Middle East: Israel strikes Al-Aqsa Hospital complex in Gaza

The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has criticized the United Nations for failing to prevent Israel from firing on UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon.

"The image of a UN which cannot protect its own personnel is shameful and worrying," Erdogan said in a televised address on Monday.

"Can you believe it?" he continued. "The Israeli tanks penetrate into the UNIFIL zone, attack peacekeeping soldiers, even wounding some of them, but the UN Security Council decides to just watch all this criminality from the stands. That's what we call powerlessness."

At least five UNIFIL peacekeepers have been wounded in Lebanon in the past week, but Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Israel, said the UN was also to blame for failing to sanction Israel over its wars with Hezbollah and with Hamas in Gaza.

"Frankly, we ask ourselves what the Security Council is waiting for to stop Israel," he said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accused Israeli soldiers of "deliberately" breaching a UNIFIL compound and said their actions "may constitute a war crime."

Israel denies deliberately targeting the UN troops (see below).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected accusations that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deliberately fired on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

This was "absolutely false," he said, insisting that the IDF does all it can to avoid harm to UNIFIL troops while targeting Hezbollah fighters.

"But," he said, "the best way to assure the safety of UNIFIL personnel is for UNIFIL to heed Israel's request and to temporarily get out of harm's way."

At least 18 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.

The strike hit a small apartment building in the village of Aito, a Christian-majority area.

"Eighteen dead and four wounded in the strike on Aito," the Red Cross reported.

Israel did not immediately comment on the strike, and it was not clear what the target was.

Israel's fight against Hezbollah militants has mainly been concentrated in the south of Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had intercepted two drones approaching the country from Syria.

It came just a day after a drone attack by Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia on an Israeli military base killed four soldiers.

"A short while ago, two UAVs that approached Israeli territory from Syria were successfully intercepted by the IAF (air force)," the military said in a statement on social media.

"The UAVs were intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory."

The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday denounced a series of attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that have injured United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

"The EU condemns all attacks against UN missions," Borrell told reporters ahead of a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Luxembourg. 

"The 27 (EU) members agreed on asking (the) Israelis to stop attacking UNIFIL. It's completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops."

At least five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as Israel targets Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities created following Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon, has accused the Israeli military of "deliberately" firing on its positions. Italy, France and Spain are among the countries providing the largest contingents of troops to UNIFIL.

"Many European members are participating in this mission," Borrell noted. "Their work is very important."

"We urgently await explanations and a thorough investigation from the Israeli authorities about the attacks against UNIFIL, which plays a fundamental role in the stability of south Lebanon."

Israel has disputed the UN's account of some of these incidents. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to move the peacekeepers "out of harm's way."

At least four people were killed on Monday morning, according to Palestinian medics, after an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip.

The airstrike sent flames through a packed tent camp for displaced people, with more than two dozen people suffering from severe burns.

Footage published by the Associated Press showed children among the wounded.

The Israeli military said it had targeted militants that had been hiding among civilians.

Hospital records showed that four people were killed and 40 wounded. Up to 25 people were transferred to the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza after suffering severe burns.

Located in the central city of Deir al-Balah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was already struggling to treat many wounded people from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter nearby.

The second round of polio vaccinations for children, coordinated by the United Nations, is set to begin Monday in the Gaza Strip.

About 590,000 children under the age of ten will be vaccinated, according to UN agencies. Israel and the organizers have agreed to area-specific humanitarian truces.

The first round of two-dose polio vaccinations in Gaza took place in early September. Weeks earlier, the first case of polio in 25 years was discovered in the closed Palestinian territory. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 90% of children need to be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.

The mass vaccination campaign is being carried out by local health authorities, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA).

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will meet with EU ministers to discuss the Middle East crisis and the war in Ukraine.

Lammy will underline closer UK-EU cooperation on global issues by attending the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Monday.

It will be the first time in two years that a UK foreign secretary will join the group of 27 EU ministers, with the British government keen to signal its renewed commitment to European relations.

An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 20 people, including children in a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza, according to local hospitals.

The Sunday night strike also killed two women in Nuseirat. The school was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the year-long war in Gaza.

The bodies were taken to Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Some one million people have taken shelter in the city of Deir al-Balah after fleeing fighting elsewhere during more than a year of war.

US Vice President Kamala Harris urged Israel to do more to facilitate the flow of aid into northern Gaza.

"The UN reports that no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly 2 weeks. Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need," she wrote on social media.

She added that civilians must be protected and have access to food, water and medicine and that international humanitarian law must be respected.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed and seven seriously wounded when a drone attack by Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia hit an army base about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Tel Aviv on Sunday, the military said.

Israeli media reported that at least 67 people were wounded in the attack on the base, which is near the Israeli town of Binyamina in central Israel.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility, saying it had fired a "squadron of attack drones" at an Israeli military training camp in the town. 

Israeli broadcasters reported that many emergency services were at the scene and that no warning sirens had been activated before the projectile hit. 

Israel's sophisticated air defense system usually prevents such mass casualty incidents, although Hezbollah and other groups regularly launch barrages of drones and other projectiles.

Israel, the US, Germany and several other countries consider Hezbollah to be a terror organization, while the EU deems Hezbollah's military wing a terror group.  

dh/wd,zc (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)