GAZA: Fighting raged on Wednesday between Israeli troops and Palestinian groups in Gaza's southern city of Rafah, witnesses said, as fears grow of a wider regional war drawing in Lebanese.
As the war in Gaza nears its 10th month, Israel's top ally the United States warned it of the risk of a major conflict against Hezbollah group in Lebanon following an escalation in cross-border fire.
"Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East," US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told his visiting Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant. "Diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation," Austin said.
Top Israeli officials including Netanyahu have suggested they are open to a diplomatic resolution of the border tensions, though Gallant said Israel should be ready for "every possible scenario".
In Beirut on Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that any "miscalculation" could trigger all-out war and urged "extreme restraint".
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused Western powers of backing Israel as it sets "its sights on Lebanon", seeking "to spread the war to the region".
On the ground in Rafah, on Gaza's border with Egypt, witnesses reported clashes during the night, and the Israeli military said its air force struck a rocket launch site.
Mohammad al-Mughayyir, an official with the civil defence agency in Gaza, said that rescuers had recovered the bodies of "15 martyrs from various areas in Rafah city in the past few hours".
The civil defence agency and hospital medics said at least four people, including three children, were killed in a strike early on Wednesday targeting a house in Beit Lahia, in the north.
An air raid on Tuesday killed Fadi al-Wadiya, an employee of medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). MSF said on social media platform X that it was "outraged" by Wadiya's killing in a strike in Gaza City. "The attack killed Fadi, along with five other people including three children while he was cycling to work near the MSF clinic where he was providing care," the charity said.
UN and humanitarian agencies have repeatedly warned that aid workers are not safe in Gaza, impeding their desperately needed efforts delivering aid for Gaza's 2.4 million people. — AFP
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