Middle East: Israel strikes northern Gaza and Lebanon

Representatives from more than 50 Arab and Islamic states have been arriving in Saudi Arabia ahead of a summit scheduled to begin on Monday.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry announced the summit in October during the first meeting of an "international alliance" pushing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Those attending the summit in Riyadh will "discuss the continued Israeli aggression on the Palestinian territories and the Lebanese Republic, and the current developments in the region," the official Saudi Press Agency said on Sunday.

The agency also reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among those to have arrived.

Saudi state-affiliated Al-Ekhbariya news channel broadcast footage on Sunday of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati landing in Riyadh.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was also scheduled to attend.

Israel's government has advised Israeli citizens to avoid attending cultural and sporting events abroad in the coming week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said it had intelligence that pro-Palestinian groups were planning to cause harm to Israelis in the Netherlands, the UK, France, Belgium and elsewhere.

The statement comes after violent clashes between locals and traveling Israeli football fans in Amsterdam on Thursday.

Dutch police said that "hit-and-run" attacks were launched on Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters following a match against local team Ajax team after simmering tensions in the build-up to the game.

There were incidents linked to both Maccabi supporters — accused of chanting and singing anti-Palestinian slogans and songs — and opposing groups of youths.

Dutch authorities arrested dozens of people in connection with Thursday's violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has spoken to US President-elect Donald Trump three times in recent days.

"These were very good and important talks designed to further enhance the steadfast bond between Israel and the US," Netanyahu's office posted on social media platform X.

"We see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects, and on the dangers they reflect. We also see the great opportunities facing Israel, in the area of peace and its expansion, and in other areas," Netanyahu said.

The US is Israel's primary ally and military backer, and this week's US election came at a critical time for the Middle East amid wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

During Trump's first term as president, his administration moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after he made the controversial decision to recognize it as Israel's capital.

Riot police and protesters clashed on Amsterdam's central Damrak, or Dam Square, on Sunday, as police moved to break up a pro-Palestinian demonstration that took place in spite of a temporary ban on such protests.

The prohibition on protests was imposed after clashes earlier in the week between locals and traveling Israeli football supporters.

Hundreds of demonstrators defied the controversial measure, which a local court had upheld in an emergency hearing earlier in the day, chanting demands for an end to the war in Gaza and slogans including "Free Palestine." 

Dozens of people could be seen being detained, some of them being forcibly restrained by officers. 

A three-day ban on pro-Palestinian protests was first imposed on Friday, after clashes in Amsterdam following the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam on Thursday evening.

An Israeli airstrike on an apartment building south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, has killed at least seven people, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry.

It said the strike hit the Sayyida Zeinab district, a well-known stronghold of the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. 

Israel has not commented on the strike, but Israeli authorities have repeatedly said they will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria. 

The UK-based opposition war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights suggested Hezbollah members were targeted in the strike. 

Lebanon's Health Ministry said on Sunday that 23 people were killed, seven of them children, and six others injured in an Israeli strike on the village of Aalmat in Mount Lebanon province, to the north of the capital Beirut. 

After revising these figures several times, authorities said the toll could climb further, as rescue workers cleared rubble and wreckage at the site. 

Israel did not immediately comment on the incident, which took place far to the north of Hezbollah's traditional strongholds in the south and east of the country. 

Lebanese officials also reported attacks on Sunday in Baalbek in the country's east, not far from the border to Syria, and in southern areas nearer the border to Israel.

A hospital director in Gaza said on Sunday that at least 17 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a home sheltering displaced people in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the enclave. 

Dr. Fadel Naim, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said nine women were among the dead and that the toll was likely to rise as rescue efforts continued. 

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that more than 30 people were killed.

The Israeli military said it had targeted a site where militants were operating, without providing evidence, and that the details of the strike were under review.

A separate strike on Sunday in Gaza City killed Wael al-Khour, a minister in the Hamas-run government, and several members of his family, according to Gaza's Civil Defense, a first-responders organization that operates under the government. 

Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated Jabaliya and nearby towns such as Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun for roughly the past month. 

The Biden administration in the US recently called on Israel to ensure more humanitarian aid enter Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding. The 30-day deadline issued by the outgoing US administration expires on Wednesday.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said on Sunday that a high police presence was being prepared for the upcoming Nations League match between France and Israel at the Stade de France on Thursday. 

Nunez described the event as high risk and said that roughly 4,000 gendarmes would be around the stadium, on public transport and in Paris. 

"An elite unit of national police will also protect the Israel team," Nunez said. "The geopolitcal context is extremely delicate." 

The police chief also warned that officers would adopt an attitude of zero tolerance before and after the event. 

The match follows soon after the Ajax vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv club game midweek, which descended into violence on the streets of Amesterdam with fans being tracked, chased and beaten. 

Paris' Stade de France is on the northern outskirts of the city in the Saint-Denis suburb, known for a high crime rate, low living standards and a large Muslim population.

msh/nm (AFP, Reuters, AP, dpa)