Summary of the day
An Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday killed at least 14 people and injured 66 others, in what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said was a targeted assassination of a senior Hezbollah leader.
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
At least 14 people were killed and 66 injured as a result of the Israeli strike in Beirut, according to Lebanese authorities. It was the third time that the Lebanese capital has been hit by an Israeli airstrike since fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started in October last year.
The Israeli military said the strike killed Ibrahim Aqil, one of the last founder members of Hezbollah’s military wing to have survived more than 40 years of conflict with Israel. Israel said Aqil, the leader of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan special forces, was killed along with 10 other senior commanders of the unit.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Israel’s attacks would continue after the Beirut strike. “The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” Gallant posted on X.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has postponed his trip to the US by a day due to the security situation in the country’s north. Netanyahu was due to travel to New York on 24 September, during which he is expected to address the annual UN general assembly. He issued a short statement after the Beirut airstrike, saying: “Our goals are clear, and our actions speak for themselves.”
Friday’s strike was the latest in a series of attacks that rocked Lebanon this week. Earlier this week, at least 42 people were killed and more than 3,000 people wounded in a two-stage operation that made thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies commonly carried by Hezbollah members explode simultaneously.
On Thursday night, Israel launched the most intense series of airstrikes in southern Lebanon since October. Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes on border villages across the south, marking what the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said was the beginning of a new phase in the war.
The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, denounced the pager and walkie-talkie attacks in Lebanon, saying that they violated international law and could constitute a war crime. The UN’s political affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, warned that if violence continues between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, then “we risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far.”
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, discussed preparations to evacuate remaining Britons from Lebanon, having already urged UK nationals to leave the country given the hostilities with Israel. The White House said Americans were strongly urged not to travel to Lebanon or to leave if they are already there.
Downing Street fears it is to be asked to support the issue of an international criminal court (ICC) arrest warrant for the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel submitted on Friday formal challenges to the ICC over its jurisdiction and the legality of arrest warrant requests against Israeli leaders for their conduct of the Gaza war. In the short term, No 10 is said to be most concerned by the explosive political fallout if the ICC issues an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
The US president, Joe Biden, said a ceasefire deal in Gaza is still realistic amid the escalating tensions in the region. “We’re going to keep at it until we get it done, but we’ve got a way to go,” Biden said in his first comments on the situation since the wave of explosions targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The White House said it has seen “deeply disturbing” footage of Israeli soldiers pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the latest in a series of suspected violations by Israeli forces since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that rights groups say show a pattern of excessive force toward Palestinians.
The UN’s human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territory has condemned footage showing what appeared to be bodies of Palestinians pushed by Israeli troops from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.
Posting to X, it said:
Unnecessary or disrespectful treatment of human remains is not consistent with the protection of the basic human dignity of the dead and could amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of the deceased men’s families.
We condemn the desecration of the bodies of Palestinians by Israeli security forces yesterday, 19 Sept, in Qabatiya, Jenin. Videos show bodies being kicked and thrown off the roof for bulldozers to take them away. Unnecessary or disrespectful treatment of human remains is not…
— UN Human Rights Palestine (@OHCHR_Palestine) September 20, 2024
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