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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Rebecca Ratcliffe and (earlier) Léonie Chao-Fong, Joanna Walters, Kevin Rawlinson, Yohannes Lowe and Helen Livingstone

More blasts in Beirut after Israel demands new evacuations – as it happened

Hezbollah Israel Beirut Hamas West Bank Hashem Safieddine Hassan Nasrallah Joe Biden Lebanon United Nations

A South Korean military transport aircraft has evacuated 97 citizens and family members from Lebanon, the country’s foreign ministry said.

A KC-330 aircraft landed in Beirut on Friday morning and departed in the afternoon with the evacuees, who include Lebanese family members. The flight will arrive in the capital, Seoul, on Saturday afternoon.

South Korean diplomats stationed in Lebanon remained in the country, Yonhap news agency reported.

Saeed Atallah, a leader of Hamas’ armed wing, al-Qassam brigades, was killed with three family members in an Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, Hamas-affiliated media reported on Saturday.

Israel did not immediately comment on the strike.

Updated

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, as her presidential campaign seeks to win back voters angry at US support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

Reuters reports:

The meeting is one of several attempts in recent days to mend fences with Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 but could withhold their votes from Harris in numbers that would cost her the key state of Michigan.

During the half-hour meeting, Harris expressed her concern on the scale of suffering in Gaza, civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon and discussed efforts to end the war, according to a campaign official. She also discussed efforts to prevent a regional war, the official added.

Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action which recently endorsed her, said participants shared their deep disappointment with the US handling of the crisis and called on her to do everything in her power to end the war and reset US policy in the region. “Emgage Action asked Vice President Harris to impress upon President Biden the urgency of bringing an immediate end to the violence” in Gaza and Lebanon, Alzayat said. “She agrees that this war needs to end.”

Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, said he declined the invitation. Leaders from the Uncommitted National Movement protest campaign said they were not invited to the meeting. Hala Hijazi, a longtime friend of Harris who has lost dozens of members of her family in Gaza, was unable to attend.

Harris, a Democrat, faces Republican former President Donald Trump on 5 November in what opinion polls show to be a tight presidential race. Both candidates have roughly even levels of support among Arab Americans, according to a poll published this week by the Arab American Institute.

Series of explosions reported over southern Beirut

A series of loud blasts was heard over southern Beirut in the early hours of Saturday morning, following Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli military had earlier issued evacuation orders for parts of the capital’s southern suburbs. The first alert warned residents in a building in the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood and the second in a building in Choueifat district. The third alert mentioned buildings in Haret Hreik as well as Burj al-Barajneh.

Images coming in from news agencies show smoke rising over Dahieh, close to the airport.

Updated

A series of explosions has been heard over southern Beirut, according to reports.

The Israeli military earlier issued evacuation orders for parts of the capital’s southern suburbs.

More details to follow as we get them.

Updated

AFP has some further detail on clashes occurring near the Lebanon border.

Hezbollah earlier said it had forced Israeli soldiers retreat, reports AFP, however it has since said it is engaged in ongoing clashes with Israeli troops in the area.

“Israeli enemy soldiers renewed an attempt to advance towards the vicinity of the municipality in the village of Adaysseh” and Hezbollah fighters confronted the attempt “and clashes are continuing”, the group said in a statement.

Updated

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Saturday that the Israeli army is trying to infiltrate the Lebanese southern town of Odaisseh, adding that clashes are ongoing, reports Reuters.

More details to follow as we get them.

Donald Trump says Israel should 'hit' Iran’s nuclear facilities

Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in response to its recent missile barrage, Donald Trump said at a campaign event on Friday, reports AFP.

Trump, speaking in North Carolina, referred to a question posed to Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program, saying:

“When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later.”

Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday. Most were intercepted, but some landed on and around densely populated areas and Israeli military bases.

Updated

The Salah Ghandour Hospital – one of at least four hospitals that has announced the suspension of work amid the ongoing Israeli bombardment – said shelling on Friday “resulted in nine members of the medical and nursing staff being injured, most of them seriously,” while most of the medical staff were evacuated. The hospital is based in the town of Bint Jbeil.

The World Health Organization has said 28 health workers in Lebanon had been killed over the past 24 hours.

Summary of the day so far

It’s 2am in Tel Aviv, Beirut and Gaza. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • At least one blast was reported and smoke seen over Beirut’s southern suburbs in the early hours of Saturday, as the Israeli military issued new alerts for residents of the Burj al-Barajneh and Choueifat neighbourhoods to immediately evacuate. The Israeli military launched a series of strikes on southern Beirut on Thursday night, in one of the most intense bombardments on the city since the campaign began last week. A source close to Hezbollah told the AFP news agency that Israel had conducted 11 consecutive strikes on the group’s stronghold in the Lebanese capital. Hashem Safieddine, the most likely candidate to replace Hassan Nasrallah as leader of Hezbollah, was the target of the strikes, according to reports. The result of the attacks, said to have targeted a meeting of senior Hezbollah figures, is unclear. The Israeli military also ordered people in 20 more southern towns in Lebanon to evacuate immediately as it presses ahead with its incursions.

  • More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in nearly a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, according to figures by the Lebanese government on Wednesday. Most have been killed in the past two weeks, when cross-border fighting turned into a wide-ranging Israeli assault. A spokesperson for the UN’s secretary general said the toll on civilians in Lebanon from Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah is “totally unacceptable”.

  • At least four hospitals in Lebanon announced the suspension of work amid the ongoing Israeli bombardment. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, urged the international community to pressure Israel “to allow rescue and relief teams to reach bombed sites and allow them to move” casualties. On Thursday, the head of the World Health Organization said 28 health workers in Lebanon have been killed in the space of 24 hours.

  • Israel cut off a key road near to Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria that has been used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days. Israel has accused Hezbollah of using border crossings with Syria to bring in weapons and amid evidence that Israel is targeting key roads, both international routes and internally, as it did during the 2006 war. More than 300,000 people – a vast majority of them Syrian – have crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the past 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment, according to Lebanon’s government.

  • The northern regions of Israel were targeted by Hezbollah rockets almost continuously throughout Friday. The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah had launched about 100 rockets into Israel on Friday. Hezbollah said fighters had targeted “an Israeli enemy troop force during its advance” towards an area west of the border village of Yarun “with artillery shells and a rocket salvo”, and it claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Israeli soldiers across the border earlier in the day.

  • Joe Biden, the US president, urged Israel against striking Iran’s oil facilities. Biden told reporters on Friday that Israel is “not going to make a decision immediately” on how to retaliate against Iran’s missile attacks earlier this week, but that “If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields.”

  • Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will re-emerge strongly with new leaders. In a rare public sermon in front of tens of thousands in Tehran on Friday, Khamenei defended the “legal and legitimate” ballistic missile attack on Israel this week that Iran has said was in retaliation for the deaths of the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, and the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

  • Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, visited Beirut on Friday to meet Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, and speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri – a close ally of Hezbollah. “Be sure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is and will be firmly standing by the friends in Lebanon,” Araghchi told reporters, adding that if Israel carries out another attack on Iran, Tehran will retaliate in a harsh way.

  • At least 29 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to medics. Israeli attacks continued across Gaza on Friday, including in the city of Deir al-Balah, where an Israeli strike on a home has killed at least four people, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. The military also launched bombs that ignited fires in homes in the Nuseirat refugee camp, while Israeli warplanes struck several sites in the southern city of Khan Younis, “resulting in further casualties and injuries”, Wafa reported.

  • Gaza’s health ministry said at least 41,802 people have been killed and 96,844 injured in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since last October in its latest update on Friday. The ministry has said thousands are most likely lost in the rubble. Much of the Palestinian territory’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Israeli strikes, as well as its health facilities and schools.

  • Israeli soldiers conducted widespread raids in the Hebron province in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning, resulting in the detention of more than 24 people, including “minors”, the Palestinian news agency reported. The majority of those detained were reportedly taken from the town of Beit Ummar. Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the occupied West Bank.

  • Funerals were held on Friday for some of the 18 people killed in the occupied West Bank in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in Tulkarm. Among the dead, according to Palestinan reports, was a family of four including two children. A spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, described the attack as a “heinous crime” and a “massacre”. The attack was condemned by the UN rights office. Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed that one of its commanders, Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, and seven other fighters were killed in the Israeli strike.

  • US forces carried out strikes on 15 targets in areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthi rebels on Friday, the US military confirmed. The media in Yemen reported a new round of airstrikes, including on the capital, Sana’a, and near the airport at the port of Hodeidah, and Israeli strikes continued in Gaza and Lebanon. The strikes were targeted at weapons systems, bases and other equipment belonging to the Iran-backed group, US officials said. The Guardian understands that that there was no UK involvement in the airstrikes on Friday.

  • The last UK-government chartered flight for British nationals to leave Lebanon will depart from Beirut on Sunday. More than 250 British nationals have left Lebanon on flights chartered by government, the UK Foreign Office said on Friday. There are no more scheduled flights “due to a decrease in demand” although this will be kept under “constant” review, it said. Many countries around the world are working to organise flights out of Lebanon so that its citizens can escape the escalating conflict there.

Updated

Explosion heard in Beirut as Israel issues new evacuation orders

At least one blast has been reported and smoke seen over Beirut’s southern suburb, Reuters is reporting.

It comes shortly after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for civilians in a specific building in the Burj al Barajneh neighbourhood of the Lebanese capital.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has also issued a new evacuation order just minutes ago for a specific building, warning people to stay away from the area by more than 500 metres.

Israel has not assured the US that targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities is off the table, a US state department official told CNN on Friday.

Asked if Israel has given assurances to the Biden administration that Iran’s nuclear sites are off the table, the official said:

We hope and expect to see some wisdom as well as strength, but as you guys know, no guarantees.

The official added that it was “really hard to tell” if Israeli will use the anniversary of the Hamas attacks on 7 October to retaliate against Iranian ballistic missile strikes earlier this week.

Germany’s foreign ministry has said that an Israeli airstrike on Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank that killed at least 18 people was “shocking”.

In a statement, the German ministry said:

The high number of civilian casualties in an Israeli air strike in Tulkarm is shocking. In the fight against terror, the Israeli army is obliged to protect civilians in the West Bank.

Israel orders residents in Beirut's southern suburbs to evacuate immediately

The Israeli military has issued new evacuation orders for residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs ahead of expected Israeli airstrikes on the Lebanese capital.

Avichay Adraee, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, posted a map showing a specific area and ordering civilians to leave the area.

At least four hospitals in Lebanon suspend services

We reported earlier that three Lebanese hospitals announced the suspension of work amid the ongoing Israeli bombardment. That figure has gone up to four, according to AFP.

The grounds of the Salah Ghandour hospital in Bint Jbeil in south Lebanon were “subject to Israeli artillery shelling”, Lebanese national news agency NNA reported.

Mohammed Sleiman, director of the Islamic Health Committee-run facility, told the news agecny that seven medical personnel were wounded when the hospital was struck “directly”, adding that the facility was evacuated.

Mais al-Jabal hospital in south Lebanon on the border with Israel announced “the halt to work of all departments”, the news agency reported, citing factors including “enemy targeting of the hospital” since last October and problems for supply lines and staff access.

Sainte Therese hospital, on the edge of Beirut’s southern suburbs, said it suffered “huge damage” after “Israeli warplanes’ target[ed] the vicinity” of the facility on Thursday which “led to the halt of hospital services”.

The head of the Marjayoun government hospital, Mounes Kalakesh, told multiple news outlets that an Israeli airstrike “targeted ambulances at the main entrance to the hospital”. Five paramedics were killed and seven were wounded, he said.

Civilian toll in Lebanon from Israeli attacks 'totally unacceptable', says UN

The UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon has released an additional $2m from the Lebanon humanitarian fund to help address the deteriorating situation, a spokesperson for the UN chief said.

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary general António Guterres, said the latest funds came in addition to $10m already released from the Lebanon fund, and $10m from the UN’s main central emergency response fund.

In a separate statement, he said the toll on civilians in Lebanon from Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah is “totally unacceptable”, adding:

All parties must do whatever they can at all times to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and ensure that civilians are never put in harm’s way.

A US citizen was killed in Lebanon this week, a US state department spokesperson has confirmed, adding that Washington was working to understand the circumstances of the incident.

Kamel Ahmad Jawad, from Dearborn, Michigan, was killed in Lebanon in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, according to his daughter, a friend and the US congresswoman representing his district, Reuters reported.

State department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Friday:

We are aware and alarmed of reports of the death of Kamel Jawad, who we have confirmed is a US citizen … It is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy.

Turkish president accuses Israel of 'shamelessly' attacking UN secretary general

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has accused Israel of “shamelessly” attacking the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that he was barring Guterres from entering the country, accusing the UN chief of failing to specifically condemn Iran’s missile attack on the country this week.

Katz called Guterres an “anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists, rapists, and murderers” and declared him persona non grata.

Guterres pointedly condemned Iran’s attack at a UN security council meeting on Wednesday. The security council has expressed its full support to the UN secretary general.

On Friday, Erdoğan said Israel “is shamelessly challenging” Guterres and that “196 countries in the world will stand by the UN secretary-general”.

Updated

Summary of the day so far

It’s nearly midnight in Tel Aviv, Beirut and Gaza. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • Joe Biden, the US president, urged Israel against striking Iran’s oil facilities. Biden told reporters on Friday that Israel is “not going to make a decision immediately” on how to retaliate against Iran’s missile attacks earlier this week, but that “If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields.”

  • Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will re-emerge strongly with new leaders. In a rare public sermon in front of tens of thousands in Tehran on Friday, Khamenei defended the “legal and legitimate” ballistic missile attack on Israel this week that Iran has said was in retaliation for the deaths of the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, and the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

  • Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, visited Beirut on Friday to meet Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, and speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri – a close ally of Hezbollah. “Be sure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is and will be firmly standing by the friends in Lebanon,” Araghchi told reporters, adding that if Israel carries out another attack on Iran, Tehran will retaliate in a harsh way.

  • More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in nearly a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, according to figures by the Lebanese government on Wednesday. Most have been killed in the past two weeks, when cross-border fighting turned into a wide-ranging Israeli assault.

  • Three Lebanese hospitals announced the suspension of work on Friday amid the ongoing Israeli bombardment, which has led to the deaths of dozens of on-duty medics in the past week. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, urged the international community to pressure Israel “to allow rescue and relief teams to reach bombed sites and allow them to move” casualties.

  • The Israeli military launched a series of strikes on southern Beirut on Thursday night, in one of the most intense bombardments on the city since the campaign began last week. A source close to Hezbollah told the AFP news agency that Israel had conducted 11 consecutive strikes on the group’s stronghold in the Lebanese capital. Hashem Safieddine, the most likely candidate to replace Hassan Nasrallah as leader of Hezbollah, was the target of the strikes, according to reports. The result of the attacks, said to have targeted a meeting of senior Hezbollah figures, is unclear. The Israeli military also ordered people in 20 more southern towns in Lebanon to evacuate immediately as it presses ahead with its incursions.

  • Israel cut off a key road near to Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria that has been used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days. Israel has accused Hezbollah of using border crossings with Syria to bring in weapons and amid evidence that Israel is targeting key roads, both international routes and internally, as it did during the 2006 war. More than 300,000 people – a vast majority of them Syrian – haave crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the past 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment, according to Lebanon’s government.

  • Israel’s military said it killed Hezbollah communications commander, Muhammad Rashid Skafi, in strikes on Beirut on Thursday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has estimated it has killed about 250 Hezbollah fighters, including several battalion and company commanders, since the start of its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this week. It said its fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets near a key Lebanese-Syrian border crossing overnight.

  • The northern regions of Israel were targeted by Hezbollah rockets almost continuously throughout Friday. The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah had launched about 100 rockets into Israel on Friday. Hezbollah said fighters had targeted “an Israeli enemy troop force during its advance” towards an area west of the border village of Yarun “with artillery shells and a rocket salvo”, and it claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Israeli soldiers across the border earlier in the day.

  • At least 29 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to medics. Israeli attacks continued across Gaza on Friday, including in the city of Deir al-Balah, where an Israeli strike on a home has killed at least four people, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. The military also launched bombs that ignited fires in homes in the Nuseirat refugee camp, while Israeli warplanes struck several sites in the southern city of Khan Younis, “resulting in further casualties and injuries”, Wafa reported.

  • Gaza’s health ministry said at least 41,802 people have been killed and 96,844 injured in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since last October in its latest update on Friday. The ministry has said thousands are most likely lost in the rubble. Much of the Palestinian territory’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Israeli strikes, as well as its health facilities and schools.

  • Israeli soldiers conducted widespread raids in the Hebron province in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning, resulting in the detention of more than 24 people, including “minors”, the Palestinian news agency reported. The majority of those detained were reportedly taken from the town of Beit Ummar. Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the occupied West Bank.

  • Funerals were held on Friday for some of the 18 people killed in the occupied West Bank in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in Tulkarm. Among the dead, according to Palestinan reports, was a family of four including two children. A spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, described the attack as a “heinous crime” and a “massacre”. The attack was condemned by the UN rights office. Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed that one of its commanders, Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, and seven other fighters were killed in the Israeli strike.

  • US forces carried out strikes on 15 targets in areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthi rebels on Friday, the US military confirmed. The media in Yemen reported a new round of airstrikes, including on the capital, Sana’a, and near the airport at the port of Hodeidah, and Israeli strikes continued in Gaza and Lebanon. The strikes were targeted at weapons systems, bases and other equipment belonging to the Iran-backed group, US officials said. The Guardian understands that that there was no UK involvement in the airstrikes on Friday.

  • The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the Middle East sits on the “precipice of a region-wide armed conflict” after Israeli strikes in Lebanon intensified overnight on Friday. The ICRC said that civilians have “borne the brunt” of conflict over the last year, with the kidnapping of hostages in Israel, Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, and now civilians in Lebanon being killed by Israeli attacks.

  • The last UK-government chartered flight for British nationals to leave Lebanon will depart from Beirut on Sunday. More than 250 British nationals have left Lebanon on flights chartered by government, the UK Foreign Office said on Friday. There are no more scheduled flights “due to a decrease in demand” although this will be kept under “constant” review, it said. Many countries around the world are working to organise flights out of Lebanon so that its citizens can escape the escalating conflict there.

Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has confirmed the death of one of its commanders in an Israeli airstrike on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm on Thursday.

Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi and seven other fighters were killed in the Israeli strike, the group said.

The Israeli military accused Oufi of participating in numerous attacks in the West Bank and said he was in the process of planning another assault.

At least 18 people were killed in the strike on the refugee camp in Tulkarm. Among the dead was a family of four including two children, according to Palestinian reports.

No more scheduled UK chartered flights to leave Lebanon after Sunday

The UK government said it has chartered a flight to leave Beirut on Sunday to support British nationals who want to leave Lebanon.

More than 250 British nationals have left Lebanon on flights chartered by government, the UK Foreign Office said on Friday. It added:

There are no more scheduled flights, although we will continue to keep this under review.

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, said:

The situation in Lebanon remains volatile, so I am glad that we have helped the many people who have heeded our advice to leave the country immediately. With demand falling, and the security situation deteriorating, there is no guarantee other options to leave quickly will become available. I urge anyone who wants to leave to register now.

There have been protests in Yemen today against Israel and western support for Israel in its war in Gaza, on a mission to destroy Hamas, and attacks on Lebanon in retaliation for months of strikes on Israel by the Hezbollah power base there.

Here are some news agency images:

Some carry weapons.

New recruits.

Large demonstration in the Yemeni capital.

Updated

Joe Biden also said he is trying to rally the rest of the world to participate in tamping down conflict in the Middle East and avoid all-out war.

At the White House a little earlier, the US president took questions from gathered media at the daily press briefing, the first time he has done so from that exact podium in his presidency.

With conflict ramping up in the region, not quietening down, it is hard to see a concrete result from Biden’s efforts, even though he said his people are working 12 hours a day in constant contact with Israeli counterparts.

When asked if it was fair to say that he had little personal influence over Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said “no”.

And he reiterated that his plan for a ceasefire in Gaza “received the support of the United Nations Security Council and the vast majority of our allies around the world as a way to bring this to an end”, although clearly to no avail thus far.

He also reiterated that “Israel has every right to respond to vicious attacks on them, not just from Iran but from everyone from Hezbollah, the Houthis, anyway, but the fact is they have to be very much more careful about dealing with civilian casualties.”

Updated

Here’s more from Joe Biden’s briefing at the White House, during which he told reporters that he would consider alternatives to striking Iranian oilfields if he were in Israel’s shoes.

Asked if he thought that by not engaging in diplomacy, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Nentanyahu was trying to influence the upcoming US general election, Biden replied:

Whether he is trying to influence the election, I don’t know but I am not counting on that.

He added that “no administration has done more to help Israel than I have.”

Here’s our video report on the latest US airstrikes on more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen.

US military says it hit 15 Houthi targets in Yemen

US forces carried out strikes on 15 targets in areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthi rebels, the US military has confirmed.

The Guardian understands that that there was no UK involvement in Friday’s airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

Israel should seek 'other alternatives’ to striking Iran oil sites, says Biden

US president Joe Biden, speaking to reporters in Washington just now, urged Israel against striking Iran’s oil facilities.

If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields.

On Thursday, Biden said the US was “discussing” with Israel the possibility of Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil infrastructure.

His off-the-cuff remark, which immediately sent oil prices soaring, did not make clear whether his administration was holding internal discussions or talking directly to Israel, nor did he clarify what his attitude was to such an attack.

Asked to clarify those comments, Biden told reporters today:

Look, the Israelis have not concluded what they’re going to do in terms of a strike. That’s under discussion.

Updated

Joe Biden, the US president, has been speaking at a news conference on Friday.

Biden said no administration “has helped Israel more than I have” and that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “should remember” that.

He said Israel is “not going to make a decision immediately” on how to retaliate against Iran’s missile attacks earlier this week.

Israel has “every right to respond” to attacks on them from Iranians and others like Hezbollah, he said, adding:

But the fact is that [the Israelis] have to be very much more careful about dealing with civilian casualties.

Death toll in Lebanon surpasses 2,000

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in nearly a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, according to figures by the Lebanese government.

Most have been killed in the past two weeks, when cross-border fighting turned into a wide-ranging Israeli assault, the government said, Reuters reported.

We reported earlier that a third UK government chartered flight for British nationals has left Lebanon on Friday.

Ireland’s Micheál Martin has confirmed that 24 Irish citizens and dependents have been evacuated from Lebanon on Friday.

Germany is flying another 219 of its nationals out of Lebanon on its third military flight this week. This brings to 460 the total number of German citizens evacuated from Lebanon on German military flights.

A flight carrying 11 Japanese citizens, a non-Japanese relative of one of them, and four French nationals left Lebanon and arrived in Jordan on Friday, according to Japan’s foreign ministry.

A Dutch military transport plane landed in Beirut earlier on Friday to pick up citizens of the Netherlands, with scores of people expected to board the plane.

The US state department said about 350 American citizens, green card holders and family members have now left Lebanon on US-organised contract flights this week.

Updated

Three hospitals in Lebanon suspend service amid ongoing Israeli bombardment

Three Lebanese hospitals have announced the suspension of work amid the ongoing Israeli bombardment, which has led to the deaths of dozens of on-duty medics in the past week.

As my colleague William Christou reported earlier, the entire staff of Marjayoun public hospital in south Lebanon were evacuated on Friday morning after an Israeli drone strike killed four paramedics, putting the hospital out of service, the country’s national news agency (NNA) reported.

The hospital was one of the major medical providers in south Lebanon, particularly as Israel’s intensified aerial campaign which started on 23 September displaced many medical staff from the region.

Sainte Therese hospital, on the edge of Beirut’s southern suburbs, said it suffered “huge damage” after “Israeli warplanes’ target[ed] the vicinity” of the facility on Thursday which “led to the halt of hospital services”, AFP reported, citing a NNA statement.

The head of the Marjayoun government hospital, Mounes Kalakesh, told multiple news outlets that an Israeli airstrike “targeted ambulances at the main entrance to the hospital”. Five paramedics were killed and seven were wounded, he said.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at least 28 on-duty medics were killed in the space of 24 hours in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, earlier today urged the international community to pressure Israel “to allow rescue and relief teams to reach bombed sites and allow them to move” casualties.

Here are some of the latest images from the newswires from the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, where funerals were held on Friday for some of the 18 people killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Among those killed in the strike on Tulkarm refugee camp yesterday was a family of four including two children, according to Palestian reports

It was the first airstrike by an Israeli jet in the West Bank since the second intifada, which ran from 2000 to 2005.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities, but the current raids as well as comments by Israeli officials mark an escalation.

As we reported earlier, the UN rights office has condemned what it called an “unlawful” strike by Israel.

Here’s more on the airstrikes that were launched at Houthi targets in several parts of Yemen on Friday.

As we reported earlier, US officials told Associated Press that the US and UK militaries struck more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen.

But the Guardian now understands that that there was no UK involvement in the airstrikes today.

The strikes were targeted at weapons systems, bases and other equipment belonging to the Iran-backed group.

Military aircraft and warships bombed Houthi strongholds at roughly five locations, according to the US officials.

According to the Houthi media, seven strikes hit the airport in Hodeida, a major port city, and the Katheib area, which has a Houthi-controlled military base.

Four more strikes hit the Seiyana area in Sana’a, the capital, and two strikes hit the Dhamar province, according to Houthi reports. The Houthi media office also reported three air raids in Bayda province, southeast of Sana’a.

Updated

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, will travel to Saudi Arabia on Friday evening to begin a four-day trip that will end in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Barrot is expected to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan over the weekend before arriving in Israel ahead of the 7 October anniversary, Reuters is reporting, citing a French diplomatic source.

His trip comes as France seeks to revive stalled diplomatic efforts in the region. Barrot visited Lebanon earlier this week, during which he said that Paris would step up its support for the Lebanese army.

UN condemns Israels 'unlawful' airstrike on West Bank refugee camp

The UN has condemned what it called an “unlawful” airstrike by Israel on a refugee camp in Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on Thursday that killed at least 18 people.

The Israeli strike is part of a “highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force” by the Israeli security forces (ISF) during “military-like operations” in the occupied West Bank, the UN rights office said in a statement.

These operations have caused “widespread harm to Palestinians and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.” it said.

Thursday’s strike was “another clear example of ISF’s systematic resort to lethal force in the West Bank that is frequently unnecessary, disproportionate, and therefore unlawful,” it said.

At least 18 people were killed in the airstrike on Tulkarm refugee camp that the Israeli military has claimed killed a local Hamas leader. Among the dead, according to Palestinan reports, was a family of four including two children, named as Mohammed Abu Zahra, his wife, Sajaa, and their two children, Karam and Sham.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, described the attack as a “heinous crime” and a “massacre”.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike in the northern West Bank, describing it as a joint operation carried out by the Shin Bet internal security service and the air force, according to a brief statement.

The UN rights office called for an independent probe into the incident, adding:

The levelling of an entire building filled with people via aerial bombing shows flagrant disregard for Israel’s obligations.

The US and UK militaries struck more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday, AP is reporting, citing US officials.

As we reported earlier, the strikes were targeted at weapons systems, bases and other equipment belonging to the Iran-backed group.

Military aircraft and warships bombed Houthi strongholds at roughly five locations, according to the officials.

According to the Houthi media, seven strikes hit the airport in Hodeida, a major port city, and the Katheib area, which has a Houthi-controlled military base.

Four more strikes hit the Seiyana area in Sana’a, the capital, and two strikes hit the Dhamar province, according to Houthi reports. The Houthi media office also reported three air raids in Bayda province, southeast of Sana’a.

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Hisham Al-Omeisy, a political analyst, says the latest US airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen mark “a new phase of the escalation” in the country.

Previous US-led strikes on Houthi targets have been directed at the Red Sea coast and port, he writes.

According to Houthi media reports, Friday’s strikes targeted Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, Hodeida, as well as Dhamar, south of the capital, and Mukayras, southeast of Sana’a.

The US airstrikes carried out on Houthi targets in several parts of Yemen on Friday came after the Iran-backed group claimed they shot down a US military drone flying over Yemen earlier this week.

Since last year, the Houthis have carried out nearly 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea, acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza.

The Iran-backed group have been firing missiles, sending armed drones and launching boats laden with explosives at commercial ships with ties to Israeli, US and UK entities.

Just last week, the Houthi group claimed responsibility for an attack targeted three US warships in the Red Sea as they were reportedly sailing to support Israel.

US official says air attacks struck a number of Houthi targets in Yemen

We reported earlier that Houthi media reports said US strikes targeted several parts of Yemen, including its capital Sana’a and the port city of Hodeida.

A US official has now confirmed to Associated Press that the US military struck a number of Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday.

US aircraft and ships targeted weapons systems, bases and other equipment belonging to the Iran-backed group, they said. Houthi strongholds were hit, the official added.

The exact number of targets was not yet available as the mission was just ending, AP reported.

According to the Houthi media, seven strikes hit the airport in Hodeida and the Katheib area, which has a Houthi-controlled military base.

Four more strikes hit the Seiyana area in Sana’a, the capital, and two strikes hit the Dhamar province, according to Houthi reports. The Houthi media office also reported three air raids in Bayda province, southeast of Sana’a.

The Israeli army says its forces have hit more than 2,000 sites during its four-day incursion into southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah positions, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

“Over 2,000 military targets have been struck,” including militants, military buildings, weapons and more, the Israeli military statement says.

Houthi media reports US strikes on Yemeni cities

Strikes by the United States targeted three rebel-run cities in Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida, AFP reports, citing the Houthi-run Al Masirah television network.

Al Masirah reported several US strikes on Sanaa and Hodeida, where AFP correspondents heard loud explosions, as well as additional strikes on Dhamar, south of the capital, but did not specify if the attacks caused any damage or casualties.

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Two Israeli soldiers from the Golani Brigade have been killed in combat, and two others severely injured, in northern Israel, the country’s military announces.

Reuters reports that the Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Shi’ite armed factions opposed to US and Israeli presence in the region, claimed responsibility for three dawn attacks, targeting sites in the Golan Heights and Tiberias.

Israeli media report that a military investigation has found two soldiers were killed in a drone attack launched from Iraq.

At least 29 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza on Friday, say medics

Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 29 Palestinians, medics say, while sirens blare in southern Israel in response to renewed rocket fire from militants in the Palestinian enclave.

The new rocket salvoes indicate Hamas-led militant factions in Gaza are still able to fire projectiles into Israel despite a year-long Israeli aerial and ground offensive that has turned wide areas of the enclave into wasteland.

Citing the Israeli military, Reuters says the sirens sounded in southern Israel for the first time in around two months.

Almost a year after 7 October, Hamas is still threatening our civilians with their terrorism and we will continue operating against them.

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The Lebanese authorities, communities and humanitarian agencies are struggling to shelter and provide the necessities of life to more than a million people fleeing Israel’s airstrikes and invasion in the south, Oxfam says.

The charity says people most need mattresses, bedding, and cooking and sanitation items. Women also need sanitary pads, towels and underwear. Bachir Ayoub, Oxfam’s Lebanon country director, says:

The ground invasion and bombardment that includes Beirut and the southern suburbs will create a serious challenge for the humanitarian system in a few short days. People are being forced to flee with little to no notice, and often having to leave everything behind, to shelters that are inadequate, or share crowded homes with few essential supplies.

No one knows when they can return. Without a ceasefire the number of people desperately in need will only grow, as will their needs. The shelter system is set to collapse if there is no peace.

A third government-chartered flight for British evacuees has left Lebanon, the UK’s foreign secretary David Lammy says.

A third UK government charter flight has left Lebanon to help British nationals leave.

The situation is volatile. Flights are limited but seats are available. British nationals who want to leave should register their presence now to receive details on how to request a seat.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vows Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will emerge with new leaders, and not back down, during his sermon.

The Israeli military estimates it has killed about 250 Hezbollah fighters, including several battalion and company commanders, since the start of its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this week, a military spokesperson says.

Reuters quotes Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani as saying the military is still assessing the damage caused by airstrikes in southern Beirut on Thursday night, which he says targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

Here is some more on the deadly Israeli strike in Tulkarm’s refugee camp, one of the most densely populated in the occupied West Bank (see earlier post at 06:13 for more details).

As my colleague Peter Beaumont reports in this story, Thursday’s strike on the camp killed 18 people, reportedly including a family of four.

On Friday, paramedics were seen searching the rubble inside a destroyed coffee shop, which was struck in the attack, gathering human remains into small boxes.

A source within the Palestinian security services told the AFP news agency that the attack was the deadliest in the West Bank for more than two decades.

“We haven’t heard this sound since 2002,” Nimer Fayyad, owner of the cafe, whose brother was killed in the strike, told Reuters.

“The missiles targeted a civilian building, a family was wiped from the civil registry. What was their fault? ... There is no safe place for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves.”

Residents said the strike took place after a rally in the middle of the camp by armed fighters based there. When the rally ended, some went to the coffee shop.

The Israeli military said the strike killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, head of the Hamas network in Tulkarm.

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The UK’s prime minister has reiterated that British nationals should evacuate Lebanon after days of Israeli airstrikes on the country. Keir Starmer also warned that the situation was “on the brink”.

Starmer said:

The evacuation plan has been brought forward, and we are evacuating, as you know, unimpeded, and that is because of the planning that we put into it. And I repeat, importantly, to UK nationals in Lebanon that now is the time to leave. Now is the time to take part in that evacuation plan.

Asked by the media if he was concerned there was a risk of the UK being dragged into a conflict with Iran, the recently elected British prime minister said:

The most important thing in the Middle East is the need for de-escalation, and that is why I’ve been talking to the president of the US, to the president of France, to the German chancellor, to the G7 countries and to the prime minister in Israel about the need to de-escalate the situation.

As you probably know, I spoke to the president of Iran a few weeks ago because I am concerned that this is on the brink. And I am concerned that we do everything we can to de-escalate the situation, and that’s been the constant message from this government.

A delivery of medical supplies from the UN has reached Lebanon, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional director, Hanan Balkhy, said.

“An airlift... landed in Beirut earlier this morning with 30 metric tonnes of trauma and surgical supplies, enough to treat tens of thousands people,” Balkhy wrote in a post on X.

“More flights are arriving later today and tomorrow, carrying trauma supplies, cholera supplies and mental health supplies,” she added.

Rapidly intensifying Israeli strikes on Lebanon since 23 September have killed more than 1,100 people in Lebanon and injured hundreds more, according to a tally of official figures compiled by the AFP news agency.

Lebanese authorities said over one million people have been displaces from their homes due to the relentless Israeli attacks on the country, already mired in an economic crisis.

Health minister Firass Abiad was at the Beirut airport on Friday to receive the aid organised by the WHO and UN refugee agency UNHCR and funded by the United Arab Emirates.

“We are receiving the first shipment out of many,” he said. The shipment included “many trauma kits that will be crucial to support the hospitals as they receive the casualties from the Israeli attacks on Lebanon,” he was quoted by AFP as having said.

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We mentioned in a previous post that Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, visited Beirut to meet Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati and speaker of parliament Nabih Berri - a close ally of Hezbollah. We now have some quotes from the visit.

“Be sure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is and will be firmly standing by the friends in Lebanon,” Araghchi told reporters, adding that Tehran supports Lebanon, its Shiite Muslim community and Hezbollah, “and it was necessary to say this in person”.

Araghchi said Iran backed efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon if Hezbollah support it and if it coincides with a ceasefire in Gaza, BBC News’ Middle East correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard reported.

The foreign minister also said that if Israel carries out another attack on Iran, Tehran will retaliate in a harsh way. “If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one,” he said, referring to Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday with over 180 ballistic missiles, most of which were intercepted.

Araghchi, who was previously Iran’s ambassador to several countries, including Japan, is a career diplomat who was appointed foreign minister by Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian over the summer.

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Israeli strikes force closure of Lebanon's Marjayoun hospital after attack kills four paramedics - report

William Christou is reporting for the Guardian from Beirut

The entire staff of Marjayoun public hospital in south Lebanon were evacuated on Friday morning after an Israeli drone strike killed four paramedics, putting the hospital out of service, Lebanon’s national news agency reported.

The hospital was one of the major medical providers in south Lebanon, particularly as Israel’s intensified aerial campaign which started on 23 September displaced many medical staff from the region.

“They hit right next to us, so we had to flee. The area is very dangerous and there is no one on the roads and I am driving alone,” Shoshana Mazraani, the head of the emergency services at Marjayoun public hospital, said while fleeing.

Israel also carried out a strike on the Islamic health organisation’s center in Khirbet Selem, causing injuries on Friday afternoon, according to Lebanon’s national news agency.

An additional member of the ambulance service was killed and one injured while carrying out rescue services in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which was intensely bombed the night prior, according to Hezbollah-affiliated media.

Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati had a series of diplomatic meetings on Friday in order to pressure Israel to safely allow rescue and relief teams to transfer victims of airstrikes.

At least 102 Lebanese paramedics have been killed since the beginning of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah a year prior.

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The Israeli army has said its fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets near a key Lebanese-Syrian border crossing overnight.

“Infrastructure sites adjacent to the Masnaa border crossing between Syria and Lebanon were struck last night,” the military said in a statement.

It said the air raids were aimed at preventing the flow of weapons into Lebanon from neighbouring Syria and included targeting an alleged underground tunnel used to move arms across the border.

Earlier, Lebanon said an Israeli strike near the crossing with Syria cut off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days. There were no immediate reports of casualties (see post at 09.31 for more details).

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Israeli soldiers conducted widespread raids in the Hebron province in the occupied West Bank this morning, resulting in the detention of more than 24 people, including “minors”, local sources have told Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.

The majority of those detained were taken from the town of Beit Ummar, it has been reported.

Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the occupied West Bank.

They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.

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Sirens sound in southern Israel for first time in two months, Israeli military says

The Israeli military has posted to X to say that for the first time in nearly two months there were sirens sounding in southern Israel, near the Gaza Strip.

“Almost a year after Oct. 7, Hamas is still threatening our civilians with their terrorism and we will continue operating against them,” the army said, without providing specific details.

As we have just reported, the Palestinian health ministry says at least 41,802 people have been killed and 96,844 injured in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since last October. Much of the enclave’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Israeli strikes, as well as its health facilities and schools. The vast majority of Palestinian people have been internally displaced by Israel’s war on Gaza, with many being forced to move multiple times in response to evacuation orders, even when there is nowhere safe to go.

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Death toll in Gaza reaches 41,802, says health ministry

At least 41,802 Palestinian people have been killed and 96,844 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.

At least 14 Palestinians were killed and 50 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added.

The health ministry has said thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the enclave.

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Middle East 'on precipice of a region-wide armed conflict', ICRC warns

In a stark warning, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that the Middle East sits on the “precipice of a region-wide armed conflict” after Israeli strikes in Lebanon intensified overnight.

The ICRC said that civilians have “borne the brunt” of conflict over the last year, with the kidnapping of hostages in Israel, Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry, and now civilians in Lebanon being killed by Israeli attacks.

“The ICRC calls on all sides to avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, as these cause indiscriminate harm, leading to a potentially significant toll on civilian lives, homes, and essential infrastructure,” the ICRC said in a statement.

Nicolas Von Arx, the ICRC’s regional director for the near and Middle East, added:

The risks are massive. If the violence continues to escalate, the potential harm to civilians is incalculable.

All parties must uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law to reduce the suffering of civilians and pave the way for a more stable and peaceful future.

Dehumanisation that fuels more cycles of violence must be shunned by all sides.

The ICRC helped facilitate the handover of 105 hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October to Israel, in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, during the week-long truce last November. Its stated role is to be the guardian of the Geneva Convention, and perform tasks during conflicts such as tracing missing people, visiting prisoners of war and exchanging messages between them and their families back home.

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IDF: Hezbollah communications commander killed in strikes on Beirut

Israel’s military said it killed Hezbollah communications commander, Muhammad Rashid Skafi, in strikes on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Thursday. The military said he had been in Hezbollah since 2000 and was close to senior leaders of the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group. Hezbollah are yet to confirm the Israel Defense Force’s claim.

The IDF said yesterday it was targeting Beirut and issued evacuation warnings for various locations throughout the night. Three missiles hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed last week, according to reports. Other senior Hezbollah figures also killed recently in Israeli strikes include Ibrahim Aqil, a senior commander in the group’s elite Radwan forces, top military commander Ali Karaki, and a senior cleric, Sheikh Nabil Qaouk.

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An Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun on Friday hit around five metres from the entrance of its main hospital and medical staff have decided to temporarily evacuate, the hospital director Mounes Klakesh told Reuters. The operations at the hospital have reportedly shut down. We will bring you more on this as soon as we get it.

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'You constantly hear drones': first person account of life in Lebanon amid Israel's invasion

Guardian reporter Jedidajah Otte has filed this first person, on-the-ground account from a woman from Beirut, who wishes to remain anonymous, who describes the fear and anxiety she is experiencing amid Israel’s invasion of Lebanon:

I’m a 45-year-old Lebanese-French national. I grew up in Lebanon, but left during the civil war. I then returned to Beirut in 2016 and have been living here since. I almost hesitated to share my story as I feel I’m super privileged compared to people who experienced the bombings and had to flee their homes (over the past week). Then I figured we also need to show that war affects everyone, including those who are not directly under the bombs.

I live in Achrafieh, which is quite close to the neighbourhood of Dahiyeh (the area of Beirut where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated last Friday). I was awoken at night by bombings not too far away late on Friday, after Nasrallah was killed, and have been checking compulsively on social media and media what happened, and if everyone I know is safe. I heard a strike at least every hour that night, they were bombing in Dahiyeh. My immediate neighbourhood has been spared by airstrikes so far, but you pretty much constantly hear the drones, which sound as if you have a lawnmower in your apartment.

On Saturday morning, I filmed clouds of smoke from my balcony over Dahiyeh. I left Beirut on Saturday. I need to sleep at night. When I briefly came back to Beirut before leaving again on Monday, cafes and restaurants were open during the day, but it was rather quiet.

I am now staying with a friend near Jounieh, about 20 minutes from my home. I am worrying about my friends who are from the south or Dahiyeh whose families did not want to leave or could not leave. My parents stayed in their apartment in Achrafieh. Every day I tell them, “let’s go to the mountains” (because it might be safer there), but they are pretty old, my father is 93. They are fairly confident that Achrafieh won’t be targeted. I don’t share their confidence.

Most of my friends here are dual-nationals or foreigners, and all my friends who are foreign nationals have now left Lebanon. I’m lucky because I mostly work online, but I’m struggling to focus at work because my anxiety levels skyrocket, feeling my own pain and the pain of everyone around me, not knowing when and if I will see my friends and family who are abroad again.

I have been securing as much food and medicine as possible for my parents, and have been getting my gas tank refilled as often as possible. After the pager explosions, my mother said that the constant sound of the ambulances reminded her of the blast on 4 August, 2020. I worry that hospitals might be too crowded to treat my father if he needs it.

I have packed my bag in case I need to evacuate quickly. I’m struggling to find moments of joy or contentment that can keep me afloat, and am fearing that the next strike will kill or injure someone I know.

If we decide to leave for good or are forced to leave for good, I don’t know where we would go. We’re lucky enough to have French passports, so we can travel more easily. But, even though my father is in fairly good physical shape, it’s not easy for him to travel.

Before Nasrallah was assassinated, I had booked flights for myself and my parents to go to Cyprus, where my parents own a house. We are scheduled to be on a flight to Cyprus this Saturday, so we’re leaving - except if they bomb the airport. In my parents’ minds we are coming back after one week, but I don’t know if we will.

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Summary of the day so far...

  • A source close to Hezbollah told the AFP news agency that Israel had conducted 11 consecutive strikes on the militant group’s stronghold in Beirut on Thursday night. Hashem Safieddine, the most likely person to replace Hassan Nasrallah as leader of Hezbollah and the head of its executive council, was the target of the strikes, the New York Times and Axios reported, citing Israeli officials.

  • An Israeli strike on Friday morning near Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria cut off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days, Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters. The strike was said to have created a four-metre (12ft) wide crater.

  • Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said Iran’s recent missile attack on Israel was “legal and legitimate” and was the minimum punishment for Israel’s “crimes”. In a rare speech, he also said the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel was a “legitimate act”.

  • Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, visited Beirut to meet Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati and speaker of parliament Nabih Berri - a close ally of Hezbollah.

  • The Israeli military this morning told the residents of over 20 more southern towns in Lebanon to evacuate immediately.

  • At least 18 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank in an airstrike on a refugee camp in Tulkarm. Among the dead was a family of four including two children, according to reports.

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Like many other countries around the world, the US is working with airlines to add flights out of Lebanon so that its citizens can escape the escalating conflict there.

A US state department spokesperson said earlier:

In addition to the flight announced at the daily press briefing, a second state department flight departed Beirut on Thursday, landing in Frankfurt early Friday morning Frankfurt time.

On today’s second US government-organized flight, the department facilitated the safe departure of 97 US citizens and family members from Beirut, Lebanon to a safe location. Today’s second US government organized flight had the capacity to carry 300 passengers, and departed with 97 passengers onboard.

To date, we have assisted approximately 350 US citizens, US Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs), and their immediate family members depart Lebanon via state department organized flights.

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A UN refugee agency official has said most of Lebanon’s nearly 900 shelters were full and that people fleeing Israeli strikes were increasingly sleeping out in the open.

“Most of the nearly 900 government established collective shelters in Lebanon have no more capacity,” UNHCR’s Rula Amin told a Geneva press briefing.

“With the onset of winter, UNHCR is concerned that conditions for those affected by the escalating conflict in other will only worsen,” she was quoted by Reuters as having told journalists.

According to the Lebanese government, more than 300,000 people – a vast majority of them Syrian – have crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the past 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment.

Aim is for second phase of Gaza polio campaign to begin in mid October - World Health Organization

A World Health Organization (WHO) official has said the organisation has sent a request to Israel to begin the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza from 14 October.

“We have asked the Israeli authorities to consider a similar scheme that we had for the first round, something they call ‘tactical pauses’ (in fighting) during the working hours of the campaign,” Ayadil Saparbekov, WHO lead for emergencies in the occupied Palestinian territory, said.

He said negotiations were ongoing and that a meeting with Israeli authorities about the next phase of the campaign was planned for Sunday, Reuters reported.

In September, limited pauses in fighting were held to allow the vaccination campaign, which aims to reach 640,000 children in Gaza after the territory’s first polio case in around 25 years.

While these temporary pauses, agreed between Hamas and Israel, were generally stuck to in certain areas in Gaza, there were ongoing reports of Israeli airstrikes killing Palestinian people in others.

WHO officials say at least 90% of 640,000 children under 10 must be vaccinated with two drops of oral vaccine in two rounds, four weeks apart, to prevent the disease from spreading.

Iran's supreme leader says attack against Israel was 'minimum punishment for Israeli crimes'

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, also said Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday was the “minimum punishment” for Israel against their “astonishing crimes”.

The Iranian supreme leader, according to quotes carried by BBC News, called Israel a “vampire” regime, adding that the Islamic Republic will execute “any related duties” against Israel with “strength and fortitude”. He said Iran and its regional proxies will not back down from Israel.

Iran launched high-speed missile barrages at Israel on Tuesday night, Tehran’s largest-ever attack on its regional foe. The strikes, which Tehran said were aimed at military bases, were largely thwarted by Israel’s aerial defences with support from western allies. The Iranian missile barrages came after Israel assassinated the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in strikes on Beirut last Friday.

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What did Khamenei say in his sermon?

Here is some more of what Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said during his sermon:

  • Iran’s missile attack on Israel was “legal and legitimate”. “The operation of our armed forces a few nights ago was totally legal and legitimate,” he said, adding that his country would not “procrastinate or rush to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel.

  • Iran’s enemy is the same as the enemy of a Palestinian state, Lebanon and other Muslim nations.

  • Israel is pretending to win strategic victory through assassinations and civilian killings.

  • The Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed, was a “legitimate act”, he said.

  • “The Palestinian people have a lawful right to defend themselves. To stand up to those criminals – the occupation forces. There is not a single court or international organization that can blame the Palestinian people for simply defending their homeland,” Khamenei said.

  • Israel cannot seriously harm Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, or Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.

  • The US and its allies were preserving the security of Israel to make it an energy exporting gate from the region to the west.

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Iran's supreme leader delivers rare sermon in Tehran

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is delivering Friday prayers in Tehran’s Grand Mosalla mosque - the first time he has done so in about five years.

Khamenei – the ultimate authority in Iran – is speaking to thousands of worshippers, some of whom are carrying portraits of slain leaders of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” (which includes Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and numerous groups in Syria and Iraq) against Israel and the US. We will bring you the key lines as soon as we get them.

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The UK government said it will provide a further £10m in humanitarian support for Lebanon. It is being delivered due to the widespread lack of shelter and access to clean water, hygiene and healthcare faced by people in Lebanon displaced by Israeli attacks.

“The announcement follows the £5 million humanitarian package delivered through Unicef to support access to clean water and sanitation, health, and nutrition supplies,” the foreign office said.

Foreign Office minister Anneliese Dodds said:

The human cost of the conflict in Lebanon is clear for all to see. This additional funding from the UK will help to address the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, providing relief for people displaced by the continuing violence.

This lifesaving aid is vital, but not a long-term solution. The only way to truly address the growing humanitarian crisis is an immediate ceasefire adhered to by both sides.

We continue to urge British nationals in Lebanon to leave immediately.

Lebanon’s health ministry says 37 people have been killed in Israeli ground and air attacks over the last day, with the Israeli military having launched a series of strikes on southern Beirut on Thursday night.

According to the Lebanese government, more than 300,000 people – a vast majority of them Syrian – have crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the past 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment.

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Masnaa border crossing between Syria and Lebanon 'significantly bombed', UN says

As we reported in an earlier post, we mentioned reports of an Israeli airstrike leading to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa border crossing, from which tens of thousands of people fleeing war in Lebanon have crossed into Syria over the past two weeks.

Speaking from Beirut, the World Food Programme’s country director for Lebanon, Matthew Hollingworth, said the crossing between Syria and Lebanon has been “very significantly bombed”, limiting people’s ability to flee.

“It will mean that goods that would normally come overland through that crossing - the cheapest, most effective way to bring commodities into the country - will also not be able to be to be received here,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had accused Hezbollah on Thursday of using the crossing with Syria to transport military equipment into Lebanon.

Associated Press video footage showed that the strikes near the Masnaa crossing left two huge craters on each side of the road. People carrying bags were seen crossing on foot after being dropped off by cars that were unable to pass the site of the airstrike.

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Khalil al-Hayya, the most senior leader of Hamas outside Gaza, has sat down for an interview with the BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen in Doha, where the majority of the Palestinian militant group’s political leadership is based.

He was questioned on why Hamas carried out the 7 October attacks, in which about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners - mostly civilians - were killed and about 250 people taken as hostages.

Al-Hayya, who is Hamas’ deputy leader, said:

We had to sound an alarm to the world to tell them that we are a people with a cause and demands. It was a blow to Israel – the Zionist enemy and a wake up call to the international community.

We had to do something that would tell the world that there is people who have been under occupation for decades.

When pressed on why Hamas killed so many civilians, including children, he claimed that the Palestinian militant group’s fighters were ordered not to target civilians.

“On the ground there were certainly personal mistakes and actions – the fighters may have felt like their lives were in danger,” he said. Bowen said Hamas fighters were not in danger as evidence shows militants with weapons were standing over terrified civilians. “That is not a battle,” Bowen said.

Many of the Israeli victims were civilians who were murdered in their homes, on the streets of their communities and at other locations along a broad swathe of territory bordering Gaza.

Bowen: Almost a year later, Gaza is in ruins. There are more than 40,000 dead, many, many of them are civilians. Your capacity to fight Israel has been massively diminished. Was it worth all of that?

Al-Hayya: Who is responsible for this? It was the occupation and its army. Who destroys Gaza? Who killed its people? Who is now killing civilians in shelters, schools and hospitals?… If 1,200 people from the occupation are killed, how does that justify Israel killing 50,000 people and destroying all of Gaza? Isn’t that enough for them. But they are motivated for the lust to kill, to occupy and the lust to destroy.

Al-Hayya said reaching a ceasefire deal was “within reach” on the 2 July, but these talks failed after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out “new conditions” (a major impasse in the negotiations has been the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and the Netzarim east-west corridor across the territory. Netanyahu has insisted that Israel retain control of the corridors to prevent smuggling and catch militant fighters. Hamas, however, is demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza).

Al-Hayya said Israel wants to “eliminate” Hamas and all Palestinian people. “Give us our rights, give us a fully sovereign Palestinian state,” he told the BBC. It was reported over the summer that al-Hayya was leading indirect negotiations with Israel for a Gaza ceasefire with guidance from the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar.

Updated

Israeli attacks continue across Gaza, including in the city of Deir al-Balah, where an Israeli strike on a home has killed at least four people, according to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.

The military also launched bombs that ignited fires in homes in the Nuseirat refugee camp, while Israeli warplanes struck several sites in the southern city of Khan Younis, “resulting in further casualties and injuries”, Wafa reports.

Gaza’s health ministry said on Thursday that Israel’s war on the enclave has killed at least 41,788 Palestinian people and injured 96,794 since last October.

Updated

We reported in an earlier post that officials have said at least 18 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank last night.

Daliya Hadaydeh, a medic from the Red Crescent, has spoken to Al Jazeera. She described the attack on a coffee shop in the camp as “horrific”.

She said:

We heard a huge explosion in the camp. We headed towards the area. We saw the whole building destroyed and engulfed in flames.

Body parts were scattered all over the place. It was a horrific scene. Five of the bodies were almost intact. But between 15 and 20 were dismembered.

Updated

Iran’s foreign minister lands in Beirut

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has reportedly landed in Beirut.

“An Iranian plane has landed at the Rafik Hariri international airport with foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on board,” the Lebanese national news agency said of the first visit by a top Iranian official since an Israeli strike killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last week.

Araghchi is set to meet Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, and speaker of parliament Nabih Berri.

The assassination of Nasrallah was a huge blow to Iran, which considers Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group it has funded and trained, to be its closest and most long-standing ally. Iran has relied on Hezbollah to be a major deterrent preventing direct attacks on their country by Israel.

Updated

Here are some of the latest images coming out of Beirut, which show how Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s capital and its suburbs are intensifying:

Updated

In the post on X, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned people living in 20 villages in south Lebanon, including al-Bas, Majdal Salm and Toulin, to evacuate their homes immediately.

“Anyone who is near Hezbollah elements, installations, and combat equipment is putting his life at risk,” he wrote.

Adraee said that civilians must head north of the Awali river, which meets the coast about 50km (30 miles) from the border with Israel, and avoid going any further south if they want to escape Israeli attacks.

In a sign that Israel’s invasion of Lebanon is widening, the Israeli military this week issued evacuation orders for large swathes of the south of the country, as well as areas north of Tyre, a long way from the border.

Updated

Israeli military warns residents of over 20 more southern Lebanese towns to evacuate

The Israeli military has just told the residents of over 20 more southern towns in Lebanon to evacuate immediately, spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X. More details to follow…

Updated

Masnaa crossing: Israeli strike cuts off key road connecting Lebanon to Syria - report

There are reports coming in this morning that a key road connecting Lebanon with Syria – used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments - has been hit by an Israeli strike.

Lebanon’s transport minister, Ali Hamieh, told Reuters that the strike hit inside Lebanese territory near the Masnaa border crossing, creating a four-metre (12 ft) wide crater. No casualties or injuries have been reported so far.

An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) military spokesperson had accused Hezbollah on Thursday of using the crossing to transport military equipment into Lebanon.

According to Lebanese government statistics, more than 300,000 people - a vast majority of them Syrian - had crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the last 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment.

Updated

Some of the images of the overnight Israeli strikes on Beirut:

Likely Nasrallah successor target of latest Israeli strikes on Beirut, US media reports

The Israeli military launched a series of strikes on southern Beirut on Thursday night, in one of the most intense bombardments on the city since the campaign began last week.

A source close to Hezbollah told the AFP news agency that Israel had conducted 11 consecutive strikes on the group’s stronghold in the Lebanese capital.

Hashem Safieddine, the most likely candidate to replace Hassan Nasrallah as leader of Hezbollah and the head of its executive council, was the target of the strikes, the New York Times and Axios reported, citing Israeli officials. The result of the strike, said to have targeted a meeting of senior Hezbollah figures, is unclear.

New footage showed giant balls of flame rising from the targeted site with thick smoke billowing and flares shooting out. Reporters in the capital and beyond heard loud bangs that made car alarms go off and buildings shake.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli army Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee had issued an “urgent warning” for residents to evacuate from the south Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh. He later issued an evacuation order for the Hadath neighbourhood in Beirut’s south.

“You are located near facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah, and the IDF will work against them in the near future,” he had said in a statement on X.

Safieddine leads Hezbollah’s highest political decision-making body, the executive council, and was considered the number two in the organisation’s political wing before the death of Nasrallah, who was killed by Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh last week.

He is reportedly designated to succeed Nasrallah, though no formal announcement of his succession has been made since the late-leader was killed last week.

Here’s our full report

Iranian television is reporting that large crowds have gathered outside the mosque in Tehran where the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is due to lead prayers and give a public sermon for the first time in five years:

Updated

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to give first public sermon in five years

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is set to lead Friday prayers and deliver a public sermon that could shed light on the Islamic republic’s plans after a massive missile attack on enemy Israel. AFP reports:

Khamenei’s rare Friday sermon – a first in almost five years – comes three days before the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, triggered by the Iran-backed Palestinian group’s 7 October attack.

The supreme leader, who wields the highest authority in Iran, will lead Muslims in prayer at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran, his official website said.

The prayer will follow “a commemoration ceremony” at 10.30am (0700 GMT) for Hassan Nasrallah, the slain leader of Tehran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who answer to Khamenei, said Tuesday’s barrages of some 200 missiles were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Nasrallah alongside Guards commander Abbas Nilforoushan in a late September strike on Beirut, and of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

Khamenei last led Friday prayers in January 2020 after Iran fired missiles at a US army base in Iraq, in response to a strike that killed revered Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani.

In Tehran on Thursday, crowds waving Hezbollah and Iran flags gathered outside the former US embassy building in Tehran to denounce Israeli “crimes” in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, Iranian media reported.

Khamenei had declared public mourning in Iran for Nasrallah and on Wednesday said that the Hezbollah chief’s death was “not a small matter”.

Updated

‘No action going on right now’, Biden says

US President Joe Biden has made a series of comments to reporters overnight including suggesting there is “no action” taking place in the Middle East and that he does not believe there will be an “all-out war”.

Asked by the White House press pool why he had not spoken to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days after he said he would on Sunday he replied:

Because there’s no action going on right now.

Asked how confident he was that an all-out war could be averted in the Middle East he replied:

How confident are you it’s not going to rain? Look, I don’t believe there is going to be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it. But there is a lot to do yet, a lot to do yet.

Asked if he would send American troops to help Israel, the president said: “We have already helped Israel. We are going to protect Israel.”

And asked if he worried an Israeli strike on Iran’s oil facilities would raise oil prices, he said:

If a hurricane hits, prices are going to go up. I don’t know; who knows.

On Thursday Biden said his administration had been “discussing” possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities, triggering a spike in oil prices.

The latest apparent Israeli attack on Hezbollah leadership, in which Hashem Safieddine, the presumed next leader of Hezbollah, was reportedly the target, comes almost exactly a week after leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a massive Israeli strike on Beirut that flattened several apartment blocks.

Israel has a long history of assassinating its enemies, often causing civilian casualties, and has also killed around 20 other senior Hezbollah figures in recent weeks and months.

The include Ibrahim Aqil, reportly killed by an airstrike in Beirut in September, who was one of the last founder members of Hezbollah’s military wing to have survived more than 40 years of conflict with Israel.

Fuad Shukur, whom Israel said was responsible for most of Hezbollah’s advanced weaponry, including precise-guided missiles, cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, long-range rockets, and UAVs, was killed in a strike on Beirut in July.

Nabil Qaouk, who held a series of military command positions and had recently begun travelling to Iran, was killed in a strike earlier this week.

Ali Karaki, who had responsibility for military operations along the contested border with Israel, was killed alongside Nasrallah, as was Ibrahim Jazini, who was responsible for internal security within Hezbollah.

At least 18 people killed in Israeli strike in occupied West Bank

At least 18 people were killed in a West Bank refugee camp, the Palestinian health ministry has said, following an airstrike that the Israeli military claimed killed a local Hamas leader.

A source within the Palestinian security services told the AFP news agency that the attack was the deadliest in the West Bank since 2000.

“Eighteen martyrs following the bombing of the Tulkarm camp by the occupation,” the Palestinian health ministry said on its Telegram account.

An activist in the area told AFP that the Israeli strike “hit a cafeteria in a four-storey building”, adding that there were “many victims in the hospital”. Al Jazeera reported that the dead included a mother and her two children.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike on the Tulkarm area in the northern West Bank, describing it as a joint operation carried out by the Shin Bet internal security service and the air force, according to a brief statement by the military.

The Israeli military later said the strike had killed a Hamas leader, Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi – and said among the dead were other “operatives” who were also active in Hamas.

The army accused Oufi of participating in numerous attacks in the West Bank and said he was in the process of planning another assault.

Hamas condemned the airstrike, calling it a “cruel attack” that would prove to be a “dangerous escalation”.

Here’s our full report:

An Israeli strike on Friday morning hit near Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria, cutting off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days, the Lebanese transport minister has told Reuters.

Ali Hamieh said the strike hit right after the border crossing, still within Lebanese territory, creating a 4-metre wide crater.

The Israeli military had on Thursday accused Hezbollah of smuggling weapons into Lebanon via the crossing.

Updated

Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak predicts large-scale attack on Iranian oil industry

Israel is likely to mount a large-scale airstrike against Iran’s oil industry and possibly a symbolic attack on a military target related to its nuclear programme, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak has predicted.

Barak said there was no doubt there would be an Israeli military response to Iran’s assault on Tuesday with over 180 ballistic missiles, most of which were intercepted, but some landed on and around densely populated areas and Israeli military bases.

“Israel has a compelling need, even an imperative, to respond. I think that no sovereign nation on Earth could fail to respond,” Barak said in an interview.

The former prime minister, who also served as defence minister, foreign minister and army chief of staff, said the model for the Israeli response could be seen in Sunday’s reprisal airstrikes against Houthi-controlled oil facilities, power plants and docks in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, a day after Houthi fired missiles aimed at Israel’s international airport outside Tel Aviv.

“I think we might see something like that. It might be a massive attack, and it could be repeated more than once,” he told the Guardian.

The Israeli military says that it has detected around 20 “launches” from Lebanon and that all were either intercepted or fell in an open area.

Opening summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Israel has launched a fresh round of airstrikes on Beirut overnight, with witnesses describing them as more powerful than the massive strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah almost a week ago.

Israeli and US media reported that one of the targets of the strikes on the southern suburb of Dahiyeh was Hashem Safieddine, widely considered to be Nasrallah’s likely successor. There has been no official comment from either Hezbollah or Israel on his fate.

The news agency AFP reported that there had been at least 11 consecutive strikes on Dahiyeh, the southern Beirut suburb regarded as a Hezbollah stronghold, while one strike reportedly hit close to Beirut’s airport.

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm an Israeli airstrike killed at least 18 people in a cafe. The IDF claimed it had killed a local Hamas leader, Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, in the attack, which levelled the entire building, along with several other Hamas members.

Civilians were also reportedly killed – including a mother and her two children according to Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera – and Palestinian media said it was the bloodiest single Israeli attack on the West Bank in 24 years.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that more people were buried under the rubble, citing a Red Crescent paramedic and local media.

In other developments:

  • The latest Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday came after Israeli military ordered civilians near two buildings in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, to evacuate immediately ahead of airstrikes. An Israeli military spokesperson published maps alongside the announcement, warning civilians to distance themselves at least 500 metres from the sites.

  • Earlier on Thursday, multiple airstrikes were heard in the Lebanese capital, with one of them reportedly hitting the office of Hezbollah’s media department in Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut. An official from the media office said they were safe, despite the blast. Israel said it had targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence operation.

  • Joe Biden, the US president, said he was “discussing” possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil sites in response to Tehran’s missile attack earlier this week. His comments quickly sent oil prices soaring. Asked if he would “allow” Israel to retaliate against Iran, Biden said on Thursday that “we don’t ‘allow’ Israel, we advise Israel. And there is nothing going to happen today.” On Wednesday, Biden said he would not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

  • Lebanon’s health ministry said 37 people were killed and 151 others wounded in Israeli strikes on the country on Thursday. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed, including 127 children, and 9,384 injured since the start of Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, the country’s health ministry said on Thursday. More than 1.2 million Lebanese people have been displaced by Israeli attacks. Lebanon’s health minister said more than 40 rescuers and firefighters have been killed by Israeli attacks over the last three days.

  • Israel’s military ordered residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday, signaling that it may widen a ground operation launched earlier this week against Hezbollah. Israel has told people to leave Nabatieh, a provincial capital, and other communities north of the Litani River, which formed the northern edge of the UN-declared buffer zone. Israel has previously ordered 52 other villages inside Lebanon to evacuate.

  • The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, described an Israeli strike on a central Beirut medical centre on Thursday as a “violation of international humanitarian law”. The attack was the second airstrike on central Beirut this week, with most strikes having previously been confined to suburbs in the southern suburbs.

  • Hezbollah carried out new strikes on Thursday, targeting what it called Israel’s “Sakhnin base” for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets. At least eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

  • The Lebanese army said that it returned fire at Israeli forces after one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli strike, marking the first time that the Lebanese army participated in the fighting against Israel. The soldier was killed when a Lebanese Red Cross convoy accompanied by the Lebanese Army was struck while evacuating wounded from Taybeh, a border-village in southern Lebanon.

  • Civilians are bearing the brunt of a “truly catastrophic” situation in Lebanon, a senior UN official said. Since Israel dramatically ramped up airstrikes in Lebanon more than a week ago, the pace of displacement had exceeded worst case scenarios, Imran Riza, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator, told Reuters. “The level of trauma, the level of fear amongst the population, has been extreme,” he said.

  • G7 leaders expressed “deep concern over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East” and called on regional players to “act responsibility and with restraint”. In a joint statement on Thursday, G7 leaders said they condemned “in the strongest terms” Iran’s military attack against Israel earlier this week, which they said “constitutes a serious threat to regional stability.”

  • Iran has warned Washington that any country that aids an Israeli attack will be deemed an Iranian target. In a statement issued by Iran’s mission at the UN on Thursday, Iran warned that a large Israeli strike will lead to attacks on Israeli infrastructure and that “should any country render assistance to the aggressor, it shall likewise be deemed an accomplice and a legitimate target.” The warnings came as the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, sought assurances from Gulf States in Doha that they would remain neutral in the event of any joint Israeli-US attack in Iran.

  • The death toll in Gaza has risen to 41,788 reported fatalities with 96,794 people wounded, according to the latest figures by territory’s health ministry late on Thursday. At least 90 Palestinians were killed and 169 others injured in eight attacks by Israel over the last 24 hours, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported earlier, including in strikes on a school and an orphange housing displaced people.

  • Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini condemned the Israeli attacks on Thursday, saying “Schools used to be a safe haven for learning, they have now turned into hell for far too many.”

  • The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah commander who was responsible for a rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers on a football field in July. The IDF said Khader Shahabiya was killed in an airstrike on Wednesday. The attack on Majdal Shams village, a predominantly Druze village, killed 12 children between the ages of 10 and 16 as they were playing football and wounded dozens more.

  • Israel’s military also announced that in a strike “approximately three months ago” it believes it killed three senior Hamas figures. It named them as “Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip; Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio on Hamas’ political bureau and Hamas’ labor committee; and Sami Oudeh, commander of Hamas’ general security mechanism.”

  • The Lebanese ambassador to the UK, Rami Mortada, claimed that Hezbollah’s leadership had agreed to a proposed 21 day ceasefire shortly before “hotheads” of Israel blew up the diplomatic path to peace by assassinating leader Hassan Nasrallah. Mortada’s comments on Thursday support a previous assertion made by Lebanese foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib.

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