Middle East crisis live: ‘Heavy strike’ reported in Beirut after Israeli evacuation order | Middle East and north Africa

Julian Borger

Julian Borger is the Guardian’s senior international correspondent

A UN special committee has said that Israeli policies and practices in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.

The committee, set up in 1968 to monitor the Israeli occupation, also said in its annual report that there were serious concerns that Israel was “using starvation as a weapon of war” in the 13-month-old conflict, and was running an “apartheid system” in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The international court of justice (ICJ) is investigating a claim put forward by South Africa that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is genocidal, and has ordered Israel to take interim measures to prevent genocide taking place.

The new report is by the special committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories. The committee, set up in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, is made up of representatives from three member states: Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Senegal.

You can read the full story here:

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has reported a “heavy strike” carried out with two missiles fired by an “enemy aircraft” in the neighbourhood of Bourj al-Barajneh in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The Israeli military says it has identified several buildings in the suburbs of Ghobeiry (see opening summary for more details) and Bourj al-Barajneh that the military plans to target as it claims Hezbollah targets are there.

“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately and stay away from them for a distance of no less than 500 meters,” Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X.

We are restarting our live coverage of Israel’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza.

The Israeli military has ordered residents to immediately evacuate the Beirut southern suburb of Ghobeiry, where it says Hezbollah fighters are located.

“You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the IDF will act forcefully in the near future,” Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X.

Al Jazeera reports this morning that several attacks on the area have taken place, with footage on social media showing large explosions and smoke bellowing out of buildings.

Lebanon’s state-run national news agency (NNA) said the Ghobeiry area “witnessed heavy gunfire” from Israeli forces. The number of people killed or injured is not clear yet.

Citing Lebanon’s health ministry, the NNA also earlier reported that six people had been killed in a “horrific massacre” carried out by Israeli soldiers on a civil defence centre in the town of Arabsalim in southern Lebanon. Six people were reported to have been killed in the attack, including five paramedics.

Here are some of the other latest developments:

• In Gaza, at least two people were killed and several others injured after an overnight Israeli airstrike hit a residential apartment in the centre of Deir al-Balah, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. In a separate attack, the outlet reports that two members of the same family – a father and son – were killed in an Israeli missile strike that targeted a home in the village of al-Nasr, northeast of the southern city of Rafah.

• The Israel Defense Forces said two rockets launched from Lebanon at the Haifa Bay area of Israel were successfully intercepted by air defenses. There were no immediate reports of any injuries.

• Canada’s foreign minister has expressed deep concern about “catastrophic” humanitarian conditions across Gaza and warned about “the life-threatening levels of acute malnutrition.” The country’s foreign affairs minister, Melanie Joly, cited a 8 November report by the Famine Review Committee that found a strong likelihood that famine is occurring or imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip. She said Israel must abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law and provide a significant and sustained increase to humanitarian assistance for Palestinians.

• Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity. The US-based group added it had collected evidence that suggested “the war crime of forcible transfer [of the civilian population]”, describing it as “a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court” (you can read more about the report’s findings here).