(Reuters) -The U.S. State Department on Tuesday raised its travel alert for Lebanon to “do not travel,” citing the security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah.
The State Department authorized the voluntary, temporary departure of family members of U.S. government personnel and some non-emergency personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut because of the unpredictable security situation in Lebanon.
The advisory comes as a Gaza health ministry spokesman said hundreds were killed in a blast at a Gaza City hospital, igniting protests in the West Bank and around the Middle East. Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other for the bombing.
Before Tuesday’s blast, health authorities in Gaza said at least 3,000 people had died in Israel’s 11-day bombardment that began after a Hamas carried out a rampage on Oct. 7 on southern Israeli communities in which 1,300 people were killed and around 200 were taken into Gaza as hostages.
Gaza, a 45 km-long (25-mile) enclave home to 2.3 million people, has been ruled since 2006 by Hamas, an Islamist group that is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
(Reporting by Eric Beech and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
