• Israel tells UN it is severing ties with UNRWA
• Berlin calls on Israel to increase aid access to northern Gaza
• Gaza death toll rises to 43,374

The Israeli army announced yesterday that it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander whom it accused of overseeing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.

Abu Ali Rida, Hezbollah commander in the Baraachit region of southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an airstrike, the army said, without specifying when he was killed.

Rida “was responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks against IDF (military) troops and supervised the terrorist activities of Hezbollah members in the region,” the army said in a press release.

Israel has continued to bomb Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the war between the two sides began in late September.

Lebanese Hezbollah, backed by Iran, said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli town of Safed yesterday. Hezbollah fighters launched a “large salvo of rockets” at the city, the group said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Israel has formally notified the United Nations of its decision to cut ties with the Palestinian refugee aid agency, it said yesterday, after lawmakers voted to ban the vital organization for the occupied territories.

The ban, which has drawn global condemnation including from the United States, Israel’s main backer, is expected to come into force at the end of January, with the UN Security Council warning it would have serious consequences for millions of Palestinians.

A man walks over rubble following an Israeli strike in the village of Douris, in the Baalbeck district of eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Photo: AFP

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A man walks over rubble following an Israeli strike in the village of Douris, in the Baalbeck district of eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Photo: AFP