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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Jonathan Yerushalmy (now) with Léonie Chao-Fong, Martin Belam and Sammy Gecsoyler (earlier)

US secretary of defence warns of ‘serious consequences’ for Iran if it attacks Israel or exploits tensions – as it happened

Hamas Hezbollah Israel Lebanon Hassan Nasrallah Beirut Benjamin Netanyahu Middle East United States Gideon Saar
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburb.
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburb. Photograph: Fadel Itani/AFP/Getty Images

Summary

Here’s where things stand in the hours since Israel’s military confirmed it had started a “limited” ground operation inside Lebanon. This blog is closing now but you can continue to follow live coverage on our new liveblog.

  • The Israeli military has begun a “limited, localised and targeted” ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, it has said, as it continued shelling areas close to the border and carrying out airstrikes on the capital, Beirut. The targets are “located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel,” the IDF said.

  • Heavy shelling into Lebanon was taking place along the border in the area north of Kiryat Shimona. The towns of Marjayoun, Wazzani and Khiam were being shelled on Monday night. There were also reports of a heavy presence of Israeli aircraft over southern Lebanon.

  • Israel launched a strike on a building in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian camp near southern Lebanon’s city of Sidon, a Palestinian source told the Reuters news agency. Israeli media is reporting that Mounir Maqdah, who is reportedly a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the purported target of the strike, was injured in the attack. Al Jazeera has reported multiple casualties in the strike. Ain al-Hilweh is Lebanon’s largest camp for Palestinian refugees. If confirmed it would be the first strike on the overcrowded camp since cross-border hostilities broke out nearly a year ago.

  • Syrian state media reported early on Tuesday that three civilians had been killed in Israeli strikes on the capital Damascus. State television had earlier said one of its presenters had been killed; it was not immediately clear whether they were among the three mentioned by state media. The reports could not be verified independently.

  • Israel carried out more airstrikes in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, after the Israeli military issued new instructions ordering residents of three buildings in the neighbourhood to evacuate immediately. Huge explosions were heard in the Lebanese capital late on Monday night. Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued maps of three locations in Dahieh, instructing residents to evacuate more than 500 metres away, marking the second time Israel instructed residents of Dahieh to evacuate prior to strikes.

  • At least 95 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Monday, according to the country’s health ministry. An airstrike early on Monday hit an apartment building in central Beirut – the first to hit in the heart of the Lebanese capital since 2006.

  • The Lebanese army said it was “repositioning and regrouping forces” amid reports it had withdrawn three miles from the country’s southern border. The Lebanese army has evacuated observation posts at Lebanon’s southern border with Israel and moved to barracks in the border villages, according to reports.

  • UN peacekeepers in Lebanon can no longer patrol border areas in the south due to heavy artillery fire from Israeli forces and Hezbollah, a UN spokesperson said. The peacekeeping force of more than 10,000 personnel “remain in position” but cannot carry out road patrols due to “the intensity of the rockets going back and forth”, a spokesperson for the UN secretary general said on Monday.

  • US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said he had spoken to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant and that the pair had “agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border” with Lebanon. He also said he had “made clear that the United States is well-postured to defend US personnel, partners, and allies in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations”.

  • A US state department spokesperson said Israel had informed the US that it was conducting “limited ground operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border”. The US president, Joe Biden, said he was aware of Israel’s plans to launch an operation into Lebanon as he urged against such a move. “I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” he told reporters at the White House. “We should have a ceasefire now.”

  • The US is sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said on Monday. The increased presence will involve multiple fighter jet and attack aircraft squadrons, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters. The additional forces would raise the total number of troops in the region to as many as 43,000.

  • The UK government announced it has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave amid escalating violence. The flight is due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport on Wednesday, the Foreign Office said, with priority given to vulnerable British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under 18.

  • Canada has announced it has reserved 800 seats on commercial flights to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon. “The security situation in Lebanon is becoming increasingly dangerous and volatile,” Canadian foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly wrote on X.

The United Arab Emirates has reaffirmed its “unwavering position towards the unity of Lebanon, its national sovereignty, and its territorial integrity”, the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement early on Tuesday.

It’s expected that more countries across the Middle East will start to issue statements on the situation which has unfolded in Lebanon overnight.

It’s 8.30am in Beirut. Overnight Israel launched what it calls a “limited” ground operation in southern Lebanon, while also launching strikes on the Lebanese capital, the country’s south and – reportedly – in Damascus.

Here are some of the images that have come into the newsroom in the past few hours.

Air raid alerts are sounding across section of northern Israel, Israeli media is reporting.

The Times of Israel is reporting that rocket alerts sounded a short while ago in the northern town of Metula, near the border with Lebanon.

There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Lebanon’s National News Agency has reported that overnight raids were launched on the towns of Bint Jbeil, Tayri, Kounine and Blida in Northern Lebanon.

All four are towns that sit just north of the border with Israel.

In its announcement that the ground operation had begun, the IDF said it would target a “number of villages near the border, which pose an immediate and real threat to Israeli settlements on the northern border”.

With just a month left until the US presidential elections, the Biden administration launched a tepid effort at a ceasefire that Netanyahu appears to have chosen to ignore – or simply to wait out until US elections that could bring in a Trump administration that would do even less to restrain him than the current one has.

“Netanyahu made a calculation, and the calculation was that there was no way that the Democrats between now and November 5th [election day] could do anything that would criticise, let alone restrain him from that,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East.

“You saw [vice-president Kamala] Harris’s statement, you saw the White House statement, you saw the Democrat and Republican consensus on the killing of Nasrallah and what the Israelis have done there,” he said. “And since Iran is involved in this, unlike in Gaza, the toxicity of animus against Iran in this town is so intense that the Republican party, which is now the ‘Israel can do no wrong’ party, is just winging for the administration.”

Until recently, prominent US officials have thought they still had a chance to conclude a ceasefire and prevent the war from escalating further. Last week, US and French officials along with dozens of other countries called for a ceasefire in Lebanon. US officials briefed on the matter said they believed the “time was right” and that Israel would sign up.

A western official last week told the Guardian that the Israeli threat to invade northern Lebanon was probably “psyops” largely designed to force Hezbollah and Iran to the negotiating table.

One day later, a massive airstrike launched by the Israeli air force killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, upending security calculations in the region and potentially emboldening Israeli officials to believe they could fundamentally change the security dynamics in the region.

The IDF has said that three “launches” were detected in northern Israel. Two were intercepted by Israeli air defence and another fell into an open area, according to the Israeli army.

Earlier we reported that air raid alerts had been issued in Israel’s northern city of Safed which lies just kilometres from the Lebanese border.

The number of displaced people in Lebanon is continuing to rise and now exceeds one million people, local media is reporting.

“Between yesterday and today, the number of those inside shelters (schools) has increased by about 40,000, from 120,000 to 160,000,” Al-Akhbar news reported.

Out of 850 schools used for shelter, more than 600 have reached their capacity. They are mainly concentrated in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and Sidon.

The media reports not that there is a challenge in delivering enough humanitarian aid – including food – to them.

A US defence official has disputed reports that US forces were targeted in a rocket attack on a base near Baghdad International Airport.

All military personnel are accounted for and military forces were not targeted as had been reported.”

Two Iraqi security sources told Reuters that an initial investigation showed three rockets were fired, including one that landed near buildings used by Iraqi counter-terrorism forces, causing damages and fire to some vehicles but no casualties.

The sources had previously said at least two Katyusha rockets were also fired at a military base hosting US forces and that air defences intercepted the rockets.

The US defence official said Washington was aware of reports of an attack instead on the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Complex, which is a Department of State facility.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agencyhas said that it received a report of an incident 64 nautical miles northwest of Yemen’s Hodeidah, adding that the authorities are investigating.

For almost a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching aerial drone and missile strikes on Red Sea shipping in what they says is solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

It’s unclear if they UKMTO warning relates to those attacks.

Air raid alerts have been issued in Israel’s northern city of Safed which lies just kilometres from the Lebanese border. Some media reported alerts were issue for other border towns as well.

Air alerts have been active across sections of the country’s north throughout the night.

Earlier in the evening, the Israeli military said about “ten launches were detected that crossed the territory of Lebanon”. The IDF says some of them were intercepted by air defence and others dropped into “an open area.”

Earlier on Monday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, in his first public speech since Hassan Nasrallah’s death, said that “the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement”. “We know that the battle may be long. We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006,” he said, referring to the 2006 war.

Heavy shelling into Lebanon was taking place along the boundary in the area north of Kiryat Shmona, in an area where Israeli armour and infantry advanced into Lebanon during the 2006 war. Airstrikes continued in Beirut and in at least 10 locations across the south of the country, according to Lebanon’s state news agency.

The Israeli military declared areas of Metula, Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel a closed military zone.

The towns of Marjayoun, Wazzani and Khiam – which sit in a series of interlocking valleys overlooked by steep slopes – were being shelled on Monday night.

One resident in Marjayoun said that a local official had received a phone call ordering residents to evacuate but shelling had started before people could leave the town. “They called the mukhtar of Marjayoun, and told us we needed to evacuate. But we can’t move, the roads are filled with shelling and airstrikes,” the resident said.

An hour later, the road leading out of Marjayoun was hit by an Israeli airstrike and rendered inoperable, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

The area, with its scattered villages, and scrubby landscape hiding bunkers and combat tunnels, has long been a base for Hezbollah fighters and was heavily fought over during the last war between Israel and Hezbollah 18 years ago.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it had targeted a group of Israeli soldiers who were in the “orchard” near the Lebanese border towns of Odaisseh and Kafr Kila, “achieving confirmed casualties”. Kafr Kila is one of the towns that borders the area that Israel declared a closed military zone on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese army said it was “repositioning and regrouping forces” amid reports it had withdrawn three miles from the country’s southern border. Lebanon’s army has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflicts with Israel, and in the past year of hostilities has not fired on the Israeli military.

Earlier today, the US announced it was sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary. The announcement came hours before Israel announced its operation in Lebanon.

The increased presence will involve multiple fighter jet and attack aircraft squadrons, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters. US officials said the total includes small numbers of other troops to augment the presence as well.

The additional forces will raise the total number of troops in the region to as many as 43,000.

On Sunday, defense secretary Lloyd Austin announced that he was temporarily extending the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and its embarked air wing in the region.

US secretary of defense says he supports 'Israel’s right to defend itself'

US secretary of defense Lloyd Austin has spoken with Israel’s defence minister, telling him that the US supports Israel’s right to defend itself.

I spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant today to discuss security developments and Israeli operations … We agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border to ensure that Lebanese Hizballah cannot conduct October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern communities.”

Austin also addressed any potential threat from Iran, saying the “United States is well-postured to defend U.S. personnel, partners, and allies in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations and determined to prevent any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict.”

I reiterated the serious consequences for Iran in the event Iran chooses to launch a direct military attack against Israel.”

Austin said he reaffirmed that a “diplomatic resolution is required” to ensure that civilians can return safely to their homes on both sides of the border.

Earlier we reported that while the US has expressed support for Israel’s operaiton in Lebanon, the Biden administration has privately told the Israeli government that they are concerned that the operation could slide “into something larger and longer”.

According to reports in Israeli media, the White House is concerned that the “IDF will get bogged down in the country or be drawn to expand the mission once it’s already in motion.”

Updated

Canada has announced it has reserved 800 seats on commercial flights to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon, where the Israeli military has begun a “limited” ground operation.

“The security situation in Lebanon is becoming increasingly dangerous and volatile,” Canadian foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly wrote on X.

She added: “If you are a Canadian citizen in Lebanon, you must leave now.”

About 45,000 Canadians are currently in Lebanon and the next flight is scheduled for Tuesday. Many airlines have suspended flights to and from Beirut.

The UK government has also announced it has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave amid escalating violence.

The flight is due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport on Wednesday, the foreign office said.

Al Jazeera is reporting that there are multiple casualties in the strike on the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp.

According the media network, rescue workers are struggling to access the site of the attack in the densely packed camp. Israel is yet to comment on the attack.

Israeli media is reporting that Mounir Maqdah, the purported target of the strike, who is reportedly a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, was injured in the attack.

Reuters is reporting that a strike on the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp was targeting a Palestinian militant commander.

According to two Palestinian security officials speaking to Reuters, an “Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.”

AFP is also reporting that an Israeli strike targeted the camp.

Maqdah’s fate was unknown.

As we reported earlier, if confirmed the strike would mark the first Israeli attack on the camp, the largest of several Palestinian camps in Lebanon, since cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel broke out nearly a year ago.

A Palestinian camp official told AFP that an Israeli strike targeted a top Palestinian militant on Tuesday in the community in the south Lebanon city of Sidon.

Images taken from northern Israel of the raids into southern Lebanon show a number of fires and explosions an several built up areas.

Syrian media is reporting that a fourth wave of strikes has hit Damascus.

According to reports, three people have been killed and a further nine injured in strikes that local media have said were carried out by Israel. The Israeli army has not so far made any comment on the Syria attacks.

The official Sana news agency said:

The Israeli enemy launched an air aggression with warplanes and drones from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting several points in Damascus … three civilians were killed and nine others injured”.

Earlier we reported that Syrian state television said a news anchor had been killed in a strike on Damascus.

Israel launched a strike on a building in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian camp near southern Lebanon’s city of Sidon, a Palestinian source told the Reuters news agency.

Lebanese media also reported the strike. The Guardian was unable to verify it.

Ain al-Hilweh is Lebanon’s largest camp for Palestinian refugees. If confirmed it would be the first strike on the overcrowded camp since cross-border hostilities broke out nearly a year ago.

There have so far been no reports of direct clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants. Israeli artillery units have continued to pound targets in southern Lebanon while airstrikes have been hitting Beirut.

Earlier in the evening, Israel declared three small border communities to be a “closed military zone,” restricting access only to army personnel.

Later on the Israeli military made its announcement that it had begun “limited, localized and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) is reporting continued shelling on the border town of Aita al-Shaab.

According to the NNA a number of building have been destroyed in “cross-border raids”. The news agency lists at least eight locations that have been reportedly targeted by Israeli troops.

Local residents in the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab have reported heavy shelling and the sound of helicopters and drones overhead. Israeli shelling has been reported in villages close to the border in southern Lebanon throughout the night.

In its statement announcing the ground operation, Israel’s military said that its targets were located in villages close to the border that posed “an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.”

It said the air force and artillery were supporting ground forces with “precise strikes.”

It’s currently unclear where Israel’s purported ground incursion is taking place.

One person killed in strike on Damascus

Syrian state television says a news anchor has been killed in a strike on Damascus.

State-run media has reported three rounds of strikes in the capital in one night, blaming Israel.

State television said in a statement that it “mourns anchor Safaa Ahmad who was martyred in the Israeli aggression on the capital Damascus”.

The official SANA news agency earlier said “air defence systems are intercepting hostile targets for the third time tonight in the Damascus area”, using a phrase that usually refers to Israeli strikes.

The Israeli air force has intercepted an “unmanned aircraft” over the Mediterranean Sea, the IDF has said.

In its statement, the IDF said the aircraft was “dozens of kilometers west of the coast of Israel”.

Earlier we reported that the Israeli cabinet approved this next stage of the military operation after a meeting on Monday evening chaired by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Officials speaking to Axios reporter Barak Ravid said that the cabinet decision “emphasized that the operation is targeted and limited in time and scope and is not intended to occupy southern Lebanon.”

Speaking off the record, US officials have stated there concern that Israel becomes caught in an protracted conflict in Lebanon.

Jacob Magid, the Times of Israel US bureau chief, has reported concerns from the White House that the “IDF will get bogged down in the country or be drawn to expand the mission once it’s already in motion.”

As the IDF ground operation in southern Lebanon began, Israeli warplanes were launching strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The Guardian’s reporter in Beirut, Will Christou, has posted this video that purportedly shows the moment that an Israeli strike hit Lailakeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Late on Monday, at least two rockets were fired at a military base hosting US forces near Baghdad International Airport.

“The Victory Base at Baghdad Airport was targeted with three rockets, two of which were shot down by the base’s special defences, while the third fell near the headquarters of the Counter Terrorism Service Command,” a security source told AFP.

A second security source confirmed the report, noting that there were no casualties and that the rockets did not affect air traffic.

We have a bit more on the British efforts to evacuate citizens from Lebanon. Speaking to broadcasters earlier on Monday evening, foreign secretary David Lammy said: “We will do all that we can to assist people to get out and we have secured places on commercial flights that are flying tomorrow so that UK nationals can get out.

I urge them to leave because the situation on the ground is fast moving … And of course, whilst we will do everything we can to protect British nationals – and those plans are in place to do so – we cannot anticipate the circumstances and the speed with which we could do that if things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days.”

Mr Lammy chaired a ministerial meeting of the Cobra emergency committee on Monday to discuss the crisis.

There are an estimated 5,000 British citizens in Lebanon and the government says it is working on “all contingency options”.

British military assets have been deployed to Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean in case an evacuation is required, although ministers and officials have stressed that Britons should leave immediately.

Israeli media have noted that it is exactly 18 years to the days since the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon after the Second Lebanon war.

On 1 October 2006, most Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon after a months-long war against Hezbollah.

The IDF has reported rockets from southern Lebanon have continued to be fired into Israel.

Air alerts have been active across sections of the country’s north over the last hour.

The Israeli military said about “ten launches were detected that crossed the territory of Lebanon”.

The IDF says some of them were intercepted by air defence and others dropped into “an open area.”

As the Israeli military made its announcement that a “limited” ground operation had begun in southern Lebanon, Syrian state media reported that “hostile targets” had been intercepted over Damascus.

Local media reported that explosions could be heard over the Syrian capital.

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari has said Israeli forces “trained and prepared in recent months” for the ground operation which began in southern Lebanon in the last few hours.

The ground forces are accompanied in an attack effort by the Air Force and artillery forces, which attack military targets in the area in a coordinated effort with the fighters of the ground forces … Operation “Northern Arrows” continues according to the assessment of the situation at the same time as the fighting in Gaza and other arenas.

IDF says it has begun a 'targeted ground operation' in southern Lebanon

Israel has begun limited raids against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the military has said in a statement.

The IDF began a few hours ago a targeted and demarcated ground operation in southern Lebanon against terrorist targets and infrastructures of the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”

The IDF said that the targets were villages close to the border that pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in the country’s north.

The statement follows a similar proclamation from the US earlier, in which White House officials that Israeli forces appeared to have launched “limited ground operations” targeting Hezbollah.

Heavy shelling into Lebanon has been taking place along the border in the area north of Kiryat Shimona. The towns of Marjayoun, Wazzani and Khiam were being shelled on Monday night.

US concerned by 'mission creep' in Lebanon - reports

The Biden administration has reportedly told the Israeli government that they are concerned that an “operation limited in time and limited in geographic scope slides into something larger and longer”, Axios reporter Barak Ravid has said.

Ravid reports that the White House believes that they have reached an understanding with Israel on the scope of the ground operation in southern Lebanon, but “fear that it will expand and take longer.”

Jacob Magid, the Times of Israel US bureau chief, has also reported concern from the White House that the “IDF will get bogged down in the country or be drawn to expand the mission once it’s already in motion.”

Magid reports that a US official pointed to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon which was characterised as a “limited incursion, but it turned into an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon”.

More on that statement from Hezbollah; the militant group has said it “targeted” Israeli troops carrying out “movements” near the Lebanese border. A source close to the group told the AFP news agency that Israeli soldiers were “right on the border”.

The group said it targeted “enemy soldiers’ movements in the orchards opposite Adaisseh and Kfarkila” near the border. A Lebanese security official told AFP there were “Israeli army movements on the southern Lebanese border”.

Hezbollah media reported “artillery shelling” near seperate border areas. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported “continued artillery shelling” on border areas.

Lebanon’s army has moved troops away from its southern border, a Lebanese military official told AFP.

As Israeli strikes on Beirut appear to intensify, a former Israeli diplomat has criticised the IDF’s ground incursion into Lebanon, saying that it could lead to the kind of deadly mission creep that had characterised the past failed operations of 1982 and 2006.

“What the hell does Israel mean by a limited [incursion],” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat and critic of Benjamin Netanyahu, told the Guardian. “Is it limited in firepower? Is it limited in time? Is it limited in the employment of forces?”

Asked what could make this incursion different from the wars of 1982 or 2006, which resulted in a high numbrer of casualties among Israeli soldiers, he said: “Nothing. That’s what worries me. Yeah, nothing. I see no thinking here.”

More broadly, Pinkas doubted Israel’s reported goals of establishing a buffer zone in southern Lebanon that would allow Israeli residents to return to the border region.

“Going into Lebanon and establishing some kind of a buffer zone from the Israeli border to say, the Litani River … it’s very, very difficult to maintain that, that this is a very hostile area,” he said, adding that it had been hostile during the 1982 and 2006 wars. “But the important thing is, by doing so, you’re not eliminating Hezbollah’s ability to launch long range missiles.”

He also warned that the Israelis, as in previous incursions into southern Lebanon, would face the lure of mission creep.

“Once it begins to roll, things change, and all of the sudden, we got to take that village too. What about that hill? What about that little valley?” he said. “And then you have an ‘82 all over again.”

Pinkas said he wasn’t denouncing all military actions, just those that would lead to a protracted occupation of Lebanese territory.

“I stress the military importance of going in, doing what you got to do, and going out, right,” he said. “But if this evolves into some kind of a protracted presence in southern Lebanon, then what the hell did you achieve by that?”

Updated

Israeli cabinet reportedly approve next stage of military operation

Late on Monday night, Israeli media reported that government sources had said the country’s cabinet had approved the next stage of the military operation targeting Hezbollah after a meeting earlier in the evening chaired by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It remains unclear quite what the situation on the border is. Hezbollah has said that they targeted Israeli troops near the border. Meanwhile, strikes across Beirut have intensified over the last hour.

Updated

Summary of the day so far

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • Israeli forces appeared to have launched what sources called “limited ground operations” targeting Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon, US and other officials said late on Monday. Heavy shelling into Lebanon was taking place along the border in the area north of Kiryat Shimona. The towns of Marjayoun, Wazzani and Khiam were being shelled on Monday night. There were also reports of a heavy presence of Israeli aircraft over southern Lebanon.

  • Israel carried out more airstrikes in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, after the Israeli military issued new instructions ordering residents of three buildings in the neighbourhood to evacuate immediately. Huge explosions were heard in the Lebanese capital late on Monday night. Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued maps of three locations in Dahieh, instructing residents to evacuate more than 500 metres away, marking the second time Israel instructed residents of Dahieh to evacuate prior to strikes.

  • At least 95 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Monday, according to the country’s health ministry. An airstrike early on Monday hit an apartment building in central Beirut – the first to hit in the heart of the Lebanese capital since 2006. The strike killed three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small, leftist Palestinian faction. Families of people who went missing in the strikes on the country have been urged to take DNA tests to identify the remains of loved ones.

  • The Lebanese army said it was “repositioning and regrouping forces” amid reports it had withdrawn three miles from the country’s southern border. The Lebanese army has evacuated observation posts at Lebanon’s southern border with Israel and moved to barracks in the border villages, according to reports.

  • UN peacekeepers in Lebanon can no longer patrol border areas in the south due to heavy artillery fire from Israeli forces and Hezbollah, a UN spokesperson said. The peacekeeping force of more than 10,000 personnel “remain in position” but cannot carry out road patrols due to “the intensity of the rockets going back and forth”, a spokesperson for the UN secretary general said on Monday.

  • Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told community leaders that the “next phase of the war against Hezbollah will begin soon”. Gallant had earlier told troops in northern Israel: “We will use all of our capabilities – including you.” The Israeli military later declared areas of Metula, Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel a closed military zone. Israel’s security cabinet approved the next phase of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon following a meeting on Monday night, according to Israeli media reports.

  • Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, warned Iran it could strike anywhere in the region at will. “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” he said in a video addressed to the Iranian people. In a three-minute video clip in English, Netanyahu accused Iran of subjugating its citizens and directly threatened its leaders.

  • There was no official comment from Israeli officials on the ground operations in Lebanon, but Aryeh Deri, an Israeli minister who has been involved in wartime decision-making, tweeted the text of a Jewish prayer for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mentioning Lebanon. An IDF spokesperson warned Israelis not to publish information on troop movements and not to “spread irresponsible rumours”.

  • A US state department spokesperson said Israel had informed the US that it was conducting “limited ground operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border”. The US president, Joe Biden, said he was aware of Israel’s plans to launch an operation into Lebanon as he urged against such a move. “I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” he told reporters at the White House. “We should have a ceasefire now.”

  • Hezbollah vowed to keep fighting even after its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior officials had been killed by Israeli strikes. Friday’s assassination of Nasrallah – the most powerful leader in Tehran’s “axis of resistance” against Israeli and US interests in the Middle East – was one of the heaviest blows in decades to Hezbollah and Iran. The group’s acting leader, Naim Qassem, said in a televised statement that if Israel launched a ground offensive, Hezbollah was ready. He said the commanders killed in recent weeks had already been replaced.

  • Hamas said its leader in Lebanon was killed on Monday in an Israeli strike on the country’s south. Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, “a member of the movement’s leadership abroad” was killed in an airstrike on his home in the al-Bass camp in south Lebanon, a Hamas statement said. The head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, told reporters that Abu al-Amine was placed under investigation and suspended from his job at Unrwa in March.

  • Lebanon’s health ministry said on Sunday that more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes.

  • At least 11 Palestinians were killed, including women and children, in an Israeli strike on a house in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza Strip, according to Gaza medics on Monday. Palestinian health officials said the Palestinian journalist, Wafa Al-Udaini, was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Monday.

  • Yemen’s Houthis said they would escalate military operations against Israel in response to its attacks on the country on Sunday. On Sunday, a major Israeli raid hit ports in Yemen run by the Houthi militia group, which is also backed by Iran, fuelling fears of a slide towards a devastating regional conflict on multiple fronts. A spokesperson for the Houthis said after Sunday’s strikes would not cause the Iran-backed group to “abandon Gaza and Lebanon”.

  • The US is ending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said on Monday. The increased presence will involve multiple fighter jet and attack aircraft squadrons, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters. The additional forces would raise the total number of troops in the region to as many as 43,000.

  • The UK government announced it has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave amid escalating violence. The flight is due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport on Wednesday, the Foreign Office said, with priority given to vulnerable British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under 18. Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, after a call with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken.

  • The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, visited Lebanon where he urged Israel against any ground incursion into the country. Barrot said the 21-day ceasefire proposal submitted by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and Biden was “still there on the table to be discussed”, adding: “There is hope, but time is very limited.”

  • Germany evacuated some non-essential staff out of Lebanon, as well as families of embassy workers and German nationals who are medically vulnerable, a statement by the German foreign ministry said on Monday. The US embassy in Beirut said it was working with airlines “to address US citizens request to depart Lebanon”.

Updated

A Lebanese security official told AFP that Israel conducted at least six strikes on south Beirut late on Monday and early Tuesday.

“Six or seven Israeli strikes hit the southern Beirut suburbs,” the official told the news agency.

Videos posted on social media show huge blasts in the Lebanese capital.

At least 95 people killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, says health ministry

Lebanon’s health ministry said 95 people had been killed in Israeli strikes across the country on Monday.

An additional 172 people were injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

Updated

UK charters evacuation flight for Britons to leave Lebanon

The UK government has announced it has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave amid escalating violence.

The flight is due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport on Wednesday, the foreign office said.

Priority will be given to vulnerable British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under 18, it said.

A statement by Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, reads:

The situation in Lebanon is volatile and has potential to deteriorate quickly. The safety of British nationals in Lebanon continues to be our utmost priority. That’s why the UK Government is chartering a flight to help those wanting to leave. It is vital that you leave now as further evacuation may not be guaranteed.

Updated

Israel’s security cabinet has approved the next phase of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to Israeli media reports.

Members of the cabinet gave their approval during a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet this evening, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Updated

Israel carried out two more airstrikes in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, the second pair of strikes producing explosions that rattled windowpanes in the capital city and were heard as far as Bhamdoun, a town in the mountains surrounding Lebanon.

Israel conducted at least four airstrikes in Dahieh on Monday night.

Israel has carried out airstrikes on at least 10 different locations across south Lebanon over the past two hours, in addition to shelling towns along the border with artillery, Lebanon’s state news agency reported.

Hezbollah said in a statement at midnight on Tuesday that it targeted a group of Israeli soldiers who were in the “orchard [trees]” facing the Lebanese border towns of Adaisseh and Kafr Kila, “achieving confirmed casualties”.

Kafr Kila is one of the towns that borders the area that Israel declared a closed military zone on Monday night, before a potential incursion over the Lebanese border.

Updated

Even as the Israeli ground operation appeared to be beginning, Israeli commentators were quick to recall that previous Israeli incursions into Lebanon over the past four plus decades had ended without achieving their objectives, with the occupation of southern Lebanon (1985-2000) prompting the formation of Hezbollah.

Among them was Netanyahu biographer Anshel Pfeffer, who remarked:

Israel always knows how it goes into Lebanon. It’s the exit-strategy it seems to struggle with. This government certainly doesn’t have one.

Updated

Israeli journalist Amichai Stein has posted a video that he said showed Israeli strikes hitting the Dahieh suburb of southern Beirut.

At least two explosions have been reported over the area, after the Israeli military issued new instructions ordering residents of three buildings in Dahieh to evacuate immediately.

Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs

Israel carried out two airstrikes in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, just a little over 30 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for residents close to what it said were buildings housing Hezbollah installations.

The sounds of explosions were heard by a Guardian correspondent in Lebanon’s capital city.

At least two Israeli strikes have been reported in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Reuters is reporting.

The BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard says she heard a loud explosion and that her apartment shook.

It comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ordered residents to evacuate three areas in southern Beirut “immediately”.

Updated

While bombing in Lebanon’s south continued, Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued maps of three locations in the southern suburbs of Beirut, instructing residents to evacuate more than 500 metres away. Adraee said in a video posted on Twitter/X:

To those present in the buildings specified in the map and those around them ... You are near [installations] which belong to Hezbollah, for your and your family’s safety, you must evacuate these buildings immediately.

This was at least the second time that Israel instructed residents of Dahieh to evacuate prior to strikes.

On Friday, after carrying out sudden airstrikes which killed former secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, Israel’s military issued similar warnings to residents of the southern Beirut suburbs to leave, bombing the area soon after.

The warnings, and subsequent bombings, almost entirely depopulated Dahieh and caused a wave of displacement within Lebanon’s capital city. Many displaced residents have been sleeping rough since, unable to find accommodation or spaces in government-run shelters.

Updated

A resident in Marjayoun, a town facing the Israel-Lebanon border that was being shelled on Monday night, said that a municipal official had received a phone call ordering the town’s residents to evacuate – similar to phone calls residents Lebanon had been receiving over the last two weeks.

However, before they could evacuate, Israeli shelling of the roads surrounding Marjayoun had already begun. The Marjayoun resident said:

They called the Mukhtar of Marjayoun, and told us we needed to evacuate. But we can’t move, the roads are filled with shelling and airstrikes.

In Rmeish, a Christian border town that has been mostly spared from fighting over the past year, a first responder said that there had been shelling on Ayta al-Shaab, immediately to its west.

“The army moved away from the border back to their barracks,” the first responder said, echoing earlier reports that Lebanese soldiers had pulled back from their posts on the border.

Updated

Footage posted by Israel’s Channel 12 filmed in northern Israel showed a series of powerful detonations lighting up the sky on the Lebanese side of the border.

IDF spokesperson warns Israelis not to publish troop movements

An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson has warned Israelis not to publish information on troop movements following remarks by some rightwing Israeli politicians that indicated a significant military operation may be taking place in southern Lebanon.

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari cited security concerns in a post on Twitter/X. He said:

In recent hours there have been many reports and rumors about IDF activity on the Lebanese border. We ask that no reports be circulated about the activities of the forces.

“Stick to the official reports only and do not spread irresponsible rumors,” he added.

Earlier, Aryeh Deri, leader of the conservative Shas party, published a prayer asking God to protect Israeli troops operating “from the border of Lebanon to the desert of Egypt”.

Updated

A meeting of Israel’s security cabinet convened by Benjamin Netanyahu has ended, the Times of Israel is reporting.

The Israeli prime minister is now consulting with a smaller group of ministers in his office, the outlet reports.

Israeli military orders residents in Beirut suburbs to evacuate before strikes

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has issued evacuation orders for several areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Civilians near several buildings in the Dahieh neighbourhood of southern Beirut should evacuate immediately, the IDF said in a statement.

Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted a map alongside the announcement, showing the buildings in Dahieh.

Updated

The head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has denied knowing that one of its employees, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, was a Hamas commander in Lebanon.

Hamas announced on Monday that the head of its Lebanon branch, Abu el-Amin, was killed along with family members in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.

Abu el-Amin was placed under investigation and suspended from his job at Unrwa in March following allegations concerning his politics, the agency’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said. He told reporters:

The specific allegation at the time was that (he was) a part of the local leadership...I never heard the word commander before. What’s obvious for you today, was not obvious yesterday.

Lazzarini, at a news conference in Geneva, called on UN members states to push back against Israeli attacks on the agency.

The Israeli parliament has been working to declare the UN agency a “terrorist body”, a move that Lazzarini described as “absolutely unconscionable”. The Unrwa chief accused Israel’s government earlier this month of driving a campaign to drive the agency out of existence.

Unrwa, one of the UN’s largest agencies, has 13,000 staff working in Gaza and more than 30,000 in the region providing health and educational facilities to Palestinian refugees.

Families of people who went missing in Israeli strikes on Lebanon have been urged to take DNA tests to identify the remains of loved ones.

A statement by the Lebanese police, reported by AFP, urged families to head fo specialised centres “to conduct DNA tests”, adding that it was:

To help families of those who went missing following the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and to make the process of identifying victims and their remains smoother.

For the past week, Israel has heavily bombed the country’s east, south and southern Beirut suburbs, killing hundreds of people and displacing up to one million.

An AFP correspondent in southern Lebanon reported hospital morgues were filled with unidentified remains.

Updated

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, has repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, after he held a call with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken.

“We’ve both seen the reports in the media about a next phase for Israel in Lebanon,” Lammy told Sky News. He added:

We both agreed the position that we had at the UN last week that the best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution … We both are urging de-escalation at this time.

Lammy urged Britons in Lebanon to leave the country, warning that “the situation on the ground is fast moving”. He added:

Whilst we will do everything we can to protect British nationals - and those plans are in place to do so – we cannot anticipate the circumstances and the speed with which we could do that if things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days.

The Lebanese army has evacuated observation posts at Lebanon’s southern border with Israel and moved to barracks in the border villages, CNN is reporting, citing a Lebanese security source.

It comes after the Israeli military declared a closed military zone around three towns in the far north on its border with Lebanon.

A Lebanese military official told AFP that the Lebanese army is repositioning troops stationed on its southern border.

The Lebanese army is “repositioning and regrouping forces” at the southern border following threats of an Israeli incursion, the official told the new agency.

As my colleague William Christou wrote earlier, Lebanese media is reporting Israeli shelling and firing tanks at border villages adjacent from the area it announced was a closed military border.

Calls for a tougher response from Iran’s reformist-led government redoubled after news that Brig Gen Abbas Nilforushan, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) deputy commander for Lebanon and Syria, had been killed in Beirut alongside the Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah.

The dominant line in Iranian government circles remains that a direct war between Israel and Iran should be avoided as it would play into Benjamin Netanyahu’s hands and draw in the US – but that Hezbollah should not be left to fight alone.

The atmosphere in Iran appeared to have been affected by Netanyahu’s statement that Nasrallah’s death was essential to “change the balance of power in the region”. On Monday, the Israeli prime minister made an explicit call for regime change in Tehran, saying Iran will be “free … a lot sooner than people think”.

Read the full analysis here: The decapitation of Hezbollah leaves Iran weighing its options

Lebanese media has reported that Israel has been shelling and firing tanks at border villages adjacent from the area it announced was a closed military border a few hours before, ahead of a reported Israeli land incursion of south Lebanon.

The area around Khiam and Wizani, both facing the Lebanon-Israel border, have been shelled for at least two hours.

They are both directly east of the closed military area specified by Israel’s military spokesperson late on Monday night.

If Israel did intend to conduct a land invasion across the Lebanese border, shelling and tank fire would likely precede their entry.

Israeli military declares parts of northern border 'closed military zone'

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has declared the areas around the communities of Metula, Misgav Am, and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon as a closed military zone.

Entry to those areas around the communities was prohibited, the IDF said.

It said the decision was taken following a situational assessment and signed off by the chief of Israel’s northern command, Ori Gordin.

Updated

Lebanese troops have pulled back from positions along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, Reuters is reporting, citing local residents and several security sources.

A Lebanese security source told the news agency that Lebanese troops have pulled back to at least five kilometres north of the border.

Another security source said the troops pulled back to larger army bases in the area.

Lebanese army reportedly withdrawing from Israel border area

Reports are coming in that the Lebanese army is in the process of withdrawing from the border area close to Israel, Lebanon’s southern neighbour.

The news agency Reuters has said sources have told them the country’s military is pulling back from “several positions on the southern border with Israel”, while adding that a Lebanese army spokesperson has neither confirmed nor denied such reports.

Separately, Iran-backed Hezbollah has been launching rockets into Israel from the border area and has been the target of heavy attacks from Israel in recent days.

The Lebanese army is part of the official national military of Lebanon, under the control of the central government, and has not been waging a military offensive against Israel since last October, unlike Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is a separate entity with its own military wing that is known to be more powerful than the Lebanese army.

Updated

The United Nations peacekeepers mission in Lebanon, under Security Council Resolution 1701, is to “control the area” and help the Lebanese government and armed forces establish control south of the Litani River, which is around 30km (20 miles) from the border with Israel.

The resolution ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, the AFP writes.

It called for all armed personnel to pull back north of the Litani, except for Lebanese state security forces and United Nations peacekeepers.

While Hezbollah has not had a visible military presence in the border area since then, the group still holds sway over large parts of the south.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said the peacekeepers:

Are able to observe what they can from where they are but they are not doing any road patrols.”

Dujarric said some civilian staff “have been moved north” as a precaution.

We have a contingency plan and we’re looking at the situation hour by hour,” he added.

United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon have been unable to conduct patrols because of the intensity of Israeli strikes and Hezbollah’s rockets targeting Israel, a UN spokesman said earlier today.

With more than 10,000 personnel, the peacekeeping force, Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), has been stationed in Lebanon since 1978, with its role strengthened after a 33-day conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

Our Unifil Blue Helmets remain in position in the mission’s area of responsibility, while the intensity of fighting is preventing their movements and ability to undertake their mandated tasks. Given the intensity of the rockets going back and forth, they are not able to do patrolling,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, told a media briefing.

Even before the dramatic escalation in fighting seen in recent weeks, several Blue Helmets had been wounded in the crossfire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

Updated

Summary of the day so far

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • Israel has launched small, precision raids across the border in Lebanon and a larger ground operation is being planned, AP is reporting, citing two officials. It was not clear if Israel had made a final decision on a broader operation, the news agency reported.

  • Israel has told the US it is planning a “limited” ground operation in Lebanon that could start “imminently”, according to multiple US media reports. A US official said it had looked like Israel was planning a major ground invasion but the plan now appears to have been “significantly scaled down”.

  • Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said that “next phase of the war against Hezbollah will begin soon”, in comments that further indicate that Israel plants to mount a ground invasion of Lebanon. Gallant earlier on Monday told troops in the north of the country that “we will use all of our capabilities – including you”.

  • Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group would shortly appoint a replacement for assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah, and claimed Hezbollah was still only using a fraction of the group’s capabilities to attack Israel. In a defiant address, he boasted of the range of Hezbollah’s weaponry, and said that the group would continue to fight.

  • Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Israel “will not go unpunished for the crimes it has committed”. Nasser Kanaani said “We do not make empty promises. Iran will not leave any aggressive actions of the Zionist regime, which target Iran’s interests, unanswered”.

  • Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a fresh warning to Iran on Monday, saying “there is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach”.

  • A Lebanese solider has been killed by an Israeli drone strike, Lebanon’s army announced. Since Israel stepped up its air attacks, which it says are targeting Hezbollah, in Lebanon 1,000 people are reported to have been killed, with 6,000 more wounded, and one million people displaced from their homes by Israeli strikes

  • Throughout the day Israel’s military continued to report projectiles being fired into northern Israel from the direction of Lebanon. There have been no reports of any casualties. Earlier Israel reported intercepting a UAV out at sea, believed to be targeting infrastructure at the Karish gas field.

  • Yemen’s Houthis said they will escalate military operations against Israel in response to its attacks on the country on Sunday.

  • Germany has evacuated some non-essential staff out of Lebanon, as well as families of embassy workers and German nationals who are medically vulnerable, a statement by the German foreign ministry said on Monday.

  • The UK government has said it is doing “everything we can” to secure seats on commercial flights as it reiterated calls for British nationals to leave Lebanon.

  • The US embassy in Beirut said it is working with airlines “to address US citizens request to depart Lebanon”. The embassy said it will provide additional flights “with seats for personal purchase”.

  • The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell convened an extraordinary informal meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss the EU’s response to the latest escalation

  • While Israel continues airstrikes on Lebanon, its assault on the Gaza Strip also continues, with at least 12 people including journalist Wafa Al-Udaini reported dead in strikes on Monday

  • Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli security forces have detained 45 people in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours

US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller says Washington wants to ultimately see a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

Miller says the US “of course” continues to support a ceasefire but, he says sometimes people “either misinterpret or have their own version of what a ceasefire is.”

A ceasefire is not one side in a conflict unilaterally putting down its arms and stopping the conflict. It is an agreement for both sides to stop the conflict. In this case, what we have proposed is a 21 day ceasefire where both sides would stop attacking the other and we would reach a diplomatic resolution.

He says the US will continue to engage with Israeli and Lebanese counterparts to reach that objective. Miller adds:

Military pressure can, at times, enable diplomacy. Of course, military pressure can also lead to miscalculation. It can lead to unintended consequences, and we’re in conversations with Israel about all these factors now.

Israel tells US it plans limited ground operation focused on Hezbollah infrastructure

The US state department’s spokesperson, Matthew Miller, is holding a briefing with reporters.

Miller says the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and other senior US officials have been monitoring and responding to “unfolding events in the Middle East” over the weekend.

He says he will let Israel “speak to its own military operations”, including the “timing, purpose, tempo of those” operations”. He adds that the US has been engaged in conversations with Israel about those operations.

About reports about Israeli ground operations in Lebanon, Miller says:

We’ve had some conversations with them about that. They have told us that those are limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border, but we’re in continuous conversations with them about it.

Updated

Israeli military says it is 'preparing for next steps in fighting'

The Israeli military said it is “preparing for the next steps in the fighting” in a statement on Monday.

In the statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) added that the chief of Israel’s northern command, Maj Gen Ori Gordin, recently approved tactical battle plans with officers who would potentially be involved in a ground offensive in Lebanon, the Times of Israel reports.

Israel launches small raids across Lebanon border with larger ground operation planned – report

Israel has launched small, precision raids across the border in Lebanon and a larger ground operation is being planned, AP is reporting, citing two officials.

It was not clear if Israel had made a final decision on a broader operation, the news agency reported.

Updated

Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to Iran on Monday that there was nowhere in the Middle East beyond Israel’s reach, two days after Israel’s military killed the leader of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

In a video address, Netanyahu said Israel’s enemy was the Iranian government, not the Iranian people, and that when the government fell, its people would be better off.

Yemen's Houthis say they will escalate military operations against Israel

Yemen’s Houthis said they will escalate military operations against Israel in response to its attacks on the country on Sunday.

On Sunday, Israel bombed Houthi targets in Yemen in strikes that killed at least four people and wounded 29 others, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.

Israel’s military said dozens of aircraft, including fighter jets, had attacked power plants and a seaport in the port city of Hodeidah and the port of Ras Issa.

It was the second such Israeli attack on Yemen in just over two months. In July, Israeli planes struck Houthi military targets near Hodeidah after a Yemeni drone hit Tel Aviv and killed one man.

A spokesperson for the Houthis said after Sunday’s strikes would not cause the Iran-backed group to “abandon Gaza and Lebanon”.

The Pentagon said an unspecified number of American troops have been put on prepare to deploy orders. Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday:

[US secretary of state Lloyd] Austin increased the readiness of additional US forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies. I’m just not going to get into specifics for [operational security] reasons, but these forces cover a wide range of capabilities and missions.

The US and Israel are still in discussions “about the best way forward”, Singh said in response to questions about whether Israel was planning a ground invasion in Lebanon. She said:

We’re continuing to engage with them, trying to learn more. We continue discussions on the best way forward.

Syria’s foreign minister, Bassam Sabbagh, has warned that Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, Gaza, the occupied Golan Heights and his own country are propelling the region to the edge of perilous “escalation and confrontation”.

Sabbagh was addressing the UN general assembly on Monday, where he urged all countries to work toward ending “Israeli aggression” and to hold Israel accountable, AP reported.

The Syrian minister accused the US and other, unnamed nations of giving Israel “immunity, impunity, and unlimited support”. Sabbagh said:

This large-scale Israeli aggression, which is unfettered by any restrictions and limitations, is pushing the region to the brink of a dangerous escalation and confrontation whose consequences cannot be predicted.

Updated

The US has observed positioning of Israeli troops that suggests that a ground incursion into Lebanon could be imminent, a US official has told Reuters.

The official declined to offer further details on the posture of Israeli forces and declined further comment, according to Reuters.

Updated

Netanyahu to convene Israel's security cabinet for evening meeting

Benjamin Netanyahu will convene ministers from Israel’s security cabinet this evening, according to his office.

After the meeting, the Israeli leader will hold consultations with several ministers, Amichai Stein of Israel’s Kan news reports, amid increasing speculation that Israel could imminently launch a ground incursion into Lebanon.

Updated

Israel appears ready to mount a limited ground invasion of southern Lebanon, the Washington Post is reporting, citing a US official.

According to the paper, the US official said it had looked like Israel was planning a major ground invasion. But the plan now appears to have been “significantly scaled down”, the paper writes.

The Israeli plan in southern Lebanon will be focused on “clearing out Hezbollah infrastructure near Israeli border communities”, including “destroying Hezbollah tunnels, rocket launchers, weapons caches and other infrastructure”, the US official said.

Israel has indicated that they would conduct “limited raids in a number of villages along the border”, the US official said, citing discussions within the Biden administration over the weekend.

Israel will then pull its forces back, the US official said. The Israeli strategic purpose is to “ensure that Hezbollah cannot sustain its capacity to attack Israeli communities on the other side of the border”, the paper wrote.

The paper quoted an Israeli familiar with military deliberations who corroborated the US official’s account. The Israeli source said:

Israel has plans for a limited operation that will be imminent. They are in line with the Americans. The understanding is that they are not going to do another Gaza.

As we reported earlier, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, appeared to hint on Monday at a possible ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Gallant, in a video statement, told armoured corps near the border with Lebanon that Israel will do whatever it takes to return its citizens to evacuated communities on its northern border safely.

Here’s a clip of Gallant’s statement:

Air France is suspending flights between Paris and Tel Aviv, and between Paris and Beirut, until 8 October due to concerns over the regional security situation, according to the airline.

Hezbollah said it fired a “Nour Missile” at Israel, which sources familiar with the Shia militant group told Reuters is a ballistic missile.

It was the first time they have used the missile, the statement said.

The missile hit the village of Kafr Giladi in northern Israel, the Hezbollah statement said, adding that it had fired it in response to “Israeli violations of cities, villages, and civilians.”

Biden suggested he wants Israel to stop moves towards a ground offensive

US president Joe Biden called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, as he indicated he was opposed to a potential Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.

Asked if he was comfortable with Israel’s plan for a limited ground invasion of Lebanon, Biden replied:

I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now.

Updated

Israel's defence minister says the 'next phase' of war against Hezbollah will 'begin soon'

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that “next phase of the war against Hezbollah will begin soon”, in comments that further indicate that Israel plants to mount a ground invasion of Lebanon.

Gallant, in a meeting of local council heads in northern Israel on Monday, reported by the Times of Israel, said:

The next stage in the war against Hezbollah will begin soon … We will do this. And as I said here a month ago [that] we will shift the center of gravity [to the north], this is what I say now: We will change the situation and return the residents home.

As we reported earlier, Gallant hinted of an Israeli ground incursion of Lebanon as he addressed troops on Monday.

CBS is also now reporting that Israel has notified the US that it intends to launch a limited ground incursion into Lebanon, according to a US official, after a report by the Washington Post.

That operation could start as soon as today, the US official told CBS, the BBC reported.

Updated

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, saud he had spoken to his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, about “recent developments in West Asia”.

India is “committed to supporting efforts for an early restoration of peace and stability,” Modi wrote in a post on X.

Terrorism has no place in our world. It is crucial to prevent regional escalation and ensure the safe release of all hostages.

Netanyahu warns Iran that 'there is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach'

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a fresh warning to Iran on Monday, saying “there is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach”.

Netanyahu, in a video statement in English, addressed the people of Iran and warned that their government was bringing them “closer to the abyss”. Netanyahu said:

There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.

He said Iran and Israel would be at peace when Iran is “finally free”, which he said would “come a lot sooner than people think”. “Everything will be different,” he said.

Our two countries, Israel and Iran, will be at peace. Iran will thrive as never before.

French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Lebanon must elect a president as soon as possible.

“The Lebanese must look solid,” Barrot told reporters at a news conference in Lebanon.

We will support the army of Lebanon … In these painful circumstances, France will stay for the side of Lebanon and the Lebanese.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, met with Barrot in Beirut earlier on Monday. According to a statement from his office, Mikati said:

The key to the solution is to put an end to the Israeli aggression against Lebanon and to revive the appeal launched by the United States and France... in favour of a ceasefire.

French foreign minister urges Israel against Lebanon ground offensive during Beirut visit

The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has been holding a news conference during a visit to Lebanon.

Barrot urged all parties to accept the 21-day ceasefire proposal submitted by his president, Emmanuel Macron, and the US president, Joe Biden.

The proposal was “still there on the table to be discussed”, he told reporters. “There is hope, but time is very limited.” He added:

I urge Israel to stop any ground incursion and to stop firing, and I urge Hezbollah to not make any step that will lead to the destabilisation of the security in the region.

Updated

Filippo Grandi, the UN’s high commissioner for refugees, said the number of people crossing into Syria from Lebanon had reached 100,000.

Israel tells US it is planning 'imminent ground operation' in Lebanon - report

Israel has told the US it is planning a “limited” ground operation in Lebanon that could start “imminently”, the Washington Post has reported, citing a US official.

The US official told the paper that Israel’s planned campaign would be “smaller than its last war against Hezbollah in 2006” and would focus on “clearing out militant infrastructure along the border to remove the threat to Israeli border communities”.

The US embassy in Beirut said it is working with airlines “to address US citizens request to depart Lebanon”.

Posting to X, the US embassy said it will provide additional flights “with seats for personal purchase”.

The US embassy also urged American citizens currently in Lebanon to depart “while commercial options still remain available”, and that they should “exercise security awareness of their surroundings, maintain a low profile, and take appropriate measures to ensure their safety and security.”

On Sunday, some employees at the US embassy in Beirut and their family members were ordered to leave Lebanon.

A US state department statement on Sunday said:

US Embassy Beirut personnel are restricted from personal travel without advance permission. Additional travel restrictions may be imposed on U.S. personnel under Chief of Mission security responsibility, with little to no notice due to increased security issues or threats.

Germany has evacuated some non-essential staff out of Lebanon, as well as families of embassy workers and German nationals who are medically vulnerable, a statement by the German foreign ministry said on Monday.

The German foreign ministry raised its crisis level for missions in Beirut, Ramallah and Tel Aviv again at the weekend, though the embassies there remain operational, Reuters reported.

There are currently 1,800 German citizens in Lebanon who have registered on the ministry’s emergency preparedness Elefand list, a spokesperson for the ministry said.

According to the German news agency dpa, a ministry spokesperson said it was assisting people seeking to leave Lebanon but that “we are not explicitly in an evacuation scenario” right now.

Summary of the day so far …

  • Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, appears to have hinted that Israel intends to mount a ground invasion of Lebanon, after he told troops in the north of the country that “We will use all of our capabilities – including you”. Gallant said that returning Israelis to their homes in the north – about 60,000 have been forced to evacuate by repeated rocket fire from Lebanon – was “the mission of the IDF”

  • Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem issued a defiant statement, saying that the group would shortly appoint a replacement for assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah, and claimed Hezbollah was still only using a fraction of the group’s capabilities to attack Israel. He boasted of the range of Hezbollah’s weaponry, and said that the group would continue to fight. He suggested that any other organisation subjected to the pager and walkie-talkie sabotage attack in Lebanon would have collapsed, but Hezbollah did not. The attack, which killed dozens and injured thousands of others, has been widely attributed to an Israeli attempt to target Hezbollah operatives

  • Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson has said Israel “will not go unpunished for the crimes it has committed”. Nasser Kanaani said “We do not make empty promises. Iran will not leave any aggressive actions of the Zionist regime, which target Iran’s interests, unanswered”

  • A Lebanese solider has been killed by an Israeli drone strike, Lebanon’s army has announced. Since Israel stepped up its air attacks, which it says are targeting Hezbollah, in Lebanon 1,000 people are reported to have been killed, with 6,000 more wounded, and one million people displaced from their homes by Israeli strikes

  • Throughout the day Israel’s military has continued to report projectiles being fired into northern Israel from the direction of Lebanon. There have been no reports of any casualties. Earlier Israel reported intercepting a UAV out at sea, believed to be targeting infrastructure at the Karish gas field

  • The UK government has said it is doing “everything we can” to secure seats on commercial flights as it reiterated calls for British nationals to leave Lebanon

  • The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell convened an extraordinary informal meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss the EU’s response to the latest escalation

  • While Israel continues airstrikes on Lebanon, its assault on the Gaza Strip also continues, with at least 12 people including journalist Wafa Al-Udaini reported dead in strikes on Monday

  • Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli security forces have detained 45 people in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours

Here are some of the latest pictures from Lebanon over the news wires.

Israeli media reports that the latest barrage fired towards Israel from the direction Lebanon consisted of 25 projectiles heading towards western Galilee.

Lebanese army announces soldier killed by Israeli drone strike

A Lebanese solider has been killed by an Israeli drone strike, Lebanon’s army has announced.

The National News Agency reports that in a statement the army said “one of the soldiers was martyred as a result of an Israeli enemy drone targeting a motorcycle”. It said the incident happened at a checkpoint.

Israel has claimed it is targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. So far, since Israel stepped up its aerial bombardment of Lebanon, about 1,000 people have been killed and 6,000 injured, with the government stating that one million Lebanese people have been forced to flee their homes.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli security forces have detained 45 people in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours. It states that the total number of people detained by Israeli forces since 7 October now exceeds 11,000.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Britain has said that all sides should seek de-escalation and a ceasefire after Israeli strikes on Lebanon, adding that arms export licences to Israel are held under “constant review”.

A spokesperson for prime minister Keir Starmer said that Britain’s support for Israel’s right to self-defence was “ironclad” but that only a ceasefire could restore stability and security to the region.

“Clearly we stood with Israel previously. We do repeatedly say that Israel has the right to defend itself, but our focus now is on a ceasefire, and we call on all sides to show restraint, to step back from the brink and avoid any further escalation,” he said.

He was also asked about arms export licences. In response, the spokesperson said: “It’s slightly distinct, the arms export criteria specifically in legislation, but it’s kept under constant review, and the UK is continually obliged to review its position on that, and obviously we’ll continue to do so and provide any updates if anything was to change in that.”

The British government has said it is doing “everything we can” to secure seats on commercial flights as it reiterated calls for British nationals to leave Lebanon, PA Media reports.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “The prime minister has been very, very clear that British nationals should leave now, particularly whilst commercial flights are still available.

“We’re doing everything we can to work with commercial airlines to maximise capacity because we want people to leave, and I understand that there have been extra Middle East Airlines flights leaving Lebanon over the weekend, another scheduled for Tuesday and we have secured seats for British nationals on those flights.”

The spokesperson added: “What we’re focused on at the moment is securing extra spaces on commercial flights for those who do want to leave and reiterating our calls for those to leave and to register their presence with us and book the first available flights. We’re also working to send a rapid deployment team to bolster the efforts of our embassy in supporting British nationals who want to leave.”

Asked why an evacuation has not started, the spokesperson said: “We’ve been clear whilst there are commercial flights available, British nationals can and, indeed, should leave.”

The spokesperson also pointed to the deployment of 700 troops, alongside Border Force and Foreign Office officials, to Cyprus to continue work on “all contingency options and plan for a range of scenarios in the region”.

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has said it is important to preserve Lebanon’s sovereignty and to intensify efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, Reuters reports.

45 killed by Israeli strike in southern Lebanese town of Ain Deleb

The death toll from an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Ain Deleb has risen to 45, Reuters reports, citing Lebanon’s health ministry.

Iran: Israel 'will not go unpunished for the crimes it has committed'

Al Jazeera is carrying a fuller version of Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson’s quotes from earlier, in which he said Israel “will not go unpunished for the crimes it has committed.”

Nasser Kanaani said during a news briefing:

We do not make empty promises, we have shown in practice that we stand firmly against aggressors who intend to violate Iran’s national security, and our response will be regretful for them.

Iran will not leave any aggressive actions of the Zionist regime, which target Iran’s interests, unanswered. This regime will not go unpunished for the crimes it has committed, and Iran will take appropriate measures in response.

Israel's defense minister tells ground troops in north 'We will use all of our capabilities – including you'

Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, appears to have hinted that Israel intends to mount a ground invasion of Lebanon, after he told troops in the north of the country that “We will use all of our capabilities – including you.”

Gallant said that returning Israelis to their homes in the north – about 60,000 have been forced to evacuate by repeated rocket fire from Lebanon – was “the mission of the IDF.”

He continued:

That is what we will do, and we will deploy whatever is needed – you, other forces, from the air, from the sea, and from the land.

He described the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as “a very important step, but that’s not all.”

Earlier, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem issued a defiant statement, saying that the group would shortly appoint a replacement for Nasrallah, and claimed Hezbollah was still only using a fraction of the group’s capabilities to attack Israel.

He boasted of the range of Hezbollah’s weaponry, and said that the group would continue to fight. He suggested that any other organisation subjected to the pager and walkie-talkie sabotage attack in Lebanon would have collapsed, but Hezbollah did not. The attack, which killed dozens and injured thousands of others, has been widely attributed to an Israeli attempt to target Hezbollah operatives.

While Israel continues airstrikes on Lebanon, its assault on Gaza also continues, with 12 people including a journalist reported dead in strikes on Monday. In Lebanon 1,000 people are reported to have been killed, with 6,000 more wounded, and one million people displaced from their homes by Israeli strikes.

Over the weekend Israel attacked targets in the Houthi-controlled region of Yemen, and on Monday morning there were reports of explosions in Damascus in Syria.

Reuters reports that 12 people, including journalist Wafa Al-Udaini, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza today. It cited Palestinian health officials.

Udaini’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in the Israeli offensive since 7 October to 174, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists puts the figure slightly lower, at 116 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October, which still makes it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.

It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

Germany’s foreign spokesperson has said that Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, via an airstrike on a residential area of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, was use of Israel’s right to self-defence.

Reuters reports the spokesperson said:

Hezbollah is of course a terrorist organization and it was obviously a meeting of the top leadership of Hezbollah, from which one can assume, even from a distance, that they were planning their further operations. So in this respect, there are also reasons to believe that the right to self-defence was exercised here.

Lebanon will hold a parliamentary session to elect a new president as soon as a ceasefire in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel takes hold, Retuers reports the caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said on Monday after talks with the house speaker. Lebanon has been without a president since October 2022, when the term of Michel Aoun ended.

Russia's condemns Israeli killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and 'heavy casualties' caused in residential areas

The Kremlin on Monday condemned the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli air attack last week, Reuters reports.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Nasrallah’s death had led to a serious destabilisation in the broader region. He said the bombing of residential areas in Lebanon had caused heavy casualties and would create a humanitarian catastrophe akin to the one in Gaza.

Israel’s military has issued a statement about the killing of Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon, who the organisation earlier said was killed in an airstrike.

In the statement, Israel said:

Overnight, during a joint IDF and ISA intelligence-based activity, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist Fatah Sharif, head of the Lebanon branch in the Hamas terrorist organisation.

Sharif was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives. He was also responsible for Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.

He led the Hamas terrorist organization’s force buildup efforts in Lebanon and operated to advance Hamas’ interests in Lebanon, both politically and militarily.

The IDF and the ISA will to continue to operate against anyone who poses a threat to the civilians of the state of Israel.

In another part of his address, the Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said that Israeli tactics against the organisation consisted of “two tracks”.

He said:

To our families and our beloved ones, I know the sacrifice is great. And the enemy works on two tracks. One to attack the military capabilities and the leaders of the resistance. The other track to hit the towns, villages and civilians, to create a rift between the resistance and the people.

The Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem did not announce replacements for any of the senior figures recently assassinated by Israel, but said the matter was in hand.

He said “in our hierarchy, we have deputies for all commanders. We have other alternatives in case the leader was killed or got injured.”

He added “We will choose a secretary general for Hezbollah sooner [rather] than later, according to the mechanism put in to select the new secretary general. And all the posts, all the vacancies will be filled.”

Defiant statement by Hezbollah deputy secretary-general says group will continue to fight

Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, in an address, has claimed Israel is committing massacres of civilians in Lebanon with the full support of the US, that Hezbollah ‘love martyrdom’, and that any other organisation would have collapsed in the face of the attacks launched at it by Israel, but it did not. He pledged the group would continue to fight Israel and “victory will be ours”.

He said

Israel is committing crimes and massacres in every part of Lebanon. Israel has chosen particular villages and towns and houses, and every house has the traces of the Israeli aggression. Israel attacks the civilians, the medics. Israel attacks everyone who walks in the streets and, everyone who stays in the houses. They are not fighters. The Israeli forces are killing, committing massacres and crimes against the civilians

The US administration is supporting Israel by all means, and America is a partner with Israel in everything, through the unlimited military support, all types and kinds of support, culturally, politically, economically. And if Israel thinks that determination to be brutal and to continue aggressions, then Israel is deluded. The pains are there, the sacrifices are there. But everyone must know that we love martyrdom.

He went on to say:

We have sacrificed a lot since the pager operations and the martyrdom of the leaders and the martyrdom of the leader. If this happens anywhere else, these organisations will collapse, but we did not. We are going on despite the pains and the sacrifices. We are going on because we have the hope and we trust Allah almighty to be victorious. We are the people of jihad.

He boasted of Hezbollah’s reach into Israel and ability to target places like Haifa, and said that just one missile had caused a large number of Israelis to flee their homes.

He said that Hezbollah would continue to fight, saying:

We are all there in the field, despite the loss of some leaders and Hassan Nasrallah the main target, and despite the aggressive attacks against all the civilians in Lebanon, despite the sacrifices and the actions that are aimed to create chaos in our front. We will stay there. We will be steadfast. We will continue the Islamic resistance. We will continue facing the Israeli enemy in support of Palestine and Gaza and in defence of our Lebanese people.

He suggested that Hezbollah was currently using “the minimum efforts from our side” and said that “We are strong enough, and we will turn the Israelis mad because they will never, ever be able to reach and hit and hurt our military capabilities.”

He finished by saying “We need to be patient. We need some time. But the tools and equipment are there. Allah almight asked us to prepare the tools and the equipment and inshallah, this is happening, and this will happen, and peace be upon you all.”

  • Please note this is a transcription of the address as it was being translated live into English.

Updated

Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem giving address

Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem has begun an address, and said the group lost a brother and a leader when Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. He has offered condolences to the families of everybody who was killed in the same strike.

Reuters reports, citing the state news agency WAM, that the UAE is to pledge an urgent relief aid package worth $100m (£74.5m / €89.3m) to Lebanon.

While Israel steps up its attacks on targets inside Lebanon to its north, the Israeli military also continues operations in Gaza to its south-west. Hani Mahmoud reporting for Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, tells the news network:

Since this morning, we’ve been seeing funeral after funeral in the halls of the hospital. And there are more bodies still in the morgue as officials are waiting for family members to arrive and take them for burial. Additionally, more shelters have been attacked by Israel, deepening the trauma as it plays out this psychological warfare. The Palestinians’ sense of safety is shattered by these attacks.

Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which has also raided and closed the network’s officie in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

There are multiple unconfirmed reports of explosions being heard in Damascus in Syria.

More details soon …

Our video team have put together this report on Israel’s attack against the Houthi-controlled Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

Israel’s military has stated on its official Telegram channel that in the last hour about 35 projectiles have crossed into northern Israel from Lebanon. It said “several projectiles were intercepted and the rest fell in open areas”. There are no reports of any casualties.

There are media reports that Hezbollah deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, will be giving a speech at noon local time (9am GMT).

More details soon …

Iran will not leave any of “the criminal acts” of Israel unanswered, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a weekly news conference on Monday, Reuters reports.

In other Iranian reaction, the Tasnim news agency quotes head of the Iranian government information council, Elias Hazrati, saying:

We will show the defeat of Israel to the people of the world. The experience of the past several decades shows that the page will return.

Hezbollah’s foundations are so strong that there is no possibility of disruption on its path. Hezbollah has kicked Israel out of Lebanon many times. A terrorist who should have been arrested is now ordering assassinations from the United Nation.

Hezbollah has not used its weapons and now it must start. The Islamic Republic of Iran stands by the people of Lebanon and Hezbollah, and we use all our capacity to help Hezbollah and the people of Lebanon.

Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Lebanon over the news wires.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is convening an extraordinary informal meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday to discuss the EU’s response to the latest escalation in Lebanon, Rueters reports an EU spokesperson said on Monday.

Here is the latest round-up of news from the Middle East crisis from my colleague Peter Beaumont:

Israel’s rapidly expanding war on multiple fronts saw it strike central Beirut for the first time since 2006 early on Monday, after heavy Israeli air strikes involving dozens of aircraft bombed Yemen hours earlier in a long range raid.

The latest strike came as the UN reported some 100,000 people had fled Lebanon for Syria since the latest escalation in the war and as CNN quoted an unnamed figure in the Biden administration saying that the US has changed it military posture in the Middle East amid concerns Iran might attack Israel in response for Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s ling time leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.

The Beirut strike targeted three senior figures in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group associated with a series of high profile aircraft hijackings in the 1970s.

The left wing faction, which has not played a significant role in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, said that its military and security commanders in Lebanon, and a third member, were killed in the attack.

Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, and elsewhere continued on Monday as the Palestinian militant group Hamas said its leader in Lebanon was killed Monday in a strike on the country’s south.

Monday’s airstrike comes after Lebanon’s health ministry said 105 people had been killed and another 359 injured by Israeli strikes across the country on Sunday. More than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, it said, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes.

Here is the video clip of US president Joe Biden saying “a broader war in the Middle East had to be averted”. Despite diplomatic efforts the US, Egypt and Qatar have been unable to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in Gaza since the 2023 deal ended ten months ago on 30 November.

Itay Blumental, who is military correspondent at Israel’s Channel 11, reports on social media that the UAV intercepted earlier by Israel’s military was targeted at infrastructure in the Karish gas field out at sea. Israel’s military has also issued a video which it says shows the interception. The Karish gas field belongs to Israel as part of a deal brokered with Lebanon over disputed waters in 2022.

Reuters and Lebanon’s National News Agency are both also reporting an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Since Israel stepped up its campaign in its north in the past two weeks, more than 1,000 Lebanese people have been killed and 6,000 wounded. Lebanon’s government has said a million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes. About 60,000 people in northern Israel have been forced to evacuate due to Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces launchiung rockets into the north of the country.

There are unconfirmed media reports, including from Israeli army radio, that Israel has again struck at the southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon.

More details soon …

Israel’s military has reported on its official Telegram channel that it intercepted a UAV that had crossed into Israel’s territorial water in the north. The claim has not been independently verified.

Israeli media outlet Haaretz reports that families of those being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas have gathered to protest in Jerusalem outside the residence of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for a ceasefire deal and their release.

On 7 October 2023 about 250 people were seized in southern Israel and taken hostage. Nearly a year later, Israeli authorities believe that about 100 of them are still in captivity in Gaza.

Hamas says its leader in Lebanon has been killed

Hamas said on Monday that its leader in Lebanon had been killed in an airstrike in the country’s south, as official media reported a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp.

“Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, the leader of Hamas … in Lebanon and member of the movement’s leadership abroad” was killed in a strike on his “home in the Al-Bass camp in south Lebanon”, a Hamas statement said.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported an airstrike on the camp near the southern city of Tyre.

Israel accused of rare central Beirut strike

A Palestinian militant group said three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli attack on central Beirut early on Monday, in what would be the first time Israel’s military had struck the centre of Lebanon’s capital city since 2006.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group taking part in the fight against Israel, said three senior figures were killed in the Beirut attack, with initial footage from the scene showing two storeys of an apartment building completely blown out, and onlookers running towards the building.

Two bodies could be seen lying on the street atop a car outside the building, seemingly ejected by the force of the blast. The sound of the explosion was heard around the city.

There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military.

The Beirut strike, carried out using a drone, according to one source quoted by Agence France-Presse, hit near the Kola intersection, a popular reference point in the city, where taxis and buses gather to pick up passengers.

A hundred munitions – including, it is believed, US-made 2,000lb bombs – were used by the Israeli air force in Friday evening’s overwhelming air raid that killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an underground complex hidden in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh.

Nasrallah, who was careful to the point of paranoia about his security arrangements and only rarely appeared in public, would have given little notice of his plan to undertake the fateful trip to the meeting.

But the intelligence penetration of Hezbollah was so deep that Israel knew Nasrallah and other surviving members of Hezbollah’s already decimated leadership would be meeting at the supposedly secret location – and that an order to bomb them could be given.

Benjamin Netanyahu was required to give permission to undertake the attack from New York, where the Israeli prime minister had given a bellicose speech at the UN general assembly. There was, presumably, felt to be little time to wait.

According to an unsubstantiated report in the French newspaper Le Parisien, the mole who informed the Israelis that Nasrallah was on his way to the bunker was Iranian. If true, it would be eye-catching, given that Iran is Hezbollah’s principal backer.

Key event

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

Palestinian militant group Hamas has said that its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, was killed along with some of his family members in an Israeli strike in the south of the country.

It comes as another Palestinian group announced that three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, which if confirmed would be the first attack within the Lebanese capital’s city limits since 2006.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said the three leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut’s Kola district. The strike hit the upper floor of an apartment building in the Kola district of Lebanon’s capital, Reuters witnesses said.

There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military.

More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.

  • More than 100 people were killed across Lebanon by Israeli strikes on Sunday, according to the country’s health ministry. It said more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes.

  • Israel said it bombed Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday. The airstrikes on Yemen’s port of Hodeidah were a response to Houthi missile attacks on Israel in recent days, Israel said. The Houthi-run health ministry said at least four people were killed and 29 wounded. Images from Hodeidah showed parts of the city covered in a massive pall of dust, and towering explosions in the distance.

  • Hezbollah confirmed that Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of the militant group’s central council, was killed on Saturday, making him the seventh senior Hezbollah leader slain in Israeli strikes in a little over a week. The group also confirmed that Ali Karaki, another senior commander, died in the airstrike on Friday strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah denied claims that Abu Ali Rida, the commander of the group’s Bader Unit in south Lebanon had been killed. Rida is the last remaining senior military commander of Hezbollah that remains alive.

  • White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon had “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure, but he warned the group will work quickly to rebuild it. President Joe Biden said Sunday he would speak soon with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and believes that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided.

  • Israel on Sunday vowed to keep up its assault. “We need to keep hitting Hezbollah hard,” Israel’s military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said. Israel’s military said it struck dozens of targets in Lebanon including launchers and weapons stores and had intercepted eight projectiles coming from the direction of Lebanon and one from the Red Sea. It also said dozens of Israeli aircraft had attacked power plants and Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports in Yemen, accusing the Houthis of operating under Iran’s direction and in cooperation with Iraqi militias.

  • The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has broken his silence on Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah. On Sunday, Syria’s state-run outlet Sana quoted Assad as saying: “We are certain that the Lebanese national resistance will continue on the path of struggle and justice in the face of the occupation, and will continue to support the Palestinian people in their struggle for their just cause.”

  • Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel should not be allowed to attack countries in the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” one after the other. Pezeshkian, in comments carried by state media, said Lebanon should be supported. An Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander, Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in the attack that killed Nasrallah in Beirut. Pezeshkian said “we cannot accept such actions and they will not be left unanswered. A decisive reaction is necessary.”

  • Saudi Arabia has stressed the “need to preserve Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. In a statement released on Sunday amid Israel’s deadly airstrikes, the Saudi foreign ministry said it was “following with great concern the developments taking place in Lebanon”.

  • Israeli opposition lawmaker Gideon Saar rejoined Netanyahu’s government on Sunday, a step that is likely to strengthen the Israeli prime minister politically. Saar, who has been one of Netanyahu’s most vocal critics in the past few years, is due to serve as a minister without a portfolio and have a seat in the prime minister’s security cabinet, Israeli media reported. Expanding the government to include Saar’s strengthens Netanyahu by making him less reliant on other members of his ruling coalition, which has been struggling in the polls.

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