Hamas deputy's death confirmed; people drown swimming for aid; Israel-Lebanon attacks intensify

Hamas deputy military commander Marwan Issa was killed in an Israeli strike this month, Israel's military spokesperson has confirmed.

With no sign of a ceasefire between the two sides, the separate conflict on the Israeli-Lebanese border continued to rage. Lebanon's Hezbollah said it launched dozens of rockets at Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli town over the border.

Meanwhile, 12 people drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach.

Issa was at the top of Israel's most-wanted list together with Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas's military wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, and Hamas's leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who are believed to have masterminded the group's October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

"We have checked all the intelligence," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement on Tuesday (March 26). "Marwan Issa was eliminated in the strike we carried out around two weeks ago," he said.

Israeli emergency services said a Hezbollah rocket strike on Wednesday killed a factory worker in Kiryat Shmona following warning signs in the area.

At least seven people were killed in the Israeli strikes on Hebbariyeh, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters.

The Israeli strikes appeared to be aimed at the Islamist group's emergency and relief center in the village, the sources said.

Hezbollah earlier on Wednesday had condemned the strikes on Habbariyeh. Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon had already killed more than a half dozen medical personnel and rescue workers, according to Lebanon's health ministry.

The drowning of 12 people trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach came amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel's military campaign.

Video of the airdrop obtained by news agencies showed crowds of people running towards the beach, in Beit Lahia in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.

In Washington, the Pentagon said three of the 18 bundles of airdropped aid into Gaza on Monday (March 25) had parachute malfunctions and fell into the water, but could not confirm if anyone was killed trying to reach the aid.

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It was the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the crowded Palestinian enclave where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.

A piece of paper retrieved from Monday's airdrop said in Arabic written over an American flag that the aid was from the United States.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged Israel to give an "ironclad commitment" for unfettered aid access into the Gaza Strip and described the number of trucks blocked at the border as "a moral outrage."

Israel says it puts no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and blames problems in it reaching civilians within the enclave on UN agencies, which it says are inefficient.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday he stressed with U.S. officials the importance of U.S.-Israeli ties and of maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge in the region, including its air capabilities.

Gallant was speaking to reporters during his second day of meetings with senior U.S. officials in Washington at a time when wartime relations between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have sunk to a new low.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it was a moral and strategic imperative to protect Palestinian civilians in the war between Israel and Hamas and that the humanitarian catastrophe in besieged Gaza was getting worse.

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