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Summary of the day
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
At least 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured as a result of the explosions on Wednesday, according to officials. A source in Hezbollah confirmed that walkie-talkies used by the group were targeted in the attack. Several solar power systems exploded in people’s homes across Lebanon, according to the National News Agency.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed in a brief statement on Wednesday to return tens of thousands of residents evacuated from northern border areas to their homes.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, declared the start of a “new phase” of the war with a focus on the northern front. Gallant, speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, did not mention the explosions of devices in Lebanon but he praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, noting that the “results are very impressive”. The head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said Israel has drawn up plans for additional action against Hezbollah and is ready to strike.
Wednesday’s explosions took place a day after more than 2,800 were injured and 12 killed by exploding pagers, including a 10-year-old girl. Here’s what we know about the attack on Tuesday.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for Tuesday’s attack. Hezbollah on Tuesday promised a “fair punishment” for the explosion. Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected to give a speech on Thursday. Reports suggest Israel managed to place explosives in thousands of pagers bought by Hezbollah.
The US was not involved “in any way” in the wave of explosions that took place in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, the White House said. National security adviser John Kirby told reporters on that it was “too soon to know” if the explosions aimed at Hezbollah across recent days would have an impact on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. US military officials are reportedly re-examining how its forces are positioned in the region in case of retaliation. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said 15 out of 18 paragraphs of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas have been agreed, and insisted that progress on negotiations had been made during the last few weeks, despite there being no respite in Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah said it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets on Wednesday in the first cross-border attack since the Tuesday pager blasts. An Israeli journalist said a barrage of 10 rockets was fired from Lebanon at western Galilee, causing no injuries.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, was “deeply alarmed” by reports that a large number of communication devices exploded across Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday and Wednesday. The UN security council will meet on Friday to discuss the wave of device explosions across Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said those responsible for the explosions “must be held to account”.
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, described the pager detonations in Lebanon as “extremely worrying”, and said they had caused “heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians.”
An Israeli airstrike on a school turned shelter in Gaza killed five people, Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday. It is the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced Palestinians. The Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
Saudi Arabia will not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, said on Wednesday as he condemned the “crimes of the Israeli occupation” against the Palestinian people.
Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, ruled out his country accepting any changes to the agreed border security arrangements with Gaza, including the operation of the Rafah crossing.
The UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly to direct Israel to leave the occupied Palestinian territories within a year, a symbolic step exposing Israel’s continued international isolation. The non-binding vote follows a historic advisory ruling in July by the international court of justice (ICJ) urging Israel to cease “its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as soon as possible and stop all settlement activity there immediately”.
Germany denied any arms boycott to Israel after earlier reports it had halted new exports of weapons of war to Israel. Reuters reported that Berlin had stopped work on approving export licences for arms to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, citing a source close to the German economy ministry.
The US issued a new round of Iran sanctions on Wednesday targeting 12 individuals who it said were tied to Tehran’s “ongoing, violent repression of the Iranian people,” including its “brutal crackdown on peaceful protests.”
