Nearly 29,000 displaced in Lebanon amid skirmishes on Israel border: UN

Nearly 29,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon amid deadly exchanges between Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli army, a United Nations agency said. A total of 28,965 people have been displaced, mainly in the country’s south, the International Organization for Migration said in an update, adding that the figure had risen by 37 percent since October 23. Some have found refuge with family members elsewhere in the country, while those who can afford it have been able to rent apartments on a short-term basis. But with Lebanon in the grips of an economic crisis that has plunged most of the population into poverty, some are living in makeshift shelters in the south’s larger towns. In Lebanon, at least 58 people have been killed in the cross-border exchanges of fire, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including at least four civilians, one of them Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah. On October 7, Hamas gunmen poured from the Gaza Strip into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 229 more, according to Israeli officials. In retaliatory Israeli air and artillery strikes, at least 7,326 people have been killed in Gaza, including more than 3,000 children, according to figures released by the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. The death toll in Gaza is the highest there since Israel withdrew from the Palestinian territory in 2005.