This blog is now closed. You can read our latest report on Israel’s strikes on Lebanon here and all our coverage from the region here.
Ten killed in Israeli strikes on northern Gaza school – report
Further to our earlier post here, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, is reporting that 10 civilians were killed and 30 others injured in attacks carried out by Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip.
At least 10 civilians were killed and 30 others were injured today as a result of the Israeli occupation artillery shelling of Jabalia Preparatory School, which houses displaced people in Jabalia camp, north of the Gaza Strip.
Local sources said that medical teams recovered the bodies of at least 10 slain Palestinians and a number of wounded in Israeli artillery shelling of Jabalia Preparatory School in the Al-Fawqa area schools square, which is a Unrwa shelter for displaced people in Jabalia camp, north of the Gaza Strip.
Medical sources indicated that 57 citizens were killed in the occupation raids on the Gaza Strip since dawn today, 44 of them in the north of the Strip.
The UN warned Monday that almost no aid is entering the besieged Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, where a two-week Israeli military campaign has killed hundreds of people and left thousands trapped, CNN reports.
“Almost no humanitarian aid is getting into (the) Jabalia refugee camp and telecommunications are severely disrupted amid ongoing air strikes, shelling and fighting across north Gaza, as the violence displaces more and more people,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said at a briefing.
Secretary-General @antonioguterres condemns the continuing and widespread loss of life in #Gaza. From the noon briefing today: pic.twitter.com/mPoefQXNHv
— UN Spokesperson (@UN_Spokesperson) October 21, 2024
Requests by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to enter the Al-Faluja area of Jabalia to help those trapped under rubble had been denied by Israeli authorities for four consecutive days, Haq told the briefing. He also said a request by OCHA Monday to distribute food, medicine and fuel in the Jabalia camp was denied.
Only four out of 66 planned humanitarian missions from southern to northern Gaza had been facilitated by Israeli authorities since the start of October, Haq added.
“We reiterate once again that these delays are likely costing lives,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into the strip, insists that supplies are reaching Gaza. In a post on X on Monday, it said that that in the past 24 hours, 47 humanitarian aid trucks had been transferred to northern Gaza. For comparison, CNN said, the UN previously reported that an average 500 trucks entered the strip a day in the months before 7 October 2023.
Israel’s requirements for the indemnification needed to allow Israeli banks to continue conducting transactions with Palestinian banks have been met by the Palestinian authorities, Reuters reports, citing an unnamed source.
Technical experts argue that should warrant an extension of a current indemnification – set to lapse at the end of the month – for at least a year to avert an economic crisis in the West Bank, the source said.
US deputy treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo, who last month warned Israel that allowing the banking relationships to lapse would put its own security at risk, spoke on Monday with Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammad Mustafa (see earlier post here).
A bit more (see earlier post here) on US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s trip to the Middle East to push for a Gaza ceasefire.
Blinken, who is expected in Israel on Tuesday, will visit Jordan on Wednesday and discuss humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip with the Jordanians, AFP reports, citing an official on the top US diplomat’s plane.
The official said that Blinken, who is expected to travel in the region through Friday, would be speaking throughout his trip on bridging gaps on reaching a ceasefire in the year-old Gaza war.
Blinken will also discuss initial outlines of a post-conflict governance plan in Gaza, the official said.
Blinken also plans to speak to Israel about its expected military strike on Iran and discourage any move that massively increases regional conflict, the official said.
President Joe Biden’s administration has voiced hope for progress on an elusive ceasefire, two weeks before US elections, after Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, described by US officials as intransigent in his demands.
Blinken’s other stops this trip are likely to include Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, officials say.
Iran says US will bear 'full responsibility’ for Israeli retaliation
Iran on Monday warned the United States would bear “full responsibility” in case of a retaliatory attack by Israel on the Islamic Republic, after US president Joe Biden indicated he was aware of Israeli plans to do so.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, called Biden’s remarks “profoundly alarming and provocative” in a letter addressed to UN chief António Guterres and the Swiss presidency of the UN security council, according to AFP.
The US president responded “yes and yes” when asked Friday by a reporter if he had “a good understanding right now” of how and when Israel would respond to Iran’s missile barrage on 1 October.
“The United States will bear full responsibility for its role in instigating, inciting and enabling any acts of aggression by Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran … as well as for the catastrophic consequences on regional and international peace and security,” Iran’s U.N. mission said in a letter to the UN security council.
Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Tehran-backed leaders belonging to Hamas and Hezbollah, and an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general.
US ally Israel, at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, vowed revenge against Iran for the strikes.
“This inflammatory statement (of Biden) is deeply concerning, as it indicates the United States’ tacit approval and explicit support for Israel’s unlawful military aggression against Iran,” Iravani wrote in the letter.
“Therefore, the United States will bear full responsibility for its role in instigating, inciting and enabling any acts of aggression by Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran, in flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of international law and the United Nations Charter,” he said.
According to the Washington Post, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Biden that he intends to strike Iran’s military sites, and not to target nuclear or oil infrastructure.
Updated
Lebanese state-run media reported 13 strikes on Monday evening on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a main Hezbollah bastion, AFP reports, in one of the most intense nights of Israeli attacks in weeks.
While most districts of Beirut’s southern suburbs had been emptied for almost a month, the densely packed residential area of Ouzai was still filled with people because it had never been targeted before. Lebanon’s National news agency reported at least three Israeli strikes on the Ouzai district.
Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers told AFP they were looking for survivors amid the devastation in Ouzai, adding that the evacuation alert, then the strike, caused “panic among residents” who “started to run in the streets”.
“They did not leave any room for people to escape. The strike came closely after the warning,” one said.
AFPTV footage showed plumes of smoke rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs, with AFP correspondents also hearing several loud bangs before the strikes. The footage also showed two strikes that caused a huge fire, with black smoke surrounding dissipating orange flames.
Deputy US treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo on Monday spoke with Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammad Mustafa and they discussed security and economic stability in the West Bank, the Treasury department said.
Adeyemo and Mustafa also discussed the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to improve its anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regime, the department said.
It added that Adeyemo “stressed the importance of preventing terrorists and violent extremists” from raising, using, and moving funds in the West Bank.
The full readout from Treasury:
Today, U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo spoke with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. They discussed security and economic stability in the West Bank as well as the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to improve its anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. Deputy Secretary Adeyemo stressed the importance of preventing terrorists and violent extremists from raising, using, and moving funds in the West Bank. He noted the Palestinian Authority’s progress on strengthening its CFT regime to further support these relationships, including by completing key milestones related to the assessment of AML/CFT risks within its jurisdiction and bolstering effective compliance with international standards.
Deputy Secretary Adeyemo commended the Palestinian Authority for completing a risk assessment of their financial system, as well as scheduling a MENAFATF evaluation of their banking system. These are both critical steps for ensuring financial linkages between the Palestinian territories and the international financial system continue. They discussed the importance of the correspondent banking relationships between Israeli and Palestinian banks to the security and economic stability of the region.
Updated
A Lebanese security official has said that the country’s national airline had to switch landing strips on Monday after Israeli strikes near Beirut’s only international airport hit close to the main runway, AFP reports.
“Middle East Airlines switched the runway it was using because the main runway is close to the site of the Ouzai strike,” the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Summary
A lot of news continues to unfold in Beirut, Lebanon, and in northern Gaza. We’ll keep you up with developments as reliable information emerges.
It’s around 1am on Tuesday in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City. The Guardian’s New York team is handing over to our colleagues in Australia now. Here’s where things stand:
At least four were killed, including a child, and 24 were injured when one of the Israeli airstrikes on Beirut on Monday night hit just in front of the entrance of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the largest public hospital in Lebanon. Israel also accused Hezbollah of operating under Sahel hospital, not that far away, also in the southern suburbs of the capital. That hospital was being evacuated and has not been hit.
The heads of the United Nations World Food Programme and UN children’s agency Unicef, Catherine Russell and Cindy McCain, have privately appealed to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for help “alleviating the suffering of countless civilians” in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, according to a new letter.
Fadi Alame, the director of the Sahel hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut, said an evacuation was getting underway and also denied that the hospital is cover for Hezbollah, despite Israeli accusations of such. Israel said the building covers a Hezbollah bunker that was used to shield the assassinated head of the militant group, Hassan Nasrallah, and cash for the group.
Joe Biden’s US administration remains “deeply concerned” about the leak of a pair of highly classified intelligence documents describing Israel’s preparations for a retaliatory strike on Iran, the White House has said. There is no indication that additional documents have been compromised and US officials have been in communication with Israeli counterparts about the leak, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley in the morning, hitting buildings belonging to the Hezbollah-run banking institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
Lebanese state media reported further airstrikes on southern Lebanon in the last few hours, with reports of people being killed in the attacks and residential neighbourhoods being targeted by the Israeli military.
There were reports that at least 29 Palestinians, including children, were killed in attacks carried out by Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip. Israel has been accused of preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of northern Gaza with critical supplies, including water, food and medicine for people under siege.
The US says it is intensifying diplomatic efforts to get ceasefires between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was also set to depart for a four-day trip to Israel and other countries in the Middle East on Monday.
Israeli authorities are still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of northern Gaza with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, said.
Up to 1,000 women and children needing medical care will shortly be evacuated from Gaza to Europe, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe branch said. Israel, which is besieging the war-devastated Palestinian territory, “is committed to 1,000 more medical evacuations within the next months to the European Union,” Hans Kluge said, adding the evacuations would be facilitated by the WHO – the United Nations health agency – and the European countries involved.
In northern Gaza, the Palestine Red Crescent Society has posted an account from Ahmad Abu Al-Foul, a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), about what it describes as “the challenges of working in an area under intense Israeli occupation, targeting for the seventeenth consecutive day.”
The volunteer, in the interpreted English language captions, talks of the dangers he and colleagues face as they continue working to save lives.
He described the huge pressure with pleas for help coming in all the time amid a shortage of medical supplies and fuel.
“We receive dozens of pleas every day and every hour” he said, from places where Palestinian civilians are getting caught up in active combat by the Israeli military’s counteroffensive against Hamas.
“The hospitals are finding it difficult to handle the large number of casualties that arrive every minute,” he said. “Despite this we continue to do our humanitarian work in northern Gaza.”
Ahmad Abu Al-Foul, a volunteer EMT with the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s Emergency Medical Services team in northern #Gaza, describes the challenges of working in an area under intense Israeli occupation targeting for the seventeenth consecutive day, emphasizing the dangers… pic.twitter.com/0R8hUbCQH5
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) October 21, 2024
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health has condemned what it said was “attacks on two of Lebanon’s largest hospitals” on Monday and was part of Israel’s “daily targeting of the Lebanese health sector.”
Israel has killed at least 115 healthcare workers and emergency responders since fighting started between Hezbollah and Israel a year prior.
It was the second night in a row that Beirut was heavily bombed, with Israel carrying out more than 15 airstrikes on Hezbollah-linked banking institutions the night before.
On Sunday night, Israel said that it would begin targeting a Hezbollah-affiliated bank, Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which provides interest free loans and banking services to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese – primarily Shia Muslims. It accused the bank of helping finance Hezbollah and said that its branches were used to store weapons.
The announcement that Israel would start targeting the bank, a part of Hezbollah’s civilian institutions, signified an expansion of the scope of Israel’s targets from just the group’s military wing. The institution had sanctions placed on it by the US in 2017 during the Trump administration for giving Hezbollah access to the international financial system, according to the US treasury.
Four killed in Israeli strike near large Beirut hospital
Amid Israeli airstrikes on Beirut on Monday night, one hit just in front of the entrance of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the largest public hospital in Lebanon. At least four were killed, including a child, 24 were injured in the strike, and the hospital suffered “major damage” from the blast.
Despite the strike, the hospital continued operating and is currently receiving the injured from the nearby strikes, a source at the hospital told the Guardian.
The initial casualty count was expected to rise as first responders continued digging through the rubble for people. A picture of the building struck in front of Rafik Hariri hospital showed a man covered in blood lying lifeless in a bombed-out building.
Fears proliferated that hospitals would be struck in the greater Beirut area after the Israeli military struck near Rafik Hariri hospital and published claims that Hezbollah was operating under Sahel hospital, also in the southern suburbs of the capital – a claim that echoed those made by Israel in Gaza.
Updated
Further details from the two senior UN agency officials who have written to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Unicef’s Catherine Russell and the World Food Programme’s Cindy McCain.
They called on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to protect civilians and critical civilian services, Reuters reports, in its news scoop of seeing the letter that was sent. They wrote that the UN and aid groups:
Need unequivocal security assurances to ensure a safe operating environment … the rules of engagement and their implementation in practice, in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Lebanon, must reflect the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)’s obligation and commitment to respect, protect, and facilitate humanitarian action,” said Russell, a former senior aide to Joe Biden, and McCain, Biden’s former ambassador to the UN agencies for food and agriculture in Rome.
They urgently appealed for an effective humanitarian notification system that the Israeli military “acknowledges and supports”, citing the success of using area-specific pauses in fighting to allow for the polio vaccination of children in Gaza.
We request this be applied consistently to facilitate humanitarian action at scale,” they wrote.
Updated
The United States said last week it was watching to ensure that its ally Israel’s actions on the ground show it does not have a “policy of starvation” in the north of Gaza.
Israel has said there is not a lack of aid in Gaza and accused Hamas of hijacking the humanitarian assistance, Reuters reports.
Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that it was stealing aid and says Israel is to blame for shortages.
We call on your support, as Prime Minister, to ensure that the government of Israel upholds its obligations and commitments to enable effective emergency relief operations, and to protect the safety and security of our staff and the civilians they serve,” Catherine Russell and Cindy McCain wrote in their letter to Benjamin Netanyahu.
The UN appeal came two days before the US told Israel it must take steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.
Top UN officials urge Israel to ease civilian suffering in areas under their attack
The heads of the United Nations World Food Programme and UN children’s agency Unicef have privately appealed to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for help “alleviating the suffering of countless civilians” in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, according to a new letter.
The letter has been seen by Reuters today and the agency is reporting on that now, as it is previously unreported despite it being dated 11 October.
Effective and meaningful humanitarian action is possible with your political will and commitment,” wrote Unicef executive director Catherine Russell and WFP executive director Cindy McCain, the widow of former US Senator for Arizona, John McCain.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the letter. The amount of aid entering Gaza has plummeted to its lowest level all year, according to UN data.
In addition, a global hunger monitor has warned of a looming famine, and the UN has accused Israel of denying and impeding dozens of attempts this month to deliver aid, particularly to Gaza’s north. More follows.
Updated
Israeli airstrike hits hospital entrance in south Beirut, spokesperson says
An Israeli airstrike hit in front of the entrance of Rafic Hariri University hospital in south Beirut on Monday night, a spokesperson for the hospital told the Guardian.
Rafik Hariri hospital is the largest public hospital in Lebanon and took over the treatment of some patients which had previously been evacuated from hospitals in Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, due to intense Israeli bombing in the area.
The bombing near the hospital occured as Israel carried out more airstrikes in Dahiyeh. The Israeli military had issued warnings for residents to move at least five hundred meters away from certain sites in Dahiyeh, including the pier in Ouzaieh, a part of Dahiyeh that still has people living in it. After the warnings were issued, residents of Ouzaieh began to flee the area.
Just two hours earlier, the Israeli military said that Hezbollah was hiding hundreds of millions of dollars of cash under a hospital in Haret Hreik, a neighbourhood in Dahiyeh. The hospital was quickly evacuated after the accusation, an accusation the hospital director has since denied.
Updated
News is firming up that an Israeli airstrike has hit near Beirut’s Rafik Hariri University hospital in the southern suburbs late on Monday, Lebanon’s largest public-sector hospital.
Reuters is citing a hospital source, adding that it appeared the strike hit the hospital’s parking lot. We await more details.
Updated
Explosions reportedly heard near Beirut's southern suburbs
A breaking news headline on Reuters citing a witness report: “heavy strike heard near Beirut’s souther suburbs”.
This as AFP reports that the Israeli army has issued a new evacuation call for residents in a southern Beirut suburb. These two notes may well connect and we’ll update things soon.
Other, unverified reports can be seen referring to the Haret Hreik area, between the center of Beirut and the main airport on the outskirts and wire pictures are emerging.
A source at Rafik Hariri hospital has told Reuters that the latest Israeli strike has occurred nearby.
Updated
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari is claiming that there is a bunker under the Sahel hospital in Beirut filled with cash and gold belonging to the coffers of Hezbollah.
The hospital is currently being evacuated in case of Israeli air strikes, despite Israel’s assertions that it will not attack the hospital.
According to the estimates we have, there is at least half a billion dollars in dollar bills and gold stored in this bunker. This money could and still can be used to rebuild the state of Lebanon,” Hagari said and AFP reports.
Earlier today, Israeli military chief lieutenant general Herzi Halevi said more than two dozen targets belonging to Al-Qard al-Hassan – a financial firm linked to Hezbollah – were hit.
Updated
The Israeli military is now saying it will not strike the Sahel hospital in southern Beirut, while emphasizing that it is intent on attacking monetary stashes it cites as being controlled by Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
The Israeli army said today its forces were pummeling Hezbollah’s financial arm, hitting more than two dozen targets including a bunker with tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold, Agence France-Presse reports.
The strikes since Sunday night mark an expansion of Israel’s campaign against the Iran-backed group after a year of cross-border exchanges that escalated in late September into a full-blown war. Israeli forces are now seeking to degrade the Shiite Muslim movement’s ability to fund its operations.
The Israeli air force carried out a series of precise strikes on these Hezbollah financial strongholds. One of our main targets last night was an underground vault with tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold. The money was being used to finance Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel,” Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing.
Hagari then referenced a separate bunker also allegedly filled with cash and gold under a hospital in the capital Beirut, but said the vault had not been targeted yet by the Israeli military.
Updated
Beirut hospital evacuated amid claims it is above a Hezbollah bunker
Reports are coming in that a hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut is being evacuated amid claims by Israel that the building covers a Hezbollah bunker that was used to shield the assassinated head of the militant group, Hassan Nasrallah, and cash for the group.
Fadi Alame, the director of the Sahel hospital, has told Reuters about the evacuation getting underway and also denied that the hospital is cover for Hezbollah.
Owner of Sahel hospital MP Fadi Alame says these allegations are baseless but “we were forced to evacuate the hospital” #Beirut “I ask the Lebanese army to inspect the site” https://t.co/aW7hiKuLHV
— Zeina Khodr (@ZeinakhodrAljaz) October 21, 2024
Updated
At least two people were killed and three others injured today in an apparent guided missile attack on a car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syrian state television said, quoting a military source, Reuters reports.
The source attributed the attack to Israel.
The attack occurred near the Eastern Roundabout, close to the Golden Mazzeh Hotel, a high-end establishment in the centre of Syria’s capital, state media added.
An Israeli military spokesman later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it killed the head of Hezbollah’s money transfers unit.
We will continue to act against Hezbollah in Syria and everywhere else,” Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said in a televised statement.
Updated
It looks like more detail may be emerging concerning the short report earlier that at least one person was killed today, probably at least two, in a “guided missile attack” on a car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, reported a few hours ago by Syrian state television.
The Israel Defense Forces reports via its spokesperson Daniel Hagari that Israel carried out an airstrike in Syria today, where it was targeting the leader of the financial organization funding Hezbollah, directing funds from Iran, the Times of Israel reports, referring to the financial firm Al-Qard al-Hassan.
Hagari has not given a name but indicated the man is newly appointed. Reuters is now issuing some more detail and we’ll bring an update on this news as soon as possible.
Updated
The Israeli military has issued a touch of detail to information about the latest air strikes on Lebanon.
The Israel army says it has hit about 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in the past day, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The Israeli military said a little earlier today that it struck about 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, in a widening air campaign now also targeting the group’s financial operations.
“Approximately 300 targets were hit in the last 24 hours alone,” the military said in a statement after military chief Herzi Halevi said around 30 targets related to Al-Qard al-Hassan, a financial firm linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Updated
Antony Blinken is departing today for a week-long trip to Israel and a number of Arab countries on a visit that also comes as Israel weighs retaliation against Iran for a ballistic missile attack earlier this month.
His other stops are likely to include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, state department officials say, and the Associated Press reports.
Since the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023, and the Israeli response, Blinken has traveled to the Middle East 10 other times seeking an end to the crisis. His previous trips have yielded little in the way of ending hostilities, but he has managed to increase aid deliveries to Gaza in the past.
His other stops this trip are likely to include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, officials say.
Updated
US secretary of state Antony Blinken is due to meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog tomorrow.
Tuesday’s meetings are the first major items on the agenda as Blinken head for the region today in a fresh effort to kickstart ceasefire talks after Israel last week killed Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas.
Secretary Blinken will discuss the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages, and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people…He will reaffirm the US commitment to work with partners across the region to de-escalate tensions and provide lasting stability,” US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement, the Associated Press reports.
As of last Friday, Blinken was in Germany on a visit with US president Joe Biden.
Updated
US ‘deeply concerned’ about intelligence leak revealing Israel’s plans for strike on Iran
The Biden administration remains “deeply concerned” about the leak of a pair of highly classified intelligence documents describing Israel’s preparations for a retaliatory strike on Iran, the White House has said.
There is no indication that additional documents have been compromised and US officials have been in communication with Israeli counterparts about the leak, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
The following is from a story written by my colleagues Richard Luscombe and Dan Sabbagh who provide more detail on the leaks:
The documents are attributed to the US Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency. They are written in a style similar to documents previously leaked from the Pentagon, using classifications familiar to the national security community.
The first document has the title “Israel: air force continues preparations for strike on Iran and conducts a second large-force employment exercise” and the second “Israel: defense forces continue key munitions preparations and covert UAV activity almost certainly for a strike on Iran”. Both are dated 16 October and were first leaked a day later.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley in the morning, hitting buildings belonging to the Hezbollah-run banking institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
Lebanese state media reported further airstrikes on southern Lebanon in the last few hours, with reports of people being killed in the attacks and residential neighbourhoods being targeted by the Israeli military.
There were reports that at least 29 Palestinians, including children, were killed in attacks carried out by Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip. Israel has been accused of preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of northern Gaza with critical supplies, including water, food and medicine for people under siege.
The US says it is intensifying diplomatic efforts to get ceasefires between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was also set to depart for a four-day trip to Israel and other countries in the Middle East on Monday.
Israeli authorities are still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of northern Gaza with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, said.
Updated
The US president’s special envoy to Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, has held talks with Lebanese officials in Beirut today as diplomatic efforts to revive ceasefire talks in both Gaza and Lebanon continue.
Hochstein said that it was “not enough” for Israel and Hezbollah to commit to UN resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and has since been the framework that governs security dynamics on the Lebanese-Israeli border. It calls for southern Lebanon to be free of any troops or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state. The agreement states that Hezbollah and other armed militias must not be present past the Litani River, about 18 miles (30km) north of the border.
Hochstein said that neither Hezbollah nor Israel had adequately implemented the resolution, and that while it would be the basis for the end to current war, the US was seeking to determine what more needed to be done to make sure it was implemented “fairly, accurately and transparently”.
Speaking in Beirut, where he met Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally who has been engaging in diplomatic efforts, Hochstein said:
We are working with government of Lebanon, the state of Lebanon, as well as the government of Israel to get to a formula that brings an end to this conflict once and for all..
The United States wants to end this conflict absolutely as soon as possible. That is what President Biden wants, that is what we all are working towards.
At least one person was killed today in a “guided missile attack” on a car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, according to Syrian state television. The circumstances surrounding the attack are unclear. We will give you more details on this as we get them.
Updated
The Israeli military has apologised for an airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday that killed three Lebanese soldiers, the Associated Press reports.
The military said it struck a truck that had entered an area where it had previously targeted a Hezbollah truck transporting a launcher and missiles. The military said its soldiers were not aware that the second truck belonged to the Lebanese army.
Lebanon’s army has historically stayed out of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, an influential Shia Muslim political party and Iranian-backed armed group.
Updated
Dozens of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in northern Gaza - report
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, is reporting that at least 29 Palestinians, including children, were killed in attacks carried out by Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip today.
Wafa his this report, which we have not yet been able to independently verify:
Medical sources reported that seven people were killed and wounded as a result of artillery shelling targeting displaced persons inside a school in the vicinity of Abu Rashid Pool in Jabalia camp…
In addition, six people, including children, were killed and others were injured with varying degrees in an occupation raid that targeted a gathering of citizens while they were trying to fill drinking water in the town of Jabalia.
In Jabalia camp, four civilians were killed in an airstrike launched by an occupation drone on a group of citizens near al-Yaman al-Saeed hospital.
The aftermath of the Israeli bombardment that targeted a residential building in Al-Toba area of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/iwKeBfQS3b
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) October 21, 2024
Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historical refugee camps, has become the centrepiece of a renewed assault on northern Gaza by the Israeli military, who claim they are trying to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping. Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped in Jabalia, where conditions are rapidly deteriorating. There have been frequent reports of Palestinian civilians being killed in airstrikes there, which have caused widespread destruction, levelling civilian infrastructure. Wafa also reported today that nine “citizens” were killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza City, while three other people were killed in a bombing that targeted Ghazi Al-Shawa school, which houses displaced people in the town of Beit Hanoun, in the northeast edge of the Strip.
The entirety of northern Gaza is under Israeli evacuation orders. The military has ordered residents to flee towards the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi, even though it has been targeted in deadly airstrikes and is severely overcrowded. The IDF said “several hundred” residents left Jabalia since this morning via organised routes.
Updated
Deadly Israeli airstrikes reported across Lebanon
The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the main eastern city of Baalbek killed six people, including a child, on Monday. The state-run National News Agency reported that all six were from the same family.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, four people were killed and four others injured in an Israeli attack on al Kharayib in southern Lebanon.
The NNA said four Israeli airstrikes hit the southern Lebanese town of Arabsalim, and that residential neighbourhoods were targeted. An NNA correspondent said Israeli warplanes targeted Khiam, a town in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon, with four raids conducted there.
Updated
Iran complains to UN nuclear watchdog about threatened Israeli attack on its nuclear sites
Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for the Guardian
Iran has written to the UN nuclear watchdog to complain formally about a threatened Israeli attack on its nuclear sites, urging its officials to warn Israel that such an attack would not only be illegal but be a breach of UN resolutions.
The International Atomic Energy Authority responsible for oversight of Iran’s nuclear program has so far said little about the crisis, and its relations with Tehran have been strained recently.
The warning outlined by the Iranian foreign ministry came as unnamed military sources stepped up their warnings that Iran would pursue building a nuclear weapons if what it insists is its civil nuclear program is attacked by Israel.
The threat reported in Tasnim News, one of the sites closest to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Council, comes after 35 parliamentarians wrote to Iran’s national security commission urging a re-examination of Iran’s religious opposition to a bomb.
But the foreign ministry spokesperson Ismail Baqaei, responding to media speculation, insisted that Iran has no plan to change the Fatwa against the use of nuclear weapons issued by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as far back as 2003. The Fatwa is based on Islamic teaching, as much as foreign policy.
But the leak of the US classified documents over the weekend setting out how Iran might be attacked is widely seen in Iran either as an effort inside the Biden administration to warn Israel off from mounting such a large attack on Iran, or else an attempt to persuade Iran to back down. The mood in Tehran is that an attack is imminent, and trust in US assurances that Iran’s nuclear sites will be spared is low. Baqaei said Iran’s planned response to any Israeli attack was already in place.
The recent call to abandon the Fatwa was originally led by an Iranian MP Mohammad Reza Sabaghiani who said “to preserve the deterrent capability and ensure national security, the ability to develop nuclear weapons is necessary. While having nuclear weapons is possible for Israel, Iran must pursue nuclear weapons for self-defense”.
On Monday, a second MP, Fathollah Tousi, who is a member of the parliament’s economic commission, said Iran had the ability to make a bomb, but the decision rested with the Supreme Leader.
It has also been noticed in Iran that their leaked documents implicitly assume that Israel has a nuclear weapon, something that had been widely assumed in Tehran.
The Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi was continuing with his regional tour visiting Bahrain and Kuwait as part of his effort to form a united front against Israel and explain Iran’s support for the so-called axis of resistance in Lebanon and Gaza.
He has also been seeking assurances that Gulf States will not cooperate in any Israeli attack on Iran by allowing its airspace to be used. The foreign ministry said: “We are sure that the countries of the region, understanding the sensitivity of the region and the conditions, will not allow their space to be used to attack an Islamic country.”
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The Israeli military said air force helicopters and fighter jets intercepted five drones in the Mediterranean Sea before they crossed into the country.
מסוקי ומטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר יירטו חמישה כלי טיס בלתי מאוישים במרחב הים התיכון.
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 21, 2024
כלי הטיס הבלתי מאוישים יורטו בטרם חצו לשטח הארץ.
בנוסף, יודגש כי אין חשש לאירוע ביטחוני באזור נתב״ג
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Israel’s airport authority briefly halted the takeoff and landing of flights at the country’s main airport – Ben Gurion – this afternoon.
“In coordination with the security system, landings and takeoffs at the airport were stopped,” the airport authority said in a statement earlier, without elaborating further. Israeli media reported that a suspicious object had been seen near the airport, though this has not officially been confirmed. Services have now resumed at the airport.
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Israel’s police and intelligence agencies claimed to have broken up a network of Israeli citizens who have been providing military intelligence useful for missile targeting to Iran and were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The investigation claimed the network had been active for around two years, and according to reports in the Israeli the suspects are accused of photographing and collecting information on IDF bases and facilities, including the Kirya defence headquarters in Tel Aviv and the Nevatim and Ramat David airbases.
The Nevatim base was targeted in both Iranian missile attacks this year, and Ramat David has been targeted by Hezbollah. According to a statement released on Monday, the seven Israeli citizens were arrested for gathering sensitive information on Israeli Defense Force bases and energy infrastructure.
According to Haaretz, the suspects allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash transfers from Russian tourists, as well as in crypto currencies. Three of the suspects were apprehended while photographing sensitive sites in southern Israel, and the police discovered dozens of documents in their possession.
“Investigations revealed that over a period exceeding two years, the suspects executed multiple security missions under the direction of two Iranian intelligence agents known as ‘Alkhan’ and ‘Orkhan’. The network members were aware that the intelligence they provided compromised national security and could aid enemy missile attacks.
“The network conducted extensive reconnaissance missions on IDF bases nationwide, focusing on air force and navy installations, ports, Iron Dome system locations, and energy infrastructure such as the Hadera power plant. These activities were financially compensated with payments totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, often facilitated through cryptocurrencies.
“The operation involved photographing and documenting strategic sites, with the collected data being transferred to Iranian agents. Network members utilised advanced equipment procured specifically for these tasks under Iranian guidance.”
The arrested were also allegedly tasked with collecting intelligence on several Israeli citizens at the behest of Iranian agents. This included conducting surveillance on targeted individuals.
Some members were apprehended while attempting to gather intelligence on an Israeli citizen residing near their location, with security assessments indicating potential Iranian plans to harm this individual.
The latest arrests, which follow previous recent arrests of Israeli citizens for allegedly spying fpor Iran, suggests that the well-developed intelligence operations run by Israel targeting Iran, Gaza and Hezbollah have not been a one way street, with Iran and its proxies also running operations in Israel.
Israel’s security services have broken up a spy ring that was gathering information on behalf of Iranian intelligence in the latest attempt by Tehran to recruit Israelis for espionage, the Shin Bet and police said on Monday.
Seven Israelis from Israel’s north, including the port city of Haifa, were arrested after an investigation found they had gathered intelligence on Israeli military bases and energy and port infrastructure, a joint Shin Bet and police statement said.
Israeli police said the security breach was among the most serious ever seen by Israel, Reuters reported.
“The assessment is that the activity of the members of the ring has caused security damage to the security of the state,” a senior source with the Shin Bet security service said.
Iran’s foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment.
Israeli authorities still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of Gaza
Israeli authorities are still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of northern Gaza with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa said on Monday.
Hospitals have been hit and are without power while injured people are left without care, Philippe Lazzarini said on X.
“@Unrwa remaining shelters are so overcrowded, some displaced people are now forced to live in the toilets. According to reports, people attempting to flee are getting killed, their bodies left on the street. Missions to rescue people from under the rubble are also being denied,” he added.
#Gaza: the Israeli Authorities continue to deny humanitarian missions to reach the north with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) October 21, 2024
Hospitals have been hit and are left without power while injured people are left without care.@UNRWA remaining…
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the Unrwa statement, Reuters reported.
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Fabian Hinz, a Middle East expert and missile analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank, described the leak as “quite damaging” because it reveals previously secret Israeli weapons and capabilities.
The air-launched Golden Horizon ballistic missiles have never been disclosed before and so key details, their range, payload and degree of manoeuvrability mid-flight are unknown, he said.
Because they would be launched from a long way away – possibly from over Iraqi airspace – “defending against them is quite difficult,” Hinz said, particularly for Iran whose air defence systems are not considered particularly robust.
Israel was not known to possess a covert long-range drone, which the documents say is used for long-range reconnaissance. Its existing Heron and Hermes drones are thought to be vulnerable to Iranian detection, Hinz said.
The US monitoring is described as sophisticated because a high degree of understanding is required to make sense of military movements as recorded by satellite imagery and other means. “Everybody knows spying happens. But when you have a country, the closest ally of Israel, shown publicly to be spying [on its ally], that’s embarrassing.”
Germany calls for Israel to 'clarify every incident' involving Unifil in Lebanon
Germany on Monday demanded Israel “clarify every incident” involving the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (Unifil), including the reported destruction of a Unifil observation tower and fence.
UN peacekeepers on Sunday said an Israeli “army bulldozer deliberately demolished” a UN observation tower and fence in southern Lebanon.
Israel launched ground and air attacks on Lebanon in September, saying it wanted to crush Hezbollah, a powerful political party and armed group.
Berlin voiced “great concern” about the latest in a series of incidents reported by the Blue Helmet force, which have sparked international condemnation.
The German government expects “the Israeli side to clarify every incident” and to release “the results of the investigations into this specific incident”, said foreign ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer. “The safety of an operation mandated by the UN security council and its personnel must not be endangered,” she added.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz has said the country and its military have “no intention” of harming the peacekeepers.
Unifil has accused Israel of attacking their members multiple times in recent weeks.
Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon hit branches of Hezbollah-linked bank
Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley early on Monday morning, striking buildings belonging to the Hezbollah-run banking institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
At least 10 airstrikes were carried out in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with an entire building collapsing and a jet of fire streaming into the air in the Chiyah neighbourhood of greater Beirut. A building close to Lebanon’s only commercial airport was also struck, video footage showing a smoke plume billowing while a nearby airplane sat on the runway.
“They struck empty buildings in residential neighbourhoods, and destroyed those surrounding neighbourhoods. These weren’t military centres or weapons caches,” Ma’an Khalil, the mayor of Ghobeiry municipality in the southern suburbs of Beirut, said.
Flames and smoke rise form an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday.
Israel issued several warnings via X prior to the bombings, pinpointing buildings belonging to Al-Qard Al-Hassan in the southern suburbs of Beirut and across Lebanon, warning people to move at least 500 metres away from these buildings. Streets from the affected areas were soon choked with traffic as people fled in anticipation of Israeli bombing.
Al-Qard Al-Hassan has branches across Lebanon, with 15 in greater Beirut alone.
French president Emmanuel Macron told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he sees the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a chance for a possible new phase of negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza, Macron’s office said on Monday.
Macron, whose government has had increasingly tense public exchanges with Israel over the past few weeks, also reiterated previous calls for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza and condemnations of Israeli army action towards UN forces in Lebanon.
Macron also expressed solidarity with Netanyahu after a drone was launched towards the prime minister’s home, the French president’s office said.
US envoy Amos Hochstein said on Monday that a UN security council resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict would be the basis of a new ceasefire, but would require more than just commitments from the warring parties.
“The commitment that we have is to resolve this conflict based on (UN Resolution) 1701 that is what the solution is going to have to look like,” Hochstein told reporters, adding that “both sides simply committing to 1701, is just not enough” after years of weak implementation.
Arab League secretary general Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Monday in Beirut that the league’s priority was to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, and he called for Israel’s prompt withdrawal from any Lebanese territories it has occupied or entered.
Aboul Gheit was also asked if Hezbollah could be destroyed, to which he replied: “You cannot destroy an idea.”
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After they burned down his family home in northern Gaza, Israeli troops separated Ramez al-Skafi from his family and detained him. They had a particular job in mind for him, he said.
For the next 11 days in early July, the 30-year-old Palestinian said he was sent into one house after another in his home district, Shuja’iya, watched by his Israeli military minders. According to the account he gave the Guardian, they turned him into a human shield against booby-traps and Hamas gunmen.
“I tried to resist their proposal, but they started beating me and the officer told me it was not my choice to make and that I have to do whatever they want,” Skafi said. “He told me that my work would be searching the houses and telling them information about the homeowners. After some extreme pressure, I was left no choice.
“The next day I was told to go out on patrol with the Israeli soldiers, and I was very scared because of the tanks in front of me and the planes in the sky above me,” he continued. “When [his minders] noticed my fear, they assured me: ‘They know you are with us.’”
Blinken heads for Israel hoping to kickstart ceasefire negotiations
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will depart for the Middle East on Monday, the state department said, as Washington is pushing to kickstart ceasefire negotiations to end the Gaza war after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The top US diplomat’s latest trip to the region, his eleventh since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that triggered the Gaza war, comes even as Israel has intensified its military campaign in Gaza and in Lebanon against Iran-aligned militia Hezbollah.
Blinken will discuss with regional leaders the importance of ending the Gaza war, ways to chart a post-conflict plan for the Palestinian territory, as well as how to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the state department said in a statement.
The top diplomat’s trip will start with Israel, the state department said, but did not provide the other exact destinations.
“Throughout the region, secretary Blinken will discuss the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages, and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people,” the state department said in a statement.
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Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said there was no alternative to UN Resolution 1701, but added that “new understandings” could be reached to implement it, a statement issued by his office cited him as saying on Monday.
A UN peacekeeping mission is mandated by Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, to help the Lebanese army keep its southern border area with Israel free of weapons or armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state.
Israeli forces blew up homes and besieged schools and shelters for displaced people on Monday as they deepened their operations in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, residents and medics said.
They also rounded up men and ordered women to leave the camp, they said.
Medics at the Indonesian hospital told Reuters that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men before setting the facility ablaze. The fire reached the hospital generators and caused a power outage, they added.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army, which began a new incursion into the north of the Palestinian territory over two weeks ago, to evacuate the three hospitals in the area or leave the patients unattended.
Troops remained outside the hospital but did not enter, they said. Medics at a second hospital, Kamal Adwan, reported heavy Israeli fire near the hospital at night.
“The army is burning the schools next to the hospital, and no one can enter or leave the hospital,” said one nurse at the Indonesian hospital, who asked not to be named.
Palestinian health officials said 18 people had been killed in Jabalia and eight elsewhere in Gaza in Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military has apologised over a strike that killed three Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon the previous day, AP reported.
It said it is not battling the Lebanese military, and claimed its soldiers believed they were targeting a vehicle belonging to the Hezbollah militant group.
Last week, Hezbollah said it is entering a new phase in its fight against invading Israeli troops, as the region reckoned with the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza.
WHO to evacuate 1,000 Palestinian women and children for urgent medical care
Up to 1,000 women and children needing medical care will shortly be evacuated from Gaza to Europe, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe branch said in comments published on Monday.
Israel, which is besieging the war-devastated Palestinian territory, “is committed to 1,000 more medical evacuations within the next months to the European Union,” Hans Kluge said in an interview with AFP.
He said the evacuations would be facilitated by the WHO – the United Nations health agency – and the European countries involved.
On Thursday, UN investigators said Israel was deliberately targeting health facilities in Gaza, and killing and torturing medical personnel there, accusing the country of “crimes against humanity”.
Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in May that about 10,000 people needed evacuating from Gaza for urgent medical care.
The WHO Europe has already facilitated 600 medical evacuations from Gaza to seven European countries since the latest war began there in October 2023.
“This would never have happened if we did not keep the dialogue [open],” Kluge said.
“The same [is true] for Ukraine,” he added. “I keep the dialogue [open] with all partners.
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Iran says it has warned UN nuclear watchdog about Israeli threats against its nuclear sites
Iran has warned the UN nuclear watchdog about Israel’s threats against its nuclear sites, foreign ministry, spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday at a weekly news conference.
Israel has vowed to attack Iran in retaliation for a volley of Iranian missiles launched on 1 October, leading to widespread speculation that Iran’s nuclear sites could be among Israel’s targets.
“Threats to attack nuclear sites are against UN resolutions …. And are condemned … we have sent a letter about it to … the UN nuclear watchdog,” Baghaei said in the televised news conference.
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Ali Daher first heard the explosion and then he felt the pain. An Israeli aircraft loitering high above had shot two rockets at the building next door, collapsing the top two floors and showering him and his two sons with a deadly spray of concrete and jagged metal.
The target of the strike was the Dar al-Salaam hotel – Arabic for “house of peace” – in the southern Lebanese town of Wardaniyah, converted in the last weeks into a government displacement centre for 24 families forced to flee their homes under Israeli bombing. Originally a German-Lebanese centre set up to promote cultural understanding, bronze statuettes and pieces of Lebanese antiquities had been pushed to the side to make room for mattresses and boxes of aid.
The strike on 9 October killed five people and injured 12. It was the first time that Wardaniyah had been targeted by Israel, but was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on buildings hosting displaced people in parts of Lebanon thought to be safe and that have otherwise not seen any fighting.
“We wanted to go somewhere safe, where there is no bombing, war or [militias], so we came here. Why did they strike here? We don’t know,” said Ali Daher, a 36-year-old mine clearance operator who was displaced from Tyre, south Lebanon, on 30 September. He held out his fractured wrist and pointed to his one-year-old son Kareem’s arm, which had been bandaged after a piece of debris tore it open.
The effects are also being felt in Lebanese society, where local officials have said the fear of strikes have inflamed tensions between members of the country’s many sects and the largely Shia Muslim displaced, who they are afraid to welcome. Unconfirmed rumours of Hezbollah fighters hiding among the displaced have proliferated, despite the vast majority of displaced them being civilians.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon over the last year, most of them since 23 September, when Israel escalated its aerial campaign over wide swathes of the country. Many have sought shelter in Christian and Druze-majority areas that had previously been spared Israeli bombing.
US envoy Amos Hochstein will be in Beirut on Monday for talks with Lebanese officials on conditions for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, two sources in Lebanon told Reuters, as Israel expanded its air campaign on the group’s assets overnight.
Israeli strikes late on Sunday hit several branches of a financial institution linked to Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon’s south and the Bekaa valley, but no casualties were immediately reported.
Israel has reportedly given the United States a document with its conditions for a diplomatic solution to end the war in Lebanon, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two US officials and two Israeli officials.
Israel has demanded its IDF forces be allowed to engage in “active enforcement” to make sure Hezbollah doesn’t rearm and rebuild its military infrastructure close to the border, Axios reported, citing an Israeli official.
Israel also demanded its air force have freedom of operation in Lebanese airspace, the report added.
A US official told Axios it was highly unlikely that Lebanon and the international community would agree to Israel’s conditions.
THAAD anti-missile system 'in place' in Israel, US says
The US military has rushed its advanced anti-missile system to Israel and it is now “in place”, defence secretary Lloyd Austin said.
THAAD, or the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, is a critical part of the US military’s layered air defence systems and adds to Israel’s already formidable anti-missile defences.
“The THAAD system is in place,” Austin said, speaking to reporters before his arrival in Ukraine on Monday.
He declined to say whether it was operational, but added: “We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly and we’re on pace with our expectations.”
President Joe Biden said the THAAD’s deployment, along with about 100 US soldiers, was meant to help defend Israel, which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on 1 October.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.
Israel launched a wave of attacks on buildings belonging to al-Qard al-Hassan, a US-sanctioned financial organisation that has more than 30 branches across Lebanon including 15 in densely populated parts of central Beirut and its suburbs.
Lebanon’s national news agency reported 11 strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Sunday. Other strikes hit the association in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley and in the country’s south, NNA added. One strike hit close to Beirut’s airport.
The Israeli military had earlier issued a warning that it would begin attacks on infrastructure belonging to the association and ordered people to evacuate those areas, causing panicked crowds and traffic jams to clog the streets of the Lebanese capital.
Meanwhile, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned that Israel may be causing the “destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza’s northernmost governate through death and displacement” with its latest military campaign there.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has made life in north Gaza “impossible” for Palestinians, many of whom were already facing starvation, while also ordering their displacement and preventing supplies from entering, it said in a statement.
Israel has “continued to relentlessly bomb and attack the area” making it “extremely dangerous” for civilians to flee, the body wrote, adding that it had received reports of civilians being deliberately targeted. It added:
Many Palestinians in the north have also expressed fears that should they flee; they will never be allowed to return to their homes in north Gaza.
Israel has attacked two of the three main hospitals in the area – which were already damaged in previous attacks – and also bombed schools serving as shelters for displaced people, with many casualties appearing to be women and children, the OHCHR said.
The statement ended by reminding Israel of the provisional measures ordered by the international court of justice in January, which said Israel must ensure it did not commit acts of genocide in Gaza and reminded it that as an occupying power, it has a duty to ensure the provision of food, medicine and shelter to the population.
The IDF have nominally held complete control of northern Gaza since January, but launched a new assault on the area two weeks ago that they said was aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.
In other developments:
Several Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured late on Sunday when Israeli airstrikes hit two schools housing displaced people in Jabalia, the area in northern Gaza that Israel has placed under siege for more than two weeks. Other deadly Israeli attacks took place in Beit Lahia and Gaza City’s al-Tuffah neighbourhood, both in northern Gaza, and in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Israeli forces have “deliberately demolished an observation tower and perimeter fence of a UN position in Marwahin,” Unifil said on Sunday. The UN peacekeeping mission added: “Yet again, we remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.”
The commander of the Israeli armoured brigade that was leading the Israeli offensive on Jabalia has been killed in northern Gaza, the Israeli military (IDF) has said. Col. Ehsan Daxa, the commander of the 401st Armored Brigade, is the highest ranking Israeli officer to have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on the Palestinian territory last year, according to Israeli media.
The US government is investigating an unauthorised release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran. The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, confirmed the investigation in remarks to CNN’s State of the Union program on Sunday, saying “the leak is very concerning.”
Médecins Sans Frontières has condemned Israel’s siege on the last remaining hospitals in Gaza, saying: “This is purely and simply a collective punishment imposed on Palestinians in Gaza, who must choose between being forcibly displaced from the North or killed. We fear that this will not stop.”
Hezbollah said on Sunday that it launched rockets at Haifa in Israel after the latest Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, Agence France-Presse reports. According to the group, its fighters launched a “rocket salvo” at the “city of Haifa,” adding that it was “in response to the aggressions on [Beirut’s] southern suburbs” from Sunday morning.
