At least six civilians have been killed and nine injured in a shooting in the Israeli city of Jaffa, located near Tel Aviv, local officials have told Fox News.

The incident, which is believed to be a terror attack, took place Tuesday outside a newly built light rail station on Jerusalem Street.

Authorities say at least two individuals who opened fire on a crowd of people have been “neutralized.”

IDF MEETS LITTLE RESISTANCE FROM HEZBOLLAH AFTER WEEKS OF HITTING TERROR TARGETS, OFFICIALS SAY

Shortly after the shooting, Israel faced more attacks with Iran launching roughly 100 ballistic missiles. 

Many were intercepted by Israel’s missile defense systems, while others did hit the ground.

IRAN PREPARING IMMINENT ATTACK ON ISRAEL, US SAYS

Medical personnel respond to the scene of the mass shooting that killed at least eight people and injured many more in Jaffa, Israel. (Gideon Markowicz/TPS-IL)

Iran had previously threatened to launch missiles at Israel. 

The Iran Revolutionary Guard issued a statement saying that it was a response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

A gunshot victim is transported away from the scene of the shooting. Emergency responders have reported multiple deaths as well as more victims in critical condition. (Gideon Markowicz/TPS-IL)

The Israel Defense Forces eventually issued a message to Israelis telling them it was safe to come out from their protective spaces.

Beirut, Lebanon – On Friday evening, a sudden explosion heavily damaged Dina’s* home in the Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon’s capital Beirut. It was caused by the shock wave of an Israeli air attack, during which dozens of bombs were dropped at once on a nearby apartment complex in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of the capital that is about two kilometres (1.2 miles) away from the refugee camp.

The huge attack killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and an unknown number of civilians after it levelled several residential buildings, leaving thousands more destitute. The blasts shattered the glass of small shops and cars in the camp, blew doors off their hinges and devastated nearby buildings and homes, explained 35-year-old Dina.

The explosions triggered mayhem as thousands of people and vehicles in the camp rushed towards its narrow exits. Dina grabbed her 12-year-old brother and ran down the stairs from their home, where she saw their elderly mother lying on the ground covered in debris.

Initially fearing that their mother was dead, Dina’s brother broke down. However, it turned out she was still conscious.

“My mother was confused and delirious, but I helped her up and told her that we had to run. I knew more bombs were coming,” Dina told Al Jazeera from a cafe in Hamra, a bustling neighbourhood in central Beirut that has absorbed thousands of displaced people from across Lebanon.

Unprecedented crisis

Israel escalated its conflict with Hezbollah in the second half of September, devastating southern Lebanon and triggering mass displacement.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), one million people have been uprooted from their homes due to Israel’s attacks, 90 percent of them in the last week.

But Lebanon’s caretaker government – operating without a president and reeling from a severe economic crisis – has struggled to respond to people’s needs. Thousands are sleeping on the floors of classrooms after the government converted more than 500 schools into displacement shelters. 

Thousands of others are sleeping in mosques, under bridges and in the streets. But the crisis could get even worse now that Israel has begun a ground offensive.

“A ground invasion will compound the problem,” said Karim Emile Bitar, a professor of international relations at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. “We already have more than one million people who left their homes. That is around the same number we had in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon and reached Beirut.”

Moments after Israel announced its ground offensive, it ordered civilians to evacuate 29 towns in south Lebanon.

Nora Serhan, who is originally from southern Lebanon, said that her uncle remains in one of the border villages. He refused to leave when Hezbollah and Israel began an initially low-scale conflict on October 8, 2023.

Hezbollah had begun firing projectiles at Israel with the stated aim of reducing pressure on its ally Hamas in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 41,600 people and uprooted nearly the entire 2.3 million population.

The devastating war on Gaza followed a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, in which 1,139 people were killed and around 250 taken captive.

After Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire, Serhan’s uncle chose to stay put. She suspects that he did not want to abandon his house and surroundings, even though the conflict cut off his water and electricity. But since Israel announced its ground offensive, Serhan’s family lost contact with him.

“When [Israel escalated the war last week], I think that maybe it became safer for my uncle to stay in the village than to risk fleeing on the roads,” she told Al Jazeera.

Losing home

Hundreds of thousands of people have abandoned their homes and villages to seek safety in Beirut, as well as in towns further north.

Abdel Latif Hamada, 57, fled his home in southern Lebanon last week after Israel began bombing the region. He said that a bomb killed one of his neighbours, while another was trapped inside his home after rubble and debris piled up outside the entrance.

Hamada risked his own life to clear the rubble and save his neighbour. He said that they were able to flee five minutes before Israel bombed their own homes.

“I didn’t rescue him. God rescued him,” said Hamada, a bald man with a nest of wrinkles around his eyes.

Despite fleeing just in time, Hamada wasn’t safe yet. He hitched an exhausting and terrifying 14-hour ride to Beirut – the journey typically takes four. Thousands of cars were squeezed together trying to reach safety, while roads were obstructed by rubble and stones that were blown off nearby homes and buildings.

“Israeli planes were all over the sky and we saw them drop bombs in front of us. I often had to get out of the vehicle to help clear the debris and stones obstructing our car,” Hamada told Al Jazeera.

As he took another drag from his cigarette, Hamada said that he wasn’t scared when Israel escalated its attacks. Over the course of his life, Israel has displaced him three times from his village, including during its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and its devastating assault on the country in 2006.

In the latter war, an Israeli bomb fell on his home and killed his wife Khadeja.

“I’m not scared for my own life anymore. I’m just scared of what awaits the generation ahead of me,” Hamada said.

Permanent displacement?

Civilians and analysts fear that the ongoing displacement crisis could end up being protracted – even permanent.

According to Michael Young, an expert on Lebanon with the Carnegie Middle East Centre, Israel’s objective over the last two weeks has been to create a major humanitarian crisis for the Lebanese state and particularly for Hezbollah, which represents many Shia Muslims in the country.

“What’s worrisome is what will Israel do when it does invade? Will they begin dynamiting homes as they did in Gaza? In other words, do they make the temporary humanitarian crisis a permanent one by ensuring that nobody can return [to their homes]?” Young asked.

“This is a big question mark,” he said. “Once the villages are emptied, what will the Israelis do to them?”

Hamada and Dina both vow to return to their homes again, when they can.

Dina said her father and sister have already gone back to Burj al-Barajneh – now a ghost town – due to the terrible conditions in the displacement shelters, where there are few basic provisions and no running water.

She added that there is a growing feeling among everyone in the country that Israel will turn large swathes of Lebanon into a disaster zone, just as they did in Gaza.

“They are going to do the same thing here that they did in Gaza,” Dina said.

“This is a war on civilians.”

*Dina’s name has been changed to protect her anonymity.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A strike by dockworkers at 36 ports from Maine to Texas, the first in decades, could snarl supply chains and lead to shortages and higher prices if it stretches on for more than a few weeks.

Workers began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation even though progress had been reported in contract talks. The contract between the ports and about 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired at midnight.

The strike comes just weeks before the presidential election and could become a factor if there are shortages.

Workers at the Port of Philadelphia walked in a circle outside the port and chanted “No work without a fair contract.” The union, striking for the first time since 1977, had message boards on the side of a truck reading: “Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection.”

Local ILA president Boise Butler said workers want a fair contract that doesn’t allow automation of their jobs.

Shipping companies made billions during the pandemic by charging high prices, he said. “Now we want them to pay back. They’re going to pay back,” Butler said.

He said the union will strike for as long as it needs to get a fair deal, and it has leverage over the companies.

“This is not something that you start and you stop,” he said. “We’re not weak,” he added, pointing to the union’s importance to the nation’s economy.

At Port Houston, at least 50 workers started picketing around midnight local time carrying signs saying “No Work Without a Fair Contract.”

The U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports, said Monday evening that both sides had moved off of their previous wage offers. But no deal was reached.

The union’s opening offer in the talks was for a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract, with President Harold Daggett saying it’s necessary to make up for inflation and years of small raises. ILA members make a base salary of about $81,000 per year, but some can pull in over $200,000 annually with large amounts of overtime.

Monday evening, the alliance said it had increased its offer to 50% raises over six years, and it pledged to keep limits on automation in place from the old contract. The alliance also said its offer tripled employer contributions to retirement plans and strengthened health care options.

The union wants a complete ban on automation. It wasn’t clear just how far apart both sides are.

In a statement early Tuesday, the union said it rejected the alliance’s latest proposal because it “fell far short of what ILA rank-and-file members are demanding in wages and protections against automation.” The two sides had not held formal negotiations since June.

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Supply chain experts say consumers won’t see an immediate impact from the strike because most retailers stocked up on goods, moving ahead shipments of holiday gift items.

But if it goes more than a few weeks, a work stoppage could lead to higher prices and delays in goods reaching households and businesses.

If drawn out, the strike will force businesses to pay shippers for delays and cause some goods to arrive late for peak holiday shopping season — potentially impacting delivery of anything from toys and artificial Christmas trees to cars, coffee and fruit.

The strike will likely have an almost immediate impact on supplies of perishable imports like bananas, for example. The ports affected by the strike handle 3.8 million metric tons of bananas each year, or 75% of the nation’s supply, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

It also could snarl exports from East Coast ports and create traffic jams at ports on the West Coast, where workers are represented by a different union. Railroads say they can ramp up to carry more freight from the West Coast, but analysts say they can’t move enough to make up for the closed Eastern ports.

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J.P. Morgan estimated that a strike that shuts down East and Gulf coast ports could cost the economy $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion per day, with some of that recovered over time after normal operations resume.

Retailers, auto parts suppliers and produce importers had hoped for a settlement or that President Joe Biden would intervene and end the strike using the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows him to seek an 80-day cooling off period.

But during an exchange with reporters on Sunday, Biden, who has worked to court union votes for Democrats, said “no” when asked if he planned to intervene in the potential work stoppage.

A White House official said Monday that at Biden’s direction, the administration has been in regular communication with the ILA and the alliance to keep the negotiations moving forward.

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Krisher in reported from Detroit. Associated Press journalists Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, Mae Anderson and Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York, Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit, Josh Boak in Washington, and Annie Mulligan in Houston contributed to this report.