all times.”

Co-signatories of the statement include the UK, France, India, Germany and Spain.

Since Thursday, UNIFIL reported that two peacekeepers were injured after an Israeli tank fired toward its observation tower in Naqoura, causing it to collapse. On Friday UNIFIL said two more were hurt after two explosions near the observation tower.

Sri Lanka and Indonesia, whose nationals were among the injured, condemned the incidents.

On Friday a fifth peacekeeper was hit by gunfire at its headquarters in Naqoura due to ongoing military activity nearby, according to a UNIFIL statement released on Saturday.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Saturday expressed “deep concern” regarding reports of Israeli forces firing on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, during a conversation with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to the Pentagon.

Austin “strongly emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety and security of UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) forces” and urged Israel to pivot from military operations in Lebanon to a diplomatic pathway “as soon as feasible,” the readout said.

Austin also raised the humanitarian situation in Gaza and stressed “steps must be taken to address it.”

Lebanese army soldiers deploy around a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Barja, Lebanon, on October 12.

At least 15 people were killed in Israeli strikes on three Lebanese towns on Saturday, according to a CNN tally of numbers from Lebanon’s health ministry.

In northern Lebanon, a strike in Maaysra killed at least nine people and another in Deir Billa killed two, according to the ministry. Meanwhile in Barja, 20 miles south of Beirut, four people were killed.

The Israeli military told CNN it wasn’t aware of any strikes Saturday in those locations. CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) if there were strikes in the vicinity of those towns.

The Lebanese state news agency NNA reported that Israeli strikes had also hit Nabatieh in southern Lebanon and the northern and central parts of the Bekaa region. The IDF has not yet responded to a CNN request for comment on the reported strikes in these areas.
It has previously struck Nabatieh and Bekaa, saying it was eliminating Hezbollah targets.

Rescuers search for survivors at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh on October 12.

According to state media, Tel Chiha Hospital in the Bekaa governorate sustained some damage and a market was hit in Nabatieh. Lebanon’s health ministry said at least eight people were injured in Nabatieh.

The Lebanese Red Cross said it was conducting search and rescue operations in Nabatieh.

“Severe fires are preventing us from reaching the targeted area,” the group said in a post on X.

Lebanese state media also reported that strikes hit Rayaq in central Bekaa, which is home to a Lebanese military base and military airport. According to NNA, homes, commercial establishments, a university and hospitals were damaged in Bekaa.

The Israeli military said 320 projectiles fired by Hezbollah crossed into Israel over Yom Kippur weekend, which began around 6 p.m. local time on Friday.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said it continued to fire rockets into Israel, targeting what it said was a “gathering of?Israeli enemy forces” in villages just south of the border.

Israeli authorities said three men suffered mild shrapnel injuries following rocket launches from Lebanon, many of which Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a cabinet meeting on Sunday, an Israeli official tells CNN. It comes as Israel is?intensifying its military operations?in Gaza, issuing evacuation orders and blocking food supplies.

Here’s what else you should know:

Israeli strikes:

Criticism for Israel:?

Fuel to Gaza:?

Injured UN peacekeeper:

Palestinians face food insecurity:

Closed health care centers:

Report about October 7 attack:

A home destroyed during the attack by Hamas is seen in Kibbutz Be'eri in Israel on October 14, 2023.

Hamas plotted the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel for more than two years and tried to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to participate, a report in The New York Times has claimed, citing what it said were minutes of secret Hamas meetings found on a computer and seized by the Israeli military in Gaza in January.

According to the Times, whose claims have been vigorously denied by Iran and Hezbollah, Hamas had been avoiding major escalations with Israel since 2021 to lull its leaders into a false sense of security and initially planned to attack in the fall of 2022, but delayed its move as it tried to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to take part.

The Times cites the minutes as showing that a top Hamas official met senior Iranian commander Mohammed Said Izadi, who was based in Lebanon in July 2023, to request help striking sensitive Israeli sites, and Izadi is said to have responded that Iran and Hezbollah were supportive in principle, but needed more time to “prepare the environment.”

Iran’s Mission to the United Nations has denied the claims and suggested the minutes cited by the Times were fabricated.

A Hezbollah spokesperson told CNN on Saturday: “As the martyred secretary general of Hezbollah (Hassan Nasrallah) said, Hezbollah did not know about the toufan Al Aqsa operation executed by Hamas on the 7th of October.”

CNN has also reached out to Hamas and the Israeli military and Israeli prime minister’s office for comment.?The Israeli military declined to comment to The New York Times, while neither Hamas nor Hezbollah responded to the newspaper’s requests for comment.

Eugenia Yosef and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a cabinet meeting on Sunday, an Israeli official tells CNN.

Exactly when and where the meeting will be held remains unclear.

On Friday, a source told CNN the cabinet had discussed how to respond to Iran’s October 1 missile attack but had not reached a decision on how to proceed.

Iran has informed the United States and some countries in the Middle East that it will retaliate against any new attack by Israel, a source in Tehran with knowledge of the diplomatic discussions told CNN on Saturday.

Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack on the outskirts of Tel Aviv on Friday.

In a statement Saturday, the Iran-backed group said it “launched an aerial attack with a swarm of assault drones.”

Israel’s military said Friday it had detected two aircraft in central Israel crossing from Lebanon.

The military said it intercepted one of the aircraft but did not specify what happened to the second. The Israel Defense Forces said a nursing home building in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, was damaged but there were no casualties.

Rockets are fired from Israel's Iron Dome defense system during a rocket attack from Lebanon on October 12.

The Israeli military said 320 projectiles fired by Hezbollah crossed into Israel over Yom Kippur weekend, which began around 6 p.m. local time on Friday.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said it continued to fire rockets into Israel, targeting what it said was a “gathering of?Israeli enemy forces” in villages just south of the border.

Israeli authorities said three men suffered mild shrapnel injuries following rocket launches from Lebanon, many of which Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for. The men, ages 48, 30, and 27, were injured in the town of Jadeida-Machar.

Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that the IDF said over 300 projectiles crossed into Israeli territory, not that all of them were intercepted.

Nearly half of the primary health care centers in Lebanon’s conflict areas are now closed amid escalating violence, according to World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Of the 207 centers in conflict areas, 100 are now closed, Ghebreyesus posted on?X on Saturday. Five hospitals have shut following structural damage from attacks.

Lebanese army soldiers deploy around a building hit by an Israeli airstrike in Barja, Lebanon, on Saturday, October 12.

Israeli strikes on two Lebanese towns killed at least nine people, including one town with a predominantly Sunni population, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Four people were killed and 14 injured in an Israeli airstrike on Barja, a predominantly Sunni town some 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Beirut, according to Lebanese health authorities.

The strike in Barja stands out because Israel has been striking targets in predominantly Shia areas where Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, tends to have stronger support.

Five people were killed and 14 were also wounded in the town of Maaysra in northern Lebanon on Saturday, the ministry said. This is the second time Maaysra has been hit in the last few weeks.

Another town in northern Lebanon, Deir Billa, was hit for the first time. The health ministry has not yet released casualty numbers for that strike.

Death toll: More than 1,500 people have been killed and some 8,000 injured in strikes in Lebanon since September 16, when Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah, according to a CNN tally of Lebanese health ministry statements.

Palestinians receive food at a displacement camp in Khan Younis, Gaza, on September 3.

Over the past 12 months, 90% of children in Gaza have suffered from “food poverty,” according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

The World Food Programme (WFP) on Friday said no food has entered northern Gaza since the start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of going hungry.

On Wednesday,?the WFP said in a report that the aid entering the strip has plummeted to its lowest level in months, forcing the organization to stop the distribution of food parcels in October. CNN had reached out to Israeli authorities and the military for comment on the lack of food entering northern Gaza since the beginning of the month but has not heard back.

Current operation in the north: The Israeli military is carrying out a widespread operation in northern Gaza, coming just weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reported to be?mulling a plan to besiege the area?to starve Hamas and force it to release hostages. Four sources have told CNN that the Israeli cabinet has not adopted the siege proposal put forward by retired Gen. Giora Eiland. But the operation currently underway bears resemblance to the plan presented by Eiland in a public video, and in private to the Israeli cabinet and the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

Another peacekeeper from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was injured in southern Lebanon on Friday evening, UNIFIL said in a statement on Saturday.

UNIFIL said the peacekeeper was hit by gunfire at its headquarters in the city of Naqoura due to ongoing military activity nearby.

The peacekeeper was the fifth member of the UN force hurt in southern Lebanon in just two days.

UNIFIL said two peacekeepers were injured after an Israeli Merkava tank fired toward its observation tower in Naqoura on Thursday, causing it to collapse.

On Friday, two more were hurt after two explosions occurred close to the observation tower in Naqoura.

Separately, UNIFIL said its building in a UN position in Ramyah, Lebanon, “sustained significant damage due to explosions from nearby shelling” on Friday.

Condemnation from other countries: A number of nations whose citizens serve in the peacekeeping force criticized Israel for the incidents. Italy and France have summoned their Israeli ambassadors, and the head of Ireland’s armed forces, Lt. Gen. Sean Clancy, claimed the gunfire that hit the UNIFIL position on Friday seemed “deliberate,” given the circumstances. Sri Lanka and Indonesia, whose nationals were among the injured, also condemned the incidents.

Fuel has finally been delivered to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Saturday, after days of warning that it would run out of energy needed to keep life-saving equipment running.

Fares Afana, who heads emergency services in northern Gaza, said a fuel truck had entered the hospital complex and fuel was being pumped in.

Dr. Hussam Abu Saifiya, the director of the hospital, told CNN Friday that patients would die if Israel refused to allow fuel to enter the area, saying there had been “many attempts to bring fuel in, but the Israeli military have prevented that.”

Responding on Saturday to CNN’s questions about the allegation that it is preventing fuel from entering the area, the Israel Defense Forces said: “In the last three days, a medical convoy was scheduled to transfer patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital to Gaza City. For security reasons, the convoy had to be canceled.”

“The convoy arrived at the hospital today on the 12th of October with fuel supply for the hospital,” it added.

A member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees surveys damage in a school courtyard after an Israeli air strike hit the site, in Nuseirat, Gaza, on September 11.

The European Union joined the United Nations, the United States and others in criticizing Israel for attempting to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel and East Jerusalem.

A bill calling for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to be banned from operating in Israel and for Israel to stop cooperating with the agency is making its way through the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

The EU said the bill would prevent “all UNRWA’s operations in Israel and East Jerusalem, destroy UNRWA’s life-saving operations in Gaza, seriously hamper provision of health, education and social services in the West Bank, and revoke UNRWA’s diplomatic privileges and immunities.”

Remember: Israel has been trying to dismantle the agency for months after it accused 12 UNRWA staffers of being involved in the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.

The allegations initially prompted 16 countries to suspend their funding of the agency. However, most have since reinstated their funding.

A UN investigation found that nine UNRWA employees “may have” been involved in the October 7 attacks and no longer work at the agency. UNRWA has 14,000 staff members in Gaza.

The agency was already forced to close its East Jerusalem headquarters after the compound became the target of attacks by Israeli protesters. Earlier this week, Israeli media reported a decision by the Israeli Land Authority to confiscate the land and turn it into a housing complex.

Palestinians mourn over the bodies of those who lost their lives in an Israeli attack on the Jabalya Refugee Camp in Gaza City on October 11.

The Iranian government has been engaging in urgent diplomacy with countries in the Middle East to determine whether they can reduce the scale of any potential Israeli attack, a source told CNN. Iran has been expecting a response from Tel Aviv after launching a ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month.

Elsewhere, Israel has ramped up its operations in northern Gaza, where an 11-hour-old newborn girl was injured in a strike on Friday. At least 22 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment in the city of Jabalya in northern Gaza, emergency responders said.

Below are the latest updates:

Iranians donate gold to a donation drive for Hezbollah and Lebanon in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday, October 12.

Iranians donated gold to a fundraiser for Hezbollah and Lebanon at a mosque in Tehran on Saturday, CNN’s team on the ground witnessed.

The slogan for the fundraiser is: “Golden Empathy, Iranian women and mothers donate gold in support?of?Lebanon.”

Women were seen donating pieces of jewelery to a stand at the mosque which was decorated with posters of the late Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as well as Iranian and Hezbollah flags. CNN witnessed a box with dozens of pieces of gold jewelery.

Remember: The donations come as Iran says their support for Hezbollah and Lebanon will continue.

Iran’s capital Tehran has been plastered with billboards and posters depicting?Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut, Lebanon, last month. The posters are a sign of the unwavering support of the Islamic Republic’s leadership for Hezbollah in the wake of the Nasrallah killing and as the group struggles under Israeli military pressure.

Iran is bracing for a possible Israeli response to its October 1 ballistic missile attack on Israel and Tehran’s political leadership has threatened a “crushing response,” if Israel hits targets inside Iran.

Iran’s government has been engaging in?urgent diplomatic efforts?with countries in the Middle East to gauge whether they can reduce the scale of Israel’s response and – if that fails – help protect Tehran, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Iran has informed the United States and some countries in the Middle East that it will retaliate against any new attack by Israel, “contrary to some false news,” a source in Tehran with knowledge of the diplomatic discussions told CNN on Saturday.

Key context: Iran’s government has been engaging in?urgent diplomatic efforts?with countries in the Middle East to gauge whether they can reduce the scale of Israel’s response to its missile attack earlier this month and – if that fails – help protect Tehran, sources familiar with the matter told CNN earlier.

The US has been consulting with Israel on how it plans to respond to Iran’s October 1 attack, and US officials have made clear they do not want Israel to target Iranian nuclear sites or oil fields. US President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, their?first conversation in almost two months, telling him Israel’s retaliation should be “proportional.”

The US’ Gulf allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar, have also expressed concern to the US about a potential attack on Iranian oil facilities, which could create negative economic and environmental impacts for the entire region, an Arab diplomat told CNN.

Israel’s security cabinet has not yet reached a decision on how to proceed, an Israeli official told CNN on Friday.

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand,?Kylie Atwood,?Jennifer Hansler?and?Alex Marquardt contributed to this post.

Rockets fired from Lebanon toward Israel are seen from Tyre, Lebanon, on October 11.

Hezbollah said it continued to fire rockets into Israel on Saturday, targeting what it said was a “gathering of Israeli enemy forces” in villages just south of the border.

Sirens alerting people to an imminent attack sounded in different locations across northern Israel on Saturday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said later that it identified around 30 projectiles crossing from Lebanon into the Upper Galilee area and two that were fired towards northeastern areas of Israel.

The IDF also said the Israeli Air Force intercepted two drones that were approaching Israeli territory from Lebanon, before they crossed the border.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati, right, meets with the president of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, left, in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 12.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati made yet another push for a ceasefire on Saturday, speaking first to the US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein, followed by the president of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Mikati discussed the ongoing efforts to secure a ceasefire amid escalating tensions in the region, Lebanon’s state National News Agency (NNA) said.

Meeting Ghalibaf in Beirut, Mikati reiterated that the Lebanese government’s priority is “working towards a ceasefire, halting Israeli aggression, and ensuring the security and safety of Lebanon and its people,” NNA reported.

Speaking to Hochstein by phone, Mikati focused on ways to halt “military confrontations” and move forward with a comprehensive political solution based on the 2006 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for a permanent ceasefire and an end to hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.

What else does the resolution say? It stipulates that Hezbollah forces must withdraw north of the Litani River in Lebanon and that only the Lebanese military should hold positions in the border area.

The Israeli military has expanded its evacuation warnings to residents of 19 more villages in southern Lebanon, urging them to move further north into the country.

People living in the villages, located within 18 miles (30 kilometers) of the Israeli border, have been advised to relocate about 31 miles (50 kilometers) north.

“You must immediately move to the north of the Awali River. Save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately,” said Avichay Adraee, the Israel Defense Forces Arabic spokesperson, reiterating his previous advice in a message posted on X on Saturday.

Some context: This latest warning is part of a broader series of Israeli evacuation directives issued over the past week, now affecting a total of 136 villages.

Overall, a quarter of Lebanon’s territory has been placed under evacuation orders by Israel, with more than 1.2 million people now displaced, according to the United Nations.

Israel has reiterated its threat to target any emergency response vehicles in Lebanon if they are shown to be transporting armed fighters.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Saturday that Hezbollah operatives have “increased their misuse of emergency vehicles” in recent days, adding that the vehicles had also been used to transport ammunition.

The warning, released in both English and Arabic, came one week after a similar warning on October 5 by the IDF Arabic language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee.

Health workers in Lebanon have frequently been the victims of attacks since Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said that since September 16 when the most recent escalation began,?65 health workers had been killed and 40 injured in Lebanon.

In addition, 96 primary health care centers and health facilities had been forced to close in the south of the country.

Some context: Health and aid workers have been frequent casualties of Israeli bombardment during the yearlong war in Gaza. In February, a?CNN analysis found evidence of repeated attacks on and in the vicinity of medical facilities in Gaza despite the presence of doctors, patients, and civilians.

An 11-hour-old baby girl suffered a head wound on Friday when a strike hit her house just moments after she was brought home from the hospital where she was born, the chief of emergency services in northern Gaza, Fares Afana, told CNN.

The strike killed the newborn girl’s father and uncle and injured her mother and grandmother, Afana said. A video from the hospital where the family was treated for injuries shows the tiny baby getting stitches to a wound at the bottom of her neck.

The mother of the newborn baby was in critical condition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, where she was being treated in the intensive care unit, the hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Saifiya told CNN on Saturday. The baby girl was stable and “next to her mother,” the doctor added.

The Israel Defense Forces told CNN they “were not aware” of a strike in the area at the time the witnesses described, but said they would need exact coordinates to be certain.

The baby’s grandfather said the girl — who was not yet named — was born at 1 a.m. on Friday and was being brought home by her parents when the building was struck, according to a video that shows him in an ambulance, accompanying his wife who was also injured in the strike.

Israeli army tanks drive in an area near Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip on October 6.

The Israeli military is carrying out a widespread operation in northern Gaza, issuing evacuation orders and blocking food supplies. The intensifying military action comes just weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reported to be mulling a plan to besiege the area to starve Hamas and force it to release hostages.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week launched the operation following intelligence that it said showed “the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the area of Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as efforts by Hamas to rebuild its operational capabilities in the area.”

In practice, the renewed offensive has been far more widespread than the Jabalya refugee camp.

Four sources have told CNN that the Israeli cabinet has not adopted the siege proposal put forward by retired general Giora Eiland. But the current operation bears resemblance to the plan presented by Eiland in a public video, and in private to the Israeli cabinet and the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

A former senior military official aware of the Israeli government and security leadership’s thinking – though not directly involved in decision-making – told CNN that the cabinet had adopted “a version of” Eiland’s proposal, which has come to be known as “The General’s Plan.” Eiland told CNN the claim was “quite true” but said there were significant differences between his proposal and what was being implemented on the ground.

The operation comes at a time when the Israeli government is known to be considering several plans to reset the war in Gaza.

Read the full story here.

At least 22 people were killed by Israeli bombardment on the city of Jabalya in northern Gaza, according to emergency responders on Saturday.

The bodies were transferred to Al-Ahli Baptist hospital, according to the head of emergency services in northern Gaza, Fares Afana.

Afana said that in addition to those killed, there were also injuries and “a number of missing still under the rubble.”

CNN has contacted the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported multiple airstrikes had struck a densely populated neighborhood in Jabalya overnight completely destroying multiple houses.

Wafa reported at least 30 injured and 14 missing, citing emergency responders.

Rescue efforts are still underway.

The Jabalya refugee camp was pounded by more strikes on Saturday, where explosions in the area have not stopped, the head of the emergency services in northern Gaza said.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have ordered more residents of Jabalya and Nazla, just north of Gaza City, to move south ahead of planned military operations on Saturday. At the same time, the Ministry of Interior in Gaza called on citizens not to leave their homes in the areas that the Israeli army warned about this morning.

This post has been updated.

Soldiers, including several visibly injured, are seen at the emergency department’s reception desk at the Ziv hospital.

The Ziv hospital in northern Israel is on high alert. Non-urgent operations are on hold, staff have been asked to consider donating blood when needed, and all patients – including newborns in the maternity unit – have been moved underground.

The expectation here is clear: If Israel ends up sending more troops to southern Lebanon, it could get bloody.

“We have been in a war situation for the past year, but after the army entered into Lebanon, our services and all of the staff are ready for, unfortunately, the next wave of casualties,” the hospital’s director, Salman Zarka, told CNN.

Ziv Medical Center is the only hospital in the area and the closest to Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, as well as the occupied Golan Heights. The hospital in Safed has been receiving people injured in cross-border fire for months, including children hurt in the deadly attack on Majdal Shams in July.

“When you have combat on the ground, usually you have more wounded and, unfortunately, dead soldiers. I hope it will not happen, (but) we have to be ready,” Zarka, an IDF reservist and a former commander of the IDF’s Medical Services Center, added.

Read the full story here.

Displaced Palestinians flee areas in the northern Gaza Strip following an Israeli evacuation order in Jabalya, on October 6, 2024.

Israel’s military ordered additional residents of northern Gaza to move south ahead of planned military operations on Saturday.

The residents join tens of thousands of other Palestinians who were told to leave in a round of evacuation orders issued Monday.

The army will operate “with great force” in the areas of Jabalya and Nazla, north of Gaza City, and will continue to do so “for an extended period,” according to the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee.

“You must evacuate the area immediately,” he said, adding that the area, including the shelters within it, was considered a “dangerous combat zone.” He told residents that they should move south to the military’s so-called “humanitarian zone.”

That zone, in the coastal area of Al Mawasi, is already crammed with refugees and has been hit by repeated Israeli airstrikes including one that killed at least 19 people in September.

The military dropped flyers on Saturday morning warning people to “evacuate immediately,” according to residents.

On Friday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said thousands of people already cannot leave northern Gaza despite evacuation orders from the military, due to gunfire and strikes around evacuation routes.

Palestinians fleeing the designated areas covered by Monday’s order in northern Gaza were shot at as they attempted to leave, according to residents there and footage shared with CNN.

In July the UN reported that approximately nine out of 10 people in Gaza had been internally displaced, many of them multiple times, due to repeated evacuation orders across the territory.

Aid organizations have previously said new rounds of evacuation orders make the delivery of emergency rations even more difficult.

No food has entered northern Gaza since the start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of going hungry, the World Food Programme told CNN on Friday.

People walk on the streets of Tehran, Iran, where Iranian flags and Hezbollah banners are seen, on October 9.

Iran’s government is extremely nervous and has?been engaging?in urgent diplomatic efforts with countries in the?Middle East?to gauge whether they can reduce the?scale of Israel’s?response to its missile attack?earlier this month and –?if that fails?–?help protect Tehran,?sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Iran’s anxiety stems from uncertainty about whether the US can convince Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites and oil facilities, and the fact that its most important proxy militia in the region, Hezbollah, has been significantly weakened by Israeli military operations in recent weeks, the sources said.

The US has been consulting with Israel on how it plans to respond to Iran’s October 1 attack, and US officials have made clear they do not want Israel to target Iranian nuclear sites or oil fields. US President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, their?first conversation in almost two months, telling him Israel’s retaliation should be “proportional.”

The US’ Gulf allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar, have also expressed concern to the US about a potential attack on Iranian oil facilities, which could create negative economic and environmental impacts for the entire region, an Arab diplomat told CNN.

Read the full story here.

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said it “strongly condemns” Israel’s attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon that injured two of its soldiers on Friday.

The peacekeepers were injured in an attack at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in the southern city of Naqoura, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said in a statement.

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged it hit a UNIFIL base and said it was looking into the circumstances surrounding the incident. Its soldiers fired at “an immediate threat against them” and later found a UNIFIL post near the “source of the threat” was hit, injuring two UNIFIL peacekeepers, it said.

UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Thursday said the situation in southern Lebanon is “increasingly alarming,” with UN peacekeepers “at serious risk.”

The head of Ireland’s armed forces, Lieutenant General Sean Clancy, earlier said Israeli fire that hit the UN peacekeeping position in southern Lebanon on Friday seemed “deliberate,” given the circumstances.

This is the second incident of Israeli tank fire resulting in injuries to UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon this week. Two Indonesian peacekeepers were hospitalized on Thursday following a similar incident.

A nursing home in central Israel was damaged following the downing of a drone originating from Lebanon, according to officials.

The Israeli military said alerts had been activated after it detected two aircraft crossing from Lebanon, according to a statement on Friday night.

The military said the Air Force had successfully intercepted one aircraft but did not specify what had happened to the second.

“At this stage there is damage to a building in Herzliya,” the statement added. Herzliya is a coastal city in central Israel.

Images and video shared by the military showed damage to what it said was a nursing home, “following the (drone) attack.”

Broken windows and destroyed furniture could be seen along with water pooled on the floor of an adjoining hallway.

Israeli police received “multiple” reports of rocket fragments landing in the Herzliya area, according to a spokesperson.

Police officers and bomb disposal experts arrived to manage “debris from the interception,” the spokesperson said.

Neither statement indicated there were casualties. The military said the incident was under investigation.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said it was “profoundly saddened” by the death of a Thai worker in northern Israel on Friday, according to a statement.

Earlier in the day Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency response service had reported that the Thai national had been killed in the Upper Galilee region after an anti-tank missile was fired from Lebanon.

The Thai foreign ministry disputed that account, saying the death, and the injury of another of its nationals,?had resulted from “an explosion of dropped ammunition” without providing additional details.

The ministry added that its embassy in Israel was closely monitoring the condition of the injured worker and awaiting autopsy results to confirm the identity of the deceased before notifying the family.

The statement said the embassy was working to evacuate 10 additional Thai nationals from the kibbutz where the incident had occurred. It asked other Thai citizens having trouble leaving high-risk areas of Israel to contact the embassy for assistance.

The agriculture industry in Israel has employed thousands of Thai nationals to tend crops and work in dairies.

Thais made up the largest group of foreign nationals killed in the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023.?Most were workers on agricultural sites close to the perimeter fence?that separates Israel from Gaza.

In the months after the attack an estimated 10,000 farm workers left, according to the Israeli government.

Nicaragua is breaking diplomatic relations with Israel over its war in Gaza, its Vice President Rosario Murillo announced on Friday.

Murillo said that the “repudiation” measure is not against the people of Israel but against its government.

CNN has contacted the Israeli consulate in Nicaragua for comment.

Context:?The announcement comes on the back of?statements?made by Nicaragua’s foreign minister Valdrack Ludwing Jaentschke Whitaker in a speech to the UN General Assembly in late September, where Whitaker denounced and condemned “the genocide that the Government of Israel and its ‘First World’ allies have committed, commit and continue to commit” across the Middle East.

In January, Nicaragua’s government applied to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join the genocide lawsuit that South Africa filed against Israel in December last year.

Israel has rejected the genocide charges, arguing that the war against Hamas in Gaza is conducted in self-defense. Israel also maintains that it is not fighting the Palestinian people, and that its leaders have not shown any intent to commit genocide.

Antony Blinken speaks at a press conference during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Vientiane, Laos, on October 11.

US?Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately on Friday with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri as Israeli military operations in?the country?continue,?including deadly strikes in Beirut?Thursday.

According to State Department readouts of both calls, Blinken reiterated the US’ “commitment to a diplomatic resolution to the conflict across the Blue Line,” referring to the roughly 120-kilometer boundary between the two countries established by the United Nations in 2000 to ensure the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

The top US diplomat “underscored enduring United States support for Lebanese institutions that can help stabilize the country, including the Lebanese Armed Forces,” and called for the country not to allow Iran or Hezbollah to “stand in the way” of Lebanon’s security, the readout from the Mikati call said.

In both calls, Blinken discussed the presidential vacancy in Lebanon and the need to fill?it?with a leader “that reflects the will of the people for a stable, prosperous, and independent Lebanon.”

Neither readout mentioned the deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut or the ongoing ground operations in the south of Lebanon.

Israel’s military says it is investigating after Lebanese officials blamed an Israeli strike for the killing of two of the country’s soldiers on Friday.

The Lebanese army said earlier that Israeli strikes targeting an army base in Kafra, southern Lebanon, killed two of its soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces now tells CNN that it is looking into the reported incident, and added that it was unaware of a Lebanese Armed Forces facility in the area:

Some background:?While Israel is at war with Hezbollah — the Iran-backed paramilitary group that operates in southern Lebanon — its strikes have also killed more than 1,400 Lebanese civilians and at least three of the country’s soldiers, according to Lebanon’s government.

The IDF reiterated in its statement Friday that it is fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and not the state of Lebanon.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati earlier condemned the strike in Kafra as a part of a “persistent Israeli crime against Lebanon.”

The US government expanded sanctions on two Iranian energy sectors in an effort to cut off revenue that the US says Tehran is using to fund proxy groups and foment instability in the region.

Friday’s actions were taken in response to?Tehran’s missile attack on Israel?earlier this month, the Treasury Department said in a press release. It comes while the region is on edge about potential conflagration as Israel weighs its potential answer to that attack.

“In the aftermath of Iran’s unprecedented October 1 attack against Israel, the United States made clear that we would impose consequences on Iran for its actions,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Friday. “To that end, we are taking steps today to disrupt the flow of revenue the Iranian regime uses to fund its nuclear program and missile development, support terrorist proxies and partners, and perpetuate conflict throughout the Middle East.”

Remember:?Hezbollah, which Israel is fighting in Lebanon, and Hamas, which it is fighting in Gaza, are two members of an axis of militant groups funded by Iran, which also operate in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Palestinian residents of the Jabalya Refugee Camp flee to other areas, with the belongings they could carry, following Israeli attacks on the camp in Gaza City, Gaza on October 1, 2024.

Thousands of people are unable to leave?northern Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp?despite evacuation warnings from the Israeli military, due to gunfire and strikes around evacuation routes, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on Friday.

CNN has previously reported incidents of evacuees from Jabalya coming under fire. One man said he and his family fled their home in Jabalya due to continuous bombing in the area, and that he and other civilians were shot at when they went back to retrieve supplies.

Five MSF staff members are currently trapped at the camp, according to a post on X from the organization, which is also known as Doctors Without Borders.

“Nobody is allowed to get in or out, anyone who tries is getting shot,” MSF project coordinator Sarah Vuylsteke added, in a post on MSF’s official X account.

Haydar, a driver working for the organization who is trapped at the camp, was also quoted by MSF describing his fear of attempting to flee the dangerous area:

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on allegations that its troops are firing near evacuation routes and that MSF workers are trapped.

Some background:?The Israel Defense Forces launched its latest ground operation in Jabalya on Sunday, where it said it was encircling the area after seeing signs of Hamas rebuilding, despite a year of fighting and intense strikes on the area.

The IDF told residents across several parts of northern Gaza, including Jabalya, to evacuate on Monday, warning that it is “currently operating with great force in the area.”