What has happened in the last few hours
These are the most relevant news of the war in the Middle East at 8:00 p.m. this Friday, November 15:
Israeli warplanes have launched an attack on the wealthy neighborhood of Mezzeh, in Damascus (Syria), leaving at least 20 dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The day before, another attack in the Syrian capital left at least 13 dead.
Islamic Jihad has released a new video of Russian-Israeli hostage Sasha Trufanov, held in the Gaza Strip for more than a year. “I want to remind the Government [de Netanyahu] that he has abandoned us, that the life of the Jew has incomparable value,” Trufanov said in Hebrew in the fourth recording released of him.
The spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs assured this Friday that access to aid in the Gaza Strip is at “a low point.” Deliveries are “almost impossible.” “All the indicators that can be imagined in a humanitarian response (…) are going in the wrong direction,” he indicated.
The authorities of the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, have raised the death toll to more than 43,750 and injuries to nearly 103,500 since October 7, 2023.
Ali Larijani, an advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met this Friday in Beirut with the Lebanese Prime Minister, Nayib Mikati, to address the conflict in the Middle East.
The new Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has approved the issuance of some 7,000 recruitment orders for ultra-Orthodox Israelis. Katz wants to advance “an agreed solution” for “a true integration of the ultra-Orthodox in the Army.”
At least 59 people have been killed in the last 24 hours in more than a hundred Israeli attacks against Lebanon, official sources have said. The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health has indicated that, in addition to the 59 deaths, 182 people were injured on Thursday, bringing the total number since the start of the war between Israel and Lebanon on October 8, 2023 to 3,445 deaths and 14,599 injured.
UNICEF global spokesperson James Elder denounces the “chilling parallels” between the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, regarding a “lack of respect” for the presence of civilians.
