Summary of the day
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened Israel with “tough retribution and just punishment” after an unprecedented wave of attacks targeted the organisation this week. In a televised speech on Thursday, Nasrallah admitted the attacks had been a major blow and threatened retribution against Israel “where it expects it and where it does not”. Israel will face “a crushing response from the axis of resistance”, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Cmdr Hossein Salami told Nasrallah, state media reported.
In his speech, Nasrallah vowed to continue the conflict with Israel until a ceasefire in Gaza was reached. “The Lebanese front will not stop until the aggression on Gaza stops”, despite “all this blood spilt”, he said. In response, Hamas said it “highly appreciates” Hezbollah’s support.
As Nasrallah made his televised remarks, Israeli jets roared over Beirut in a show of force. Late on Thursday, Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon, in some of the most intense bombing since the start of the war in October. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its fighter jets struck more than 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon in the space of a few hours.
Eight people were reported to have been injured by antitank missiles fired by Hezbollah into northern Israel, and two were hurt in a drone attack. Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas’s 7 October attacks sparked the war in Gaza. The IDF said two of its soldiers were killed by Hezbollah strikes across the Lebanon border on Thursday.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Israeli military operations “will continue”, adding that there are “significant opportunities, but also heavy risks” as the country enters a “new phase” of the war. “Our goal is to return the residents of the north to their homes safely. As time goes by, Hezbollah will pay an increasing price,” Gallant said on Thursday.
The speech by the Hezbollah leader on Thursday came amid fears that a full-blown war between Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, and Israel could be imminent. Thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including two children, and wounding up to 2,800 others across Lebanon. A day later, 25 people were killed and more than 450 wounded when walkie-talkies exploded in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals. There was no comment from Israel.
Senior diplomats from the US, Britain, Germany, France and Italy met on Thursday in Paris before a UN security council meeting planned for Friday as tensions in the Middle East spiralled. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, urged against “escalatory actions by any party” in the Middle East and called for restraint, while France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, said France and the US were “very worried about the situation” in the Middle East.
The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. “We are all very, very clear that we want to see a negotiated political settlement so that Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel and indeed Lebanese to return to their homes,” Lammy said on Thursday. He urged British nationals in Lebanon to leave the country “while commercial options remain.”
The US believes that a diplomatic solution in the Middle East is “achievable” and “urgent”, the White House said on Thursday. A US state department spokesperson called on Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to stop “terrorist attacks” in Israel. The US has not changed its military posture following recent attacks in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah devices, the Pentagon said. The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, has reportedly postponed a planned trip next week to Israel due to the escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Explosions in booby-trapped radios and pagers in Lebanon “seriously disrupted” the country’s fragile health sector, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said. Lebanese authorities on Thursday banned walkie-talkies and pagers from being taken on flights from Beirut airport.
The communications devices that exploded in Lebanon were implanted with explosives before arriving into the country, according to a preliminary investigation by Lebanese authorities. Lebanese authorities determined that the devices were detonated by sending electronic messages to the devices, according to a letter sent by the Lebanese mission to the UN to the UN’s security council.
Six Palestinians were killed and 18 others injured on Thursday by Israeli forces during a military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Qabatiya, the governor of the Jenin area of the occupied West Bank told Reuters. In a statement to AFP, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an air strike killed militants in Qabatiya “as part of a counterterrorism operation”.
UN children’s rights experts have accused Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children’s rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had “catastrophic consequences” on children in the Palestinian territory.
A senior Israeli adviser has presented a new proposed ceasefire deal with Hamas to the Biden administration, according to reports. The proposal from Gal Hirsch, a close ally to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would see a permanent end to the conflict in Gaza, the release in one stage of all hostages held there in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and the safe passage for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to be exiled out of Gaza, according to reports.
Six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Qabatiya in West Bank – report
The governor of the Jenin area of the occupied West Bank said six Palestinians were killed and 18 others injured on Thursday by Israeli forces during a military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Qabatiya.
Kamal Abu al-Rub told Reuters that four of the injured were in critical condition, and that Israeli forces withdrew from Qabatiya after destroying infrastructure in the area.
In a statement to AFP, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an air strike killed militants in Qabatiya “as part of a counterterrorism operation”.
The news agency reported seeing two male bodies on the roof of a building in Qabatiya, and a third corpse lying on a sheet of metal one floor below.
Al Jazeera reported that a video showed Israeli soldiers pushing dead bodies off a roof in a raid in Qabatiya. It said that the Israeli military opened fire on a group of journalists filming the raid from a nearby building.
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