Updates: Huge Hezbollah rocket strikes as Israel troops retreat in Lebanon

For more on Israel cutting ties with the Israeli news outlet Haaretz, check out our story, here.

Watch our video of the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza being wounded in an Israeli drone strike, here.

And read our news story on attacks across the besieged Gaza Strip, here.

We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Hundreds of Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks on Israel wounded at least 11 people, including one man in serious condition, in one of the largest barrages of the war.
• An Israeli drone attack seriously injured the hospital director of besieged northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital as the weekslong ground invasion continues.
• Hezbollah said it destroyed six Israeli Merkava tanks in Lebanon’s south, five in the strategic coastal area of al-Bayada where Israeli troops later retreated from a key hilltop position.
• The Lebanese army said an Israeli attack on a base in the town of al-Amiriya in the south killed one of its soldiers and wounded many others, despite the military’s non-participation in the war.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will take all measures to hold accountable the killers of an Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates and “those who sent them”.
• The number of arrests in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is more than 11,800 since Israel’s war on Gaza began, prisoner rights groups say.

Israeli medical services reported that at least 11 people were wounded throughout Israel after a major barrage of rockets and drones by Hezbollah during the day. One person was in serious condition.

Hezbollah said earlier that it launched attacks at the Ashdod naval base in southern Israel – one of its deepest targets so far – as well as military sites in the Tel Aviv area.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specific claims but said that air raid sirens sounded in several areas, including in the Tel Aviv suburbs.

Images from Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, showed several damaged and burned-out cars, and a house pockmarked by shrapnel. In nearby Rinatya, several houses were also damaged.

Israel’s government has approved sanctions on the country’s oldest newspaper, Haaretz.

Its Communication Minister says the publication hurts the legitimacy of Israel and its “right to defend itself”.

Watch the video below:

The Israeli military announced it attacked “12 military headquarters” in the Dahiyeh area of Beirut this evening.

In a post on X, the army said that among the targets hit were Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters and its coastal missile unit.

Earlier, an Israeli strike on an army centre killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded 18 others in the southwest, between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon’s military said.

Israeli army attacks have killed more than  40 Lebanese troops since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, even as Lebanon’s military has kept to the sidelines.

The Iranian Embassy in the United Arab Emirates says it “categorically rejects the allegations of Iran’s involvement in the murder of this individual”.

The statement comes after the body of Zvi Kogan, 28, was found in Al Ain, UAE, and three suspects were detained.

An Emirates Foreign Ministry statement did not give details on the suspects or say if they had been charged, but said all legal powers would be used “to respond decisively and without leniency to any actions or attempts that threaten societal stability”.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to serve justice to the killers and “those that sent them”.

Lebanon suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the Education Ministry said, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.

Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced “the suspension for technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighbouring Matn, Baabda and Chouf districts starting on Monday.

The move was made “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions”.

Today was probably the most intense day since the beginning of this war with at least 49 attacks by Hezbollah on Israeli targets – whether inside Lebanon or in Israel.

Hezbollah launched about 340 rockets. There’s also the Israeli ground incursion in Lebanon or what Israel calls the ground “manoeuvre”.

Israel is trying to take two strategic towns on the border. One is Naqoura, a town on the sea. The Israelis have been advancing through several other villages, and they were positioned on al-Bayada, a strategic hill overseeing the Mediterranean, and also in other areas in the district.

But today, Hezbollah forced the Israeli military to retreat after launching four attacks with antitank guided missiles on the Merkava tanks and destroying them, according to Hezbollah statements.

In the southern city of Khiam – a strategic town on the border – Israel is trying to push in but its forces are facing fierce resistance.

Danielle Aloni, who was kidnapped with her five-year-old daughter, Emelia, and freed after 49 days, highlighted the “increasing danger” for those in Gaza still being held captive.

“It took the Israeli government about two months to secure a deal for me and 80 other Israeli hostages. Why is it taking over a year to reach another deal to free them from this hell?” asked Aloni, whose brother-in-law David Cunio and his brother Ariel Cunio are still in captivity.

Aloni stressed that even though she and the other captives gained their freedom a year ago, “we haven’t really left the tunnels”.

“The feeling of suffocation, the terrible humidity, the stench – these sensations still envelop us,” Aloni said.

Here are a few highlights of recently published Al Jazeera content:

• News: Hezbollah fires 340 missiles at Israel
• Feature: Dying in ‘Hell’: The fate of Palestinian medics jailed by Israel
• Watch: Director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital wounded in attack
• Opinion: Israel and its supporters cannot gaslight the law
• News: Israel sanctions Haaretz due to articles that ‘hurt’ Israeli state

And there’s plenty more here.

Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Lebanon’s government facilities in Beirut, which so far have been spared relentless strikes.

“The Lebanese government is allowing Hezbollah to operate freely. It’s time to take strong action against its infrastructure and assets,” Gantz said on X.

Avi Ashkenazi, a military analyst for the Maariv newspaper, suggested in an article that the premises of the Lebanese parliament would be a viable target for the Israeli army.

“The parliament building is part of Hezbollah’s political infrastructure and could serve as a refuge for its members,” Ashkenazi said.

He also suggested that the Israeli military should destroy 10 to 20 more buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb “to ensure dominance in the area”.

This child survivor of the Holocaust is fighting for Palestinian rights. Stephen Kapos lost 15 members of his family in Nazi Germany.

Now, aged 87, he says Israelis are weaponising anti-Semitism to carry out a genocide against Palestinians.

The Lebanese armed group says it attacked Israeli soldiers in the town of Chamaa with a “suicide drone”.

Hezbollah also said it targeted Israeli troops south of the city of Khiam – where there have been fierce battles in the past few days – in a drone strike.

It gave no casualty figures, and the Israeli military didn’t immediately comment.

Al-Aqsa TV reports Israeli quadcopter drones again attacked the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya as the weekslong military onslaught on northern Gaza continues.

Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked the hospital, its medical staff and patients, and damaged the facility’s generators, fuel tanks, and main oxygen station.

The director of the partially functioning hospital in the besieged north was wounded in an Israeli drone strike on Saturday.

The Lebanese group says it destroyed six Israeli Merkava tanks in Lebanon’s south, five in the strategic coastal area of al-Bayada where Israeli troops later retreated from a key hilltop position.

Hezbollah fighters “destroyed” five Israeli tanks on the eastern outskirts of the town of al-Bayyaada, where heavy ground battles have raged for days.

The group also knocked out a sixth Merkava tank in the Deir Mimas area close to the border, it said in separate statements.

Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned from Israel and the occupied West Bank.

In the Tel Aviv area, rockets and raid sirens have not stopped all day, going off through the morning hours and also through the night.

There is damage to several buildings across northern Israel and in the Tel Aviv area, and the rockets and shrapnel have even reached the occupied West Bank in Tulkarem refugee camp. Thirteen people have been reported injured.

For the Israelis, this really adds to their anxiety. The feeling that the promise of the Israeli government that this war would be short, that a victory would be decisive and it is within reach, really has not translated into action. And what they have found is that their lives are disrupted.

The government cannot guarantee their safety in those northern communities and even further to the south in the Tel Aviv area. Some mayors have taken it upon themselves to change the instructions for the public to ensure public gatherings are not held unless there is a safe room or shelter nearby.

Lebanon’s state media report a plethora of Israeli air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs after the Israeli army gave short notice for civilians to flee.

Loud explosions were heard with car alarms going off throughout one street in Lebanon capital.

“A series of violent strikes are targeting Haret Hreik, Bir al-Abed and Ghobeiri in the southern suburbs of Beirut,” the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.

The raids “caused massive destruction over a large geographical area” of the Kafaat district, NNA said. There were no immediate reports of casualties in Sunday’s strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been largely emptied of their residents during the fighting.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee earlier warned that the military would strike “Hezbollah facilities and interests” in southern Beirut.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will take all measures to hold accountable the killers of an Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates and “those who sent them”.

The body of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, 28, was found on Sunday after he was reported missing on Thursday. The UAE said it arrested three suspects in connection with the killing.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said Israelis and Jews in the UAE should remain alert and keep a low profile.

The UAE’s Israeli and Jewish community has grown more visible since 2020, when the UAE became the most prominent Arab state in 30 years to establish formal ties with Israel under a United States-brokered agreement, dubbed the Abraham Accords.

With talks on a ceasefire and prisoner release deal in Gaza stalled, freed captives and families of those still held are marking a year since the only swap in the war.

“For a full year, we have been waiting for another deal to bring everyone back,” said Yifat Zailer, cousin of Shiri Bibas, who is still being held along with her husband and two young sons. “It’s hard to hold on to hope – certainly after so long and as another winter is about to begin.”

About 100 abductees are still inside Gaza, with at least one-third believed to be dead. Most of the rest of the 250 taken in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack were released in last year’s brief ceasefire.

Talks for another deal recently had several setbacks, including Qatar’s decision to suspend its mediation.

Efforts have been stalled for months in large part over Israel’s refusal to end the war and withdraw all troops from Gaza as part of a deal. Israel has offered only to pause its offensive.