GAZA: Zionist bombing killed dozens of people in besieged Gaza, the health ministry of the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said Thursday, as regional tensions have surged over the almost three-months-old war. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to head to the Middle East, a US official said on condition of anonymity, the top diplomat’s fourth trip to the region since Oct 7.

The Zionist military, in its campaign to destroy the Islamist group, has reported more strikes in and around Gaza City, now a largely devastated urban combat zone, and Khan Yunis, the biggest city in the territory’s south. The Gaza health ministry reported “dozens of martyrs and more than 100 wounded in the continued barbaric aerial and artillery bombardment of citizens’ homes in the Gaza Strip”.

Fires sparked by bombing raged in Gaza’s central Deir al-Balah area and the Al-Maghazi refugee camp. “People were safe in their homes, the house was full of children,” resident Ibrahim Al-Ghimri told AFP. “There were around 30 people. All of a sudden their houses fell on them... What have these children done?”

Tensions have also surged with the Zionist entity’s northern neighbor Lebanon, where a strike in Beirut, widely assumed to have been carried out by Israel, killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh Al-Aruri, who was being buried Thursday, mourned by large crowds. Aruri was killed Tuesday in the south Beirut stronghold of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has traded tit-for-tat fire across the border with the Zionist entity for months.

Hezbollah has vowed that the killing of Aruri and six other Hamas operatives on its home turf will not go unpunished, labelling it “a serious assault on Lebanon... and a dangerous development”. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the Zionist entity against all-out conflict, after Zionist army chief Herzi Halevi, in a visit to the Lebanese border, said troops were “in very high readiness”.

Nasrallah said that “for now, we are fighting on the frontline following meticulous calculations” but warned that, “if the enemy thinks of waging a war on Lebanon, we will fight without restraint, without rules, without limits”. The Lebanese group said on Thursday another four of its fighters were killed overnight, raising its death toll to 129 since the outbreak of border hostilities. Mossad chief David Barnea warned on Wednesday that the Zionist spy agency “is committed to settling the score with the murderers” who carried out the Hamas attack.

The Zionist entity’s relentless bombardment and ground invasion has reduced swathes of Gaza to rubble and claimed at least 22,438 lives, according to the health ministry. The United Nations estimates 1.9 million Gazans are displaced, and the World Health Organization has warned of the risk of famine and disease, with only a minimal amount of aid entering the territory.

The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, said on Thursday he was “very disturbed” after two Zionist cabinet ministers separately called for Palestinians to leave Gaza, raising fears of forced expulsion. Displaced Palestinians living in tents in Gaza’s south were killed in a strike, said bereaved residents who were mourning the dead, wrapped in shrouds at a hospital in Khan Yunis. Baha Abu Hatab said his nephews were killed. They had been living in “a tent to protect them from the cold weather, but (Zionist) airstrikes hit them in their sleep”, he added. “Why?” he asked. “Because they threaten (the Zionist entity) and the United States?”

As the Zionist-Hamas war has raged, another regional flashpoint has seen Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels fire at merchant vessels in the Red Sea, disrupting a key global shipping lane, in attacks the rebels say are in solidarity with the Palestinians. The United States and 11 of its allies jointly warned the Houthis of unspecified consequences unless they immediately halted the attacks. US President Joe Biden’s administration described the statement — joined by Britain, Germany and Japan — as a final warning as he weighs possible military strikes if the attacks persist. “I would not anticipate another warning,” a senior US official said, calling the message “very clear”.