Tens of thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon as Israel’s military continues intense artillery and missile attacks. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has climbed to at least 569 people, including 50 children. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of drones and rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. Israeli public media is reporting that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is readying troops for a possible ground invasion into Lebanon. In Beirut, officials say they’ve secured shelters for 10,000 people displaced from southern Lebanon. Some of the evacuees were forced into the same shelters they fled to nearly two decades ago during Israel’s July 2006 assault. This is Feryal Mehsen, a 58-year-old who narrowly survived a strike that destroyed her family home.

Feryal Mehsen: “The rocket landed in front of me. I was shocked. I couldn’t hear or see after that. Dust was all over the place. So I drove off quickly and headed to the upper road and kept going. I lost my temper because of what happened. It took me 12 to 15 hours to reach Beirut from Aitat because of the traffic congestion.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports two United Nations staffers were among those killed by Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon. Ali Basma worked as a janitor at the UNHCR’s Tyre office for seven years before he was killed in an Israeli strike on Monday. And Dina Darwiche, a UNHCR employee featured in many of the agency’s videos, was killed along with her youngest son in an Israeli strike that seriously injured her husband and her other child. A separate Israeli strike killed cameraman Kamel Karaki of Al-Manar TV. He’s at least the fifth journalist killed by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since October 7.

Israel’s military has continued its attacks on the Gaza Strip with at least 53 Palestinians killed over the past 24 hours. Among the dead are a mother killed along with her five children when Israel’s military bombed their house north of Rafah.

In the occupied West Bank, four Palestinians were shot and wounded as Israeli soldiers raided the Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron. Elsewhere, a Palestinian doctor was hospitalized in serious condition after he was shot by Israeli forces during a raid near the city of Qalqilya.

Here in New York, world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday condemned Israel’s assaults on Palestine and Lebanon. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and said the failure of nations to stop the violence showed the United Nations system and Western values are “dying.” Chilean President Gabriel Boric also condemned Israel’s actions.

President Gabriel Boric: “I refuse to choose between Hamas’s terrorism or the massacre and genocidal behavior of Netanyahu’s Israel. We do not have to choose between barbarities. I choose humanity. We denounce the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and the de facto denial of the existence of an independent Palestinian state by the occupying country.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres accused Israel of violating the United Nations Charter and said too many governments were turning a blind eye to international human rights conventions and the decisions of international courts. Meanwhile, Joe Biden delivered his last speech to the United Nations as U.S. president, calling for a diplomatic solution to end Israel’s war on Gaza — even as his administration continues to provide weapons and billions of dollars in aid to Israel’s military. 

President Joe Biden: “We’re also working to bring a greater measure of peace and stability in the Middle East. The world must not flinch from the horrors of October 7th. Any country, any country would have the right and responsibility to ensure that such an attack could never happen again.”

In Ukraine, at least three people were killed and nearly three dozen injured Tuesday as a Russian bomb tore through an apartment block in Kharkiv. Ukraine’s military says it shot down scores of Iranian-made drones launched by Russia as part of a wave of attacks that coincided with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the United Nations General Assembly. This comes as the Biden administration says it’s sending Ukraine another $375 million in military aid, including rockets, artillery and medium-range cluster bombs.

The Arizona Democratic Party says a campaign office for Vice President Kamala Harris in Tempe was damaged by gunfire overnight Tuesday. It’s the second time bullet holes have appeared in the office’s windows in recent weeks. Harris is planning to visit Arizona in the coming days, where she’s reportedly planning to visit the U.S.-Mexico border.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, a Haitian immigrant rights group has brought criminal charges against Donald Trump and JD Vance over their false claims that Haitian immigrants living in Springfield were stealing and eating dogs and cats. Ohio state law allows private citizens to file affidavits bringing criminal charges. The Haitian Bridge Alliance wants Trump and Vance prosecuted for disrupting public services, making false alarms, telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing. Last week the group’s executive director Guerline Jozef spoke with Democracy Now! 

Guerline Jozef: “Those type of narratives, when they think they’re only attacking one person, one community, it has ripple effects. The reality now in Springfield, the entire community’s lives are at risk. And what we are saying is currently this has been a tactic that’s been used: fear, division. And this is a time for all people in cities like Springfield to come together and fight against those hateful speech, that literally are creating the security issues in Springfield and also in other places across the United States.”

Click here to see the full interview of Guerline Jozef of Haitian Bridge Alliance.

West Virginia independent Senator Joe Manchin says he will not endorse Kamala Harris for president, after she reiterated her support for ending the Senate filibuster. Harris told Wisconsin Public Radio this week she would seek to lower the threshold to pass legislation from 60 senators to a simple majority of 51 in order to restore abortion rights lost when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. That prompted this response by Senator Manchin.

Sen. Joe Manchin: “Shame on her. Shame on her. She knows that the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy.”

Senator Joe Manchin previously joined Republicans to filibuster the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have codified abortion rights into federal law.

The chancellor of New York City’s public school system is stepping down amid a growing federal bribery investigation. David Banks’s announcement comes just weeks after FBI agents raided his home and seized his phone. He is at least the fourth top official to resign from Mayor Eric Adams’s administration over a sprawling federal corruption probe which, among other things, is looking into whether Adams’s campaign received illegal donations from Turkey. Recently Adams’s lawyer abruptly resigned.

The state of Missouri has executed Marcellus Williams despite new evidence suggesting he was wrongfully convicted. Williams died by lethal injection Tuesday evening after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay. He was 55 years old, a devout Muslim, an imam for other incarcerated people, and a poet. The case’s prosecutor, jurors and the murder victim’s family all pleaded to stop the execution. Click here to see our coverage of his case.

Meanwhile, Texas prison officials killed Travis James Mullis on Tuesday. He is the fourth person to face lethal injection in Texas so far this year and the 16th nationwide, part of five executions scheduled across the U.S. this week.

Texas lawmakers are urging authorities grant clemency to death row prisoner Robert Roberson, who was convicted in 2003 for the murder of his 2-year-old daughter but has always maintained his innocence. Roberson’s conviction was solely based on forensic testimony that cited the “shaken baby syndrome hypothesis,” which was popularized in the early 2000s but never scientifically validated. Roberson is scheduled to be put to death on October 17. This is Texas state Representative Joe Moody of El Paso. 

Rep. Joe Moody: “You cannot execute someone in a situation where there may not have been a crime committed. And the evidence in Mr. Roberson’s case is of such a degree and such a magnitude that we have to push pause on this case. There is no disagreement that the government taking the life of an innocent person is wrong. And until we have these answers, this case cannot move forward.”