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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Adam Fulton and (earlier) Fran Lawther, Léonie Chao-Fong, Joanna Walters, Lili Bayer and Amy Sedghi

Middle East crisis: Israel launches more strikes in Lebanon – as it happened

Benjamin Netanyahu Hezbollah United States United Nations Israel Katz Lebanon Penny Wong Middle East Gaza New York

Closing summary

We’re shutting this blog now and moving to a fresh live blog here as it approaches 8.25am in Beirut and Tel Aviv. A rundown on key recent developments is below, and our latest full report on Israel’s strikes in Beirut can be seen here.

  • Israel launched its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with Hezbollah, levelling a number of buildings in a southern suburb in an apparent attempt to kill the Lebanese militant group’s leader and a key ally of Iran, Hassan Nasrallah. The Lebanese health ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured, while some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties were expected as rescue workers cleared rubble.

  • Several apartment blocks in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood were reduced to rubble, and footage from the scene showed huge slabs of concrete topped by piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, into one of which a car had fallen.

  • Israel’s military earlier ordered southern Beirut residents to evacuate and warned it was planning to strike three specific buildings in the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”.

  • Israeli media reported the strike on Beirut as an attempt to kill Hassan Nasrallah. There has been no immediate confirmation of the Hezbollah leader’s fate, with a source close to Hezbollah telling Reuters he was not reachable. The Lebanese group has not made a statement.

  • Hezbollah responded by Israel’s strike on Beirut by bombing Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. The Iran-backed militant group announced more attacks at Karmiel and Sa’ar. Israel braced for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran, urging residents of Golan Heights, Safed and Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas.

  • Video of the Israeli strikes on Beirut suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground.

  • The Israeli military claimed to have killed the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail, in fighter-jet attacks. The IDF also said on X that “with them other commanders and terrorists of Hezbollah were eliminated”.

  • Hundreds of families crammed into vehicles and fled Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday after Israel’s strikes and warnings to evacuate. Bottlenecks formed in the middle of the night on normally deserted streets of the capital, many of them in darkness due to power cuts.

  • Joe Biden, the US president, has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after Friday’s attacks on Beirut. Biden earlier on Friday said the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the strike. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel.

  • The US secretary of state said Israel’s objective in Lebanon was an “important and legitimate one”. Antony Blinken said the US and other countries who had joined calls for a 21-day ceasefire believed that diplomacy and a ceasefire was the best way forward.

  • The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, voiced regret that no power, including the US, could “stop” Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli prime minister appeared determined to crush militants in Gaza and Lebanon.

  • Tens of thousands of people have protested in Iranian cities and in the Yemeni capital to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Agence France-Presse journalists and state media reported.

  • The strikes came shortly after Netanyahu gave a bellicose speech in the UN general assembly and shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza. Instead the Israeli prime minister denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted Israel was “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor.

  • The UN secretary general, António Guterres, reiterated his call for a Middle East ceasefire, saying: “Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it.”

Updated

Lebanon’s health ministry has said hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs will be evacuated after the heavy Israeli strikes in the area, urging hospitals in unaffected areas to stop admitting non-urgent cases.

A ministry statement on Saturday called on hospitals unaffected by Israeli strikes to “stop receiving non-emergency cases until the end of next week in order to make space to receive patients from hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs which will be evacuated due to the developments in the aggression”, Agence France-Presse reported.

The health ministry has yet to provide an updated toll for strikes.

The BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard has been posting again from Beirut:

Updated

The Israeli military says it has intercepted a number of rockets after detecting that 10 were being launched at the Upper Galilee area of northern Israel, Reuters has snapped.

Updated

More here around Israel’s attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut in huge blasts that levelled multiple high-rise apartment buildings on Friday.

Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said the headquarters was located underground beneath residential buildings.

The series of blasts at around nightfall reduced six apartment towers to rubble in Haret Hreik, a densely populated, predominantly Shiite district of Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburbs, according to Lebanon’s national news agency.

A wall of billowing black and orange smoke rose into the sky as windows were rattled and houses shaken some 30km (20 miles) north of Beirut.

Footage showed rescue workers clambering over large slabs of concrete, surrounded by high piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, one with a car toppled into it. A stream of residents carrying their belongings were seen fleeing along a main road out of the district.

Israel provided no immediate comment about the type of bomb or how many it used, but the resulting explosion levelled an area greater than a city block. The Israeli army has in its arsenal 2,000-pound (about 900kg), US-made “Bunker Buster” guided bombs designed specifically for hitting subterranean targets.

Richard Weir, crisis and weapons researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the blasts were consistent with that class of bomb.

Updated

Circling back to Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN general assembly in New York on Friday, the Israeli leader signalled to the world that the multiple conflicts in the Middle East were far from resolved and vowed to continue battling Hezbollah and defeat Hamas in Gaza until “total victory”.

Shortly after he spoke, blasts rocked Beirut and the Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah’s headquarters, prompting Netanyahu to cut short his trip to New York by a day and make unusual travel on the Jewish Sabbath to get home, as the Associated Press reports.

The Israeli prime minister told the UN general assembly that “Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely – and that’s exactly what we’re doing” , eliciting applause from supporters in the gallery of the general assembly.

We’ll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met.

When Netanyahu entered the hall and was introduced, boos and raised voices echoed, and many delegates walked out through various exits.

Meanwhile, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Washington was not informed beforehand of Friday’s Israeli strike on Beirut. President Joe Biden was being kept abreast of developments, he said.

Updated

There has been no immediate confirmation of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s fate after Israel’s heavy strikes, with a source close to Hezbollah telling Reuters he was not reachable, the news agency reports.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has not made a statement.

Israel has not said whether it tried to hit Nasrallah, but a senior Israeli official said top Hezbollah commanders were targeted.

“I think it’s too early to say ... Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed,” the Israeli official told reporters when asked if the strike on Friday had killed Nasrallah.

Earlier, a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah was alive. Iran’s Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters that Tehran was checking his status.

Updated

Reuters witnesses say they heard more than 20 airstrikes before dawn on Saturday amid Israel’s wave of air raids striking Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Abandoning their homes in the area, thousands of Lebanese congregated in squares, parks and sidewalks in downtown Beirut and seaside areas.

“They want to destroy Dahiye, they want to destroy all of us,” said Sari, a man in his 30s who gave only his first name, referring to the suburb he had fled after an Israeli evacuation order.

Nearby, the newly displaced in Beirut’s Martyrs Square rolled mats on to the ground to tried to sleep.

An unprecedented five hours of continuous strikes early on Saturday followed a huge Israeli attack on Friday that apparently targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – by far Israel’s most powerful attack on Beirut during nearly a year of war with Hezbollah.

Updated

Tens of thousands of people have protested in Iranian cities and in the Yemeni capital to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Agence France-Presse journalists and state media reported.

The demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities on Friday were responding to a call by authorities on Wednesday to demonstrate in support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon “and to condemn the barbaric crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine”, the official IRNA news agency said.

Hezbollah is part of the “axis of resistance”, Iran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East that have targeted Israel, as well as US forces, in support of Palestinian militants Hamas.

The alliance also includes Yemen’s Houthis, who organised a demonstration by tens of thousands in the capital, Sana’a, on Friday a day after firing a missile at Israel.

In Tehran after Friday prayers, a protest took place around Enghelab Square in the city centre, an AFP journalist said. Demonstrators carried portraits of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as well as Palestinian and Hezbollah flags.

“Israel is destroyed. Lebanon is victorious,” they chanted, deploring “a bloodbath in Lebanon”. Protesters also burned Israeli and US flags.

State television aired footage of other demonstrations in Semnan, Qom, Kashan, Kermanshah, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas.

In Sanaa, which has been held by the Iran-backed Houthis for a decade, tens of thousands of chanting protesters gathered, many waving rifles and placards.

“We say to our brothers in Lebanon that you will be victorious, God willing,” said Houthi supporter Mortada al-Mutawkil.

This war is not the first nor the last with the Israeli enemy, but God willing it will be more painful for Israel than the 2006 war.

In Bahrain, which is an Israeli ally and keeps a tight rein on demonstrations, two protests denounced the war in Gaza and bombing campaign on Lebanon.

Several hundred people marched in a village north of Manama, voicing solidarity with Gaza and Lebanon, and in the capital scores of people raised Palestinian and Lebanese flags and called for an end to ties with Israel.

“The people demand an end to normalisation,” the protesters chanted.

Updated

In case you missed this earlier, here’s a visual guide to Israel’s airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon this week, amid estimates that 180,000 civilians have been displaced in both countries.

The Israel Defence Forces has posted on X that it “recently attacked” additional Hezbollah targets in Bekaa, “deep in Lebanon”.

The valley is about 30km east of Beirut.

Updated

EU's top diplomat regrets failure to 'stop' Netanyahu

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has voiced regret that no power, including the US, can “stop” Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli prime minister appears determined to crush militants in Gaza and Lebanon.

“What we do is to put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank,” Agence France-Presse reports Borrell telling journalists as he attended the UN general assembly on Friday.

Borrell backed an initiative by France and the US for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel has brushed aside as it steps up strikes on Hezbollah targets.

He said Netanyahu had made clear that the Israelis “don’t stop until Hezbollah is destroyed”, much as in its nearly year-old campaign in Gaza against fellow Iranian-backed militant group Hamas.

Borrell said in English:

If the interpretation of being destroyed is the same as with Hamas, then we are going to go for a long war.

The outgoing EU foreign affairs chief again called for diversifying diplomacy from the US, which has tried for months unsuccessfully to seal a ceasefire in Gaza that would include the release of hostages.

“We cannot rely just on the US,” Borrell said. “The US tried several times – they didn’t succeed.”

Updated

Here are some of the latest images coming in from Beirut amid Israel’s continuing strikes on the Lebanese capital.

Updated

Hundreds of families crammed into vehicles and fled Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday after Israel’s strikes and warnings to evacuate, Agence France-Presse reports.

Bottlenecks formed in the middle of the night on normally deserted streets of the capital, many of them in darkness due to power cuts.

In central Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, or along the seaside corniche boardwalk area, desolate men, women and young children were walking around or sitting on the ground.

“We were at home when there was the call to evacuate. We took our identity papers, some belongings and we left,” said Syrian refugee Radwan Msallam, who lives in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The father of six children aged between three and 17 said they had “nowhere to go”, adding that they could not return to Syria.

Rescuers worked through the night searching for survivors in Friday’s strikes, the biggest to hit Beirut’s southern suburbs since Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war in 2006.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television said seven buildings were destroyed in the strikes.

Updated

Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, has just issued a warning to residents in southern Beirut, including in a building in front of a school, saying they are located “near Hezbollah interests” and should evacuate immediately for their own safety.

Adraee’s post in Arabic on X (translated to English) says:

#عاجل Urgent warning to the residents of the southern suburb in #بيروت : Burj Al-Barajneh neighbourhood, in the building in front of Al-Amir School and the buildings adjacent to it.

Burj Al-Barajneh neighborhood, in the building that houses Ronnie Café and the buildings adjacent to it.

Hadath Beirut neighborhood, in front of Al Bayan School and the buildings adjacent to it

You are located near Hezbollah interests and for your safety and the safety of your loved ones, you are obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 metres.

The Israeli military says it is striking strategic Hezbollah targets in the Beirut area including weapons production, storage and command centres, Reuters has just snapped.

Satellite images of Chouaghir, in northern Lebanon, before and after the Israeli strikes this week:

Hezbollah missile unit commander and deputy killed in strikes, IDF claims

The Israeli military claims to have killed the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail, in fighter-jet attacks.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) also said in the post in Hebrew (translated to English) on X that “with them other commanders and terrorists of Hezbollah were eliminated”.

The IDF also posted that Muhammad Ali Ismail “is responsible for many acts of terrorism from his sector towards the territory of the state of Israel”, including launching rockets towards Israel and launching a surface-to-surface missile towards the centre of the country last Wednesday.

The IDF said:

Their assassination joins the assassination of the head of Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array, the terrorist Ibrahim Muhammad Kabisi, and the assassination of other senior officials in Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array.

It was not possible to verify the IDF’s claims.

Updated

The BBC correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard has posted a photo from Beirut on X saying it was a picture of a strike that just occurred.

Our windows keep shaking.

More strikes are being heard in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Reuters has just snapped, citing a news agency witness.

Hezbollah denied that any weapons or arms depots are located in buildings that were hit in the Israeli strike on Beirut suburbs, Reuters quoted the Lebanese group’s media office as saying in a statement on Saturday.

  • This is Adam Fulton picking up our live coverage

Updated

Summary of the day so far

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • Israel’s military conducted strikes early on Saturday in the south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after ordering residents to evacuate and warning it was planning to strike three specific buildings in the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”. “In the coming hours we are going to strike strategic capability that Hezbollah placed underground, under three buildings in the heart of the Dahiyeh,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters late on Friday.

  • Earlier on Friday, Israel’s military said it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut in its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group. Six loud explosions were heard across the Lebanese capital late on Friday afternoon. A number of buildings in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh were levelled. Residents of Dahiyeh and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Burj al-Barajneh, fled the area following the strikes.

  • Israeli media reported the strike on Beirut as an attempt to kill Hezbollah’s leader and key Iran ally, Hassan Nasrallah. Other media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources saying he was “alive and well”. Hezbollah issued a statement saying there was “no truth to any statement” about the Israeli attack, without specifying what statements it was referring to. IDF spokesperson Hagari said it was still looking into the results of its strike, but that it was “very accurate”.

  • At least six people were killed and 91 others were injured by the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday, according to the Lebanese health ministry, who cautioned that the death toll would likely rise. Some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble.

  • Hezbollah responded by bombing Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. The Iran-backed militant group announced more attacks at Karmiel and Sa’ar, but did not put out a statement regarding the fate of Nasrallah. Israel braced itself for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran, urging residents of Golan Heights, Safed, Merom HaGalil, to stay near protected areas.

  • Video of the Israeli strikes on Beirut suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground.

  • Joe Biden, the US president, has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after a wave of Israeli strikes in Beirut on Friday. Biden earlier on Friday said the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the massive Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel.

  • Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Israel’s objective in Lebanon is an “important and legitimate one”. Blinken, at a news conference on Friday, said the US and other countries who have joined calls for a 21-day ceasefire believe that diplomacy and a ceasefire is the best way forward.

  • The strikes came shortly after a bellicose speech by Netanyahu in the UN general assembly. Netanyahu shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza, and instead denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted that Israel is “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor.

  • The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, reiterated his call for a ceasefire in the Middle East. Guterres said; “Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it”. He added: “The death spiral must end for Gaza, for the people of Palestine and Israel, for the region and for the world.”

  • Even if he was not harmed in the strike, targeting Nasrallah would mark a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. The Hezbollah leader represents Iran’s most important regional asset and has long been seen as linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The presence of Hezbollah’s large rocket arsenal on Israel’s northern border has long acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear programme.

  • Iran’s embassy in Beirut said the airstrike represented “a dangerous game-changing escalation that changes the rules of the game” and warned that its perpetrator would be “punished appropriately”. Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister of Lebanon, said the Israeli attack on Beirut shows that Israel “does not care” about global calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

  • Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what government officials told her family was a case of mistaken identity. The car in which Islam Hijazi, Gaza programme manager at Heal Palestine, was travelling was intercepted on Thursday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Iran’s foreign minister has accused Israel of using US-made “bunker buster” bombs to strike Beirut on Friday, according to Reuters.

Abbas Araghchi reportedly told a UN security council meeting: “Just this morning, the Israeli regime used several 5,000-pound bunker busters that had been gifted to them by the United States to hit residential areas in Beirut.”

Senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel’s attack on the group’s central headquarters in Beirut’s suburbs. The fate of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, remains unclear.

The Canadian government is booking seats on commercial flights to help its citizens leave Lebanon, the country’s foreign minister said.

Mélanie Joly urged Canadian citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as they can. She said in a statement on social media: “Canada has secured seats for Canadians on the limited commercial flights available. If a seat is available, please take it.”

This week, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 700 people in Lebanon, an escalation that has raised fears of an even more destructive conflict.

Joly urged Canadians to register with the embassy in Beirut if they needed help leaving and said loans were available to those requiring financial assistance.

Updated

Upon being asked what his message would be to his 20-year old son, Nimrod Cohen, who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, 55-year-old Yehuda Cohen said:

“One of the reasons why I’m interviewing everywhere is the chance that he’ll hear from me because I want to give him strength ... He’s having a difficult time there so mentally I want to keep him strong and the only way is for him to hear me, hear his mother, hear his relatives so I’m telling Nimrod, ‘Stay strong, we are fighting for you, all over the world.’”

Cohen, was has been protesting Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN speech outside Netanyahu’s luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue, added: “I’ve been ... doing interviews just to keep the issue on the table, to keep Nimrod valuable for Hamas to keep him alive and to fight for a hostage deal so my son will be again a free man like he should be.”

Yehuda Cohen, 55, the father of 20-year-old Nimrod Cohen who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, condemned Benjamin Netanyahu outside his luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue.

“We are here today, this week because Netanyahu is here. Netanyahu wants to … show off. He came here for a speech in the UN while there is an intense war in Israel and he’s dealing with himself,” said Cohen.

“He’s actually ruling on the blood of Israeli civilians, Israeli soldiers and of course the Israeli hostages and we want to make a stop to that. He must either go for a hostage deal or resign and just vanish from our lives,” Cohen continued, adding, “He’s trying to stay forever, he’s trying to break down the [judicial] system in Israel … and stay prime minister forever. He would even take [Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya] Sinwar as his personal assistant if this will help him stay in power. He doesn’t care for Israel.”

As Netanyahu took the UN stage earlier on Friday, several diplomats walked out in protest. And away from the general assembly, there were further protests against the Israeli leader’s handling of the war in Gaza.

Idit Hertzberg, 74, was one of the approximately two dozen anti-Netanyahu protestors outside his luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue.

Speaking about Netanyahu, Hertzberg said: “We want to change his policy and to bring our hostages home. Bring them home, whatever the price would be. If he needs to cease the fire, temporarily or for a long time, we need them home. No way this goes on for more than a year … There are little babies, old people, no way can they go on being in these caves.”

Hertzberg added, “[Netanyahu] is here. We cannot change the fact. He is going to speak … The same degree of speaking, [we want to see him] doing.”

Updated

Before Israel launched a new air attack against Lebanon on Friday, the last day of the UN general assembly brought together different groups protesting for different causes.

Supporters of the religious movement Falun Gong gathered in a designated protest area near the UN.

Supporters of embattled Pakistani politician Imran Khan posted a banner calling for his release.

Supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist party wore headbands and held a banner.

Anti-war protesters held Palestinian flags aloft.

Biden orders US forces in Middle East to 'adjust as necessary', says White House

Joe Biden, the US president, has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after a wave of Israeli strikes in Beirut on Friday.

A statement by the White House reads:

He has directed the Pentagon to assess and adjust as necessary US force posture in the region to enhance deterrence, ensure force protection, and support the full range of US objectives.

Updated

Israel plans to ramp up its strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, according to the Times of Israel.

The report comes after Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it would strike three buildings in the Dahiyeh suburb of southern Beirut.

Citing Israeli military sources, the paper says the IDF plans to strike more Hezbollah sites in Dahiyeh.

The coming days are expected to be complex, the paper writes.

Updated

Images and videos are emerging following the latest Israeli air attack on southern suburbs of Beirut early on Saturday.

From Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem:

From the BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard:

Updated

The Israeli military confirmed it was conducting strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

A statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reads:

The IDF (military) is currently conducting targeted strikes on weapons belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation that were stored beneath civilian buildings.

Israel conducts new strikes on Beirut

Blasts have been reported in Beirut, after the Israeli military said it was conducting airstrikes in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, where it had warned residents to evacuate.

From the BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard:

Updated

Death toll in Israeli strike on Beirut rises to six, nearly 100 injured – health ministry

At least six people were killed and 91 were wounded in Israel’s strike on Beirut’s southern suburb on Friday, according to the latest figure by Lebanon’s health ministry.

The Lebanese ministry added that the toll was not final.

Updated

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari also said that the Israeli military would not allow any weapons transfers to Hezbollah, including via Beirut’s international airport.

Here’s more from Hagari’s remarks, reported by the Times of Israel:

Air Force planes are now patrolling the Beirut airport area … We are announcing, we will not allow enemy flights with weapons to land at the civilian airport in Beirut. This is a civilian airport, for civilian use, and it must stay that way.

Daniel Hagari, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, in a televised address, said the IDF is still looking into the results of its strike on Beirut earlier today.

Hagari said the “very accurate” strikes hit the main Hezbollah headquarters, which he said was located underground beneath residential buildings.

Israeli media have reported that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the principle target of Friday’s air attack on Beirut’s southern suburb.

A preliminary death toll by the Lebanese health ministry said two people were killed and 76 others injured as a result of the Israeli strike. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble.

“We will update as soon as we know. Our strike was very accurate,” Hagari said.

As we reported earlier, the IDF spokesperson also warned that Israel would strike three buildings in south Beirut “in the coming hours” and called on residents to evacuate them. Hagari said:

The force of the explosions as a result of the missiles which are under the buildings may cause damage to the buildings and even their collapse.

Updated

IDF tells civilians to leave ahead of strikes on buildings in southern Beirut in 'coming hours'

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has warned that it will strike areas of southern Beirut in the “coming hours” and called on civilians to leave those areas.

The statement by IDF spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari comes after the IDF ordered residents of Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, to evacuate certain areas as they were “located near Hezbollah interests”.

A map posted by an Israeli military spokesperson showed different neighbourhoods of Dahiyeh, pointing to specific buildings in al-Laylakeh and al-Hadath, both densely populated areas of Beirut.

Hagari reiterated the warning to residents of three buildings in Dahiyeh to evacuate. He said:

In the coming hours we are going to strike strategic capability that Hezbollah placed underground, under three buildings in the heart of the Dahiyeh.

Updated

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said Israeli military airstrikes on Friday targeted a meeting of “bad people” in Beirut.

He declined to confirm whether Israel was targeting the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, but said Nasrallah is a “bad actor” and “a terrorist”.

The Hezbollah chief has “blood on his hands”, Danon added.

Updated

Israel’s strike on Hezbollah leader is an alarming escalation in conflict

Israel’s apparent attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a massive strike on an underground headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs marks the most alarming escalation in almost a year of war between the Shia militant organisation as Israel.

Immediately after a highly bellicose speech by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN general assembly – where he appeared to directly threaten Iran as well as promise to continue “degrading” Hezbollah – the first reports of a massive strike began to emerge.

Within less than an hour, Israeli journalists with connections to the country’s defence and security establishment were suggesting that Nasrallah was the target and that he had been in the area of the headquarters at the time of the strike.

That the strike was regarded as highly significant was quickly confirmed by a series of statements from Israel – including an image showing Netanyahu ordering the attack on the phone from his New York hotel room.

What is clearer than ever, after a series of Israeli escalations against Hezbollah this month – including targeted killings and the explosion of thousands of modified pagers and walkie-talkies supplied to the group – is that the long-understood ground rules governing the balance of deterrence between the two sides has been blown away.

Read the full analysis here: Israel’s strike on Hezbollah leader is an alarming escalation in conflict

Updated

Israel's objective in Lebanon is 'important and legitimate', says Blinken

Here’s more from US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s news conference in New York.

Blinken said Israel’s objective in Lebanon is an “important and legitimate one”, and that it is about “creating an environment that’s secure enough to enable people to return home”. He tells reporters:

The question is: what’s the best way to do that? What is the most effective, sustainable way to do that?

He says the US and other countries who have joined calls for a 21-day ceasefire believe that the best way is through diplomacy and through a ceasefire.

Updated

Israel orders immediate evacuation of areas in Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburb

The Israeli military has warned residents of Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, to evacuate certain areas, as they were “located near Hezbollah interests”.

Avichay Adraee, Israel’s Arabic language military spokesperson, posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh on a post on X and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”.

He added that the evacuation orders were for the “safety of your loved ones”.

The map posted by the Israeli spokesperson showed different neighbourhoods of Dahiyeh, pointing to specific buildings in al-Laylakeh and al-Hadath that he said were Hezbollah bases.

Both al-Laylakeh and al-Hadath are densely populated areas of Beirut.

Earlier in the day, crowds of people fled from Dahiyeh and the immediate surrounding area for fear of further Israeli strikes.

Updated

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the events of the past week and the past few hours underscored how “precarious” the situation is for the Middle East and the world.

Blinken, at a press conference in New York, says Israel “has the right to defend itself against terrorism” but “the way it does so matters”. He said:

The choices that all parties make in the coming days will determine which path this region is on with profound consequences for its people now and possibly for years to come.

One of the choices is the “path of diplomacy”, he says, which involves reaching a ceasefire along the border between Israel and Lebanon, as well as a ceasefire in Gaza.

The US has made clear that it believes that “the way forward is through diplomacy, not conflict”, Blinken says.

The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgment, it is necessary. We will continue to work intensely with all parties to urge them to choose that course.

Updated

Joe Biden has said the US had no advance knowledge of or participation in the massive Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday.

The US president told reporters that he is waiting for more information before commenting on the attack. He said:

The United States had no knowledge of or participation in the IDF action. We’re gathering more information. I’ll have more to say when we have more information.

Israel says it continues to strike Hezbollah targets in Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was continuing to strike Hezbollah sites throughout Lebanon.

An IDF statement said it continuing to “attack, damage and degrade the military capabilities and infrastructure” of Hezbollah.

It said Israeli fighter jets attacked “deep in Lebanon and southern Lebanon”, and that it hit Hezbollah targets including launchers that were “directed towards Israeli civilians”.

Hezbollah announced two more attacks on Israel late Friday night, saying in statements that they launched a salvo of rockets at Karmiel and Sa’ar, “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”.

Hezbollah had yet to put out a statement regarding the fate of its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, after reports that he was targeted by Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, earlier in the day.

Updated

Summary of the day so far

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • Israel’s military said it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut on Friday, launching its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group. Six loud explosions were heard across the Lebanese capital late on Friday afternoon. A number of buildings in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh were levelled. Residents of Dahiyeh and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Burj al-Barajneh, fled the area following the strikes.

  • Israeli media reported the strike on Beirut as an attempt to kill Hezbollah’s leader and key Iran ally, Hassan Nasrallah. Other media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources saying he was “alive and well”. Hezbollah issued a statement saying there was “no truth to any statement” about the Israeli attack, without specifying what statements it was referring to.

  • At least two people were killed and 76 others were injured by the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday, according to the Lebanese health ministry, who cautioned it was a preliminary figure. Some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble. “They are residential buildings. They were filled with people. Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble,” Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said.

  • Israel braced itself for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran. After the Beirut strike, Hezbollah said it bombed Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. Israel’s home front command has urged residents of Golan Heights, Safed, Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas.

  • Video of the Israeli strikes on Beirut suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground.

  • Stéphane Dujarric, the UN’s spokesperson, said the organisation is watching the Israeli strikes on a “densely populated” area in the southern suburbs of Beirut “with great alarm”.

  • The US insisted it did not have advance warning of the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday. A Pentagon spokesperson said Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, was talking on the phone with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, as the operation was under way. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel.

  • The strikes came shortly after a bellicose speech by Netanyahu in the UN general assembly. Netanyahu shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza, and instead denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted that Israel is “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor.

  • Even if he was not harmed in the strike, targeting Nasrallah would mark a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. The Hezbollah leader represents Iran’s most important regional asset and has long been seen as linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The presence of Hezbollah’s large rocket arsenal on Israel’s northern border has long acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear programme.

  • Iran’s embassy in Beirut said the airstrike represented “a dangerous game-changing escalation that changes the rules of the game” and warned that its perpetrator would be “punished appropriately”. Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister of Lebanon, said the Israeli attack on Beirut shows that Israel “does not care” about global calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

  • Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon. The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.

  • Britons in Lebanon have been urged to leave now and take “the next available flight”. John Healey, the UK’s defence secretary, was reportedly looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully”. The Lebanese army was protectively setting up a security cordon around the US embassy in Lebanon, which is north of Beirut, a security source told Reuters.

  • Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what government officials told her family was a case of mistaken identity. The car in which Islam Hijazi, Gaza programme manager at Heal Palestine, was travelling was intercepted on Thursday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Updated

Hezbollah says it has bombed city of Safed in northern Israel

Hezbollah has put out a statement saying it has bombed Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”.

The Hezbollah statement did not mention the Israeli strike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on Friday night, reportedly targeting the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

Israeli media said a building had been hit in the rocket barrage, but that no injuries were reported yet.

Updated

Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, responded to the Israeli prime minister’s speech at the UN general assembly this afternoon, during which Benjamin Netanyahu frequently referred to the potential dividends of peace for both countries and the wider region. He claimed it would make the Middle East a “global juggernaut”.

Netanyahu expressed his desire for an expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, a policy introduced during the Donald Trump administration that brokered peace between Arab states before addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Faisal bin Farhan stated that Netanyahu “not once mentioned Palestine and not once mentioned the Palestinians”, adding that it would not be possible for the region to stabilise and achieve the potential Netanyahu referred to without peace in Palestine.

The crux of the matter is how do you address the issue of Palestine? We address it through what has been established in international law: the formation of a Palestinian state.

Updated

UN chief says Gaza remains 'epicentre of violence'

António Guterres, the UN’s secretary general, said he fully supports a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, warning that “we cannot afford endless negotiations as we have on Gaza”.

“We must avoid the regional war at all costs,” Guterres told world leaders at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, saying:

Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it.

The UN will continue to support all efforts towards sustainable peace, starting with an end to the violence, he said, adding:

The death spiral must end for Gaza, for the people of Palestine and Israel, for the region and for the world.

Updated

Sirens have been reported in Safed and nearby towns in northern Israel.

From the Times of Israel:

Hezbollah’s media office has said there was “no truth to any statement” about the Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

It did not specify what statements it was referring to.

Hezbollah has not otherwise made any statement about the Israeli strikes, Reuters reported.

Updated

The Lebanese army was protectively setting up a security cordon around the US embassy in Lebanon, which is north of Beirut, a security source told Reuters.

Britons in Lebanon urged to 'take the next available flight'

The UK Foreign Office is again urging British nationals in Lebanon to leave immediately.

British nationals in Lebanon should “take the next available flight”, it said in a post on X.

The Foreign Office said it is working to increase capacity and secure seats for British nationals to leave.

It also asked British nationals to let the UK government know they were in Lebanon through its Register Your Presence service.

Joe Biden, the US president, has been briefed by his national security team on the Israeli strikes in Beirut, the White House said.

Updated

Israeli strike on Beirut 'changes the rules of the game', says Iran

Iran’s embassy in Beirut condemned Israel’s airstrikes on Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, on Friday, saying the strikes “represent a serious escalation that changes the rules of the game”.

It added that Israel would be “punished appropriately”.

Since Israel’s escalations in Lebanon, Iran has signalled that it is reluctant to get directly involved in Hezbollah’s fight with Israel.

In New York during a visit to the United Nations on Monday, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, said that a larger war in the Middle East “will not benefit anyone”.

Updated

Israel has carried out a series of deadly airstrikes in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh district on Friday, the largest Israel has carried out in Lebanon since it began exchanging fire with Hezbollah on 8 October.

Here’s our video report:

Israel bracing for potential retaliation after Beirut strike

Israel is bracing for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran.

The home front command has urged residents of Golan Heights, Safed, Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas.

Updated

Residents of Dahiyeh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Burj al-Barajneh, began to flee the area in the hours following the Israeli airstrikes on the area on Friday night.

Some people clutched bags, others held nothing as beeping scooters weaved through crowds of people leaving their homes.

Calls went out for empty apartments in Achrafieh, a Christian area of east Beirut and areas in the mountains surrounding Beirut, which were spared from most of the fighting during the 2006 Lebanon Israel war.

This is the second time in a week that residents of Lebanon fled Israeli airstrikes, after Israel launched a wide-ranging aerial campaign on Monday that displaced over 90,000 residents from south Lebanon.

Hospitals asked people to donate blood, in anticipation of large numbers of casualties, with already 76 reported as injured, though emergency responders were only beginning rescue operations.

Updated

The UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said she is “deeply alarmed” and “profoundly worried” about the potential civilian impact of Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday.

The “massive” strikes were on the Lebanese capital’s “densely populated” southern suburbs, Hennis posted to X. She added:

The city is still shaking with fear and panic widespread. All must urgently cease fire.

Updated

Here are some of the latest images from the newswires from Beirut, where Lebanon’s health ministry says at least two people were killed and 76 others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.

Updated

As we reported earlier, the Pentagon has said that the US did not have advance warning of the Israeli strike on Beirut.

Israel notified the US only moments before the strike, CNN reported, citing several sources.

According to one US official, Israel informed Washington they were taking military action once the operation was already under way and Israel had planes in the air. CNN cited the official as saying:

We had no foreknowledge of this and that does not qualify as a heads up.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, was talking on the phone with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, as the operation was under way.

Updated

Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said there had been a “complete decimation” of four to six residential buildings as a result of the Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday.

Abiad told the New York Times that the number of casualties in hospitals was low so far because people were still trapped under the rubble. He said:

They are residential buildings. They were filled with people. Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble.

An Israeli official has told NBC News that Israel expects Hezbollah will attempt to mount a “major retaliatory attack” after the Israeli military said it struck the Lebanese militant group’s headquarters in Beirut on Friday.

Two killed, 76 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut, says Lebanon's health ministry

Two people were killed and 76 injured in the Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut today, according to Lebanon’s ministry of health on Friday night.

The death toll is expected to rise as rescue crews continue to clear rubble from the buildings collapsed in the strike.

Updated

US had no advance warning of Israeli strike in Beirut, says Pentagon

The Pentagon’s spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, said the US did not have advanced warning of the Israeli strike in Beirut. She told reporters:

The United States was not involved in this operation and we had no advanced warning.

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, as the Israeli operation was ongoing, Singh added.

She declined to say what Gallant told Austin about the operation and whether it had targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as reported by Israeli media.

Updated

At least one person was killed and 50 others wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV is reporting.

Updated

UN says it is watching Israeli strikes on Beirut with 'great alarm'

The UN’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said the organisation is watching the Israeli strikes on a “densely populated” area in the southern suburbs of Beirut “with great alarm”.

Dujarric added:

Anyone who looks at the pictures of smoke billowing from a densely populated area should be alarmed.

He added that the UN is “trying to gather more information as we speak”.

Updated

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will return tonight from New York to Israel, his office said.

Netanyahu will take off from New York today at 8pm ET, it said. He was originally scheduled to leave on Saturday.

The Israeli leader earlier today addressed the UN general assembly, where he told world leaders that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah would continue.

The office of Benjamin Netanyahu has released a photo that it said showed the Israeli prime minister approving the airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut.

The photo appears to show Netanyahu at his hotel in New York.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, posted a photo that he said showed him observing the strike from the Israeli air force’s underground command room.

The photo shows Gallant alongside the chief of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Herzi Halevi, and head of the Israeli air force, Tomer Bar.

Updated

Here are some of the latest images from Dahiyeh in southern Beirut, where Israeli strikes on Friday shook the Lebanese capital and sent thick clouds of smoke over the city.

Updated

Nasrallah alive and 'fine' after Israeli strike in Beirut – reports

The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, is alive, Reuters is reporting, citing a source close to the group, after Israeli media reports that Nasrallah was the target of an Israeli strike in Beirut on Friday.

A senior Iranian security official earlier told Reuters that Tehran is checking the status of Nasrallah.

A source close to Hezbollah said Nasrallah is “fine”, AFP is reporting.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried a “precise strike” on the Hezbollah headquarters in the Lebanese capital.

Updated

The Lebanese Red Cross says it has dispatched 10 teams to the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh after Israeli airstrikes.

There was no immediate word on casualties from the strikes. Friday’s strikes were the most powerful yet seen in the Lebanese capital the past year.

According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Dahiyeh were destroyed by the airstrikes.

A source close to Hezbollah said the Israeli strikes “levelled six buildings”, AFP reported.

Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister of Lebanon, said the Israeli attack on Beirut shows that Israel “does not care” about global calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

The statement, reported by Reuters, was released while Mikati is in New York for the UN general assembly.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly targeted in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut

Israel carried out what it said were multiple airstrikes on the main military headquarters of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with Israeli media claiming that the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was present at the time of the strike – though the Guardian could not verify this claim.

It was not immediately clear if Nasrallah was killed in the strike or not. If true, the targeting of Nasrallah would be a large escalation in fighting between Hezbollah-Israel, already teetering on the precipice of a full-scale war.

According to Israeli spokesperson Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military targeted the Hezbollah headquarters, which was built “under residential buildings in Beirut in order to use them as human shields”.

Israeli media further claimed the army used bunker busters – large bombs capable of penetrating deep into the earth before exploding – in the attack.

The strikes were the largest against Beirut since the beginning of fighting nearly a year ago. The explosions rocked the capital city, heard across the city. There were multiple large plumes of smoke billowing from the strike sites, seen as far as the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive north of the capital city.

According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings were destroyed by the airstrikes.

Videos showing the site of the airstrike showed several buildings that had completely collapsed, with fires burning under the rubble. Pictures showed a car swallowed by a hole in the ground, while rubble and dust made the asphalt street unrecognizable.

The sound of ambulances rushing to the scene were heard across Beirut, but reports of casualties had yet to emerge.

Friday’s airstrike was the fifth time that Israel hit the capital city in a week, and came off the back of a week of an intensified aerial campaign against Lebanon. Israel said that it bombed more than 2,000 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, killing at least 700 and wounding more than 1,835.

Updated

According to Israeli media, Israel is checking if Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was at the group’s headquarters in Beirut when it was hit by an Israeli strike.

From the Times of Israel’s Emanuel Fabian:

A number of well-connected Israeli correspondents were briefed by Israeli security sources in the minutes after the strike that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target.

Updated

We reported earlier that Fox News claimed that the target of the Israeli strike on Beirut was the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

Axios is also reporting that the target of the attack was Nasrallah, citing an Israeli source.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is checking to see if Nasrallah was injured, it reports.

Updated

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has posted a full statement by its spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, who said the Israeli military had carried out a “precise strike” on Hezbollah’s central headquarters in Beirut.

Hagari said the Hezbollah central command centre was embedded deep within civilian areas in the heart of Dahiyeh, in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs.

The headquarters “served as the epicentre of Hezbollah’s terror”, he said.

Updated

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah targeted in Israeli strike on Beirut – report

Fox News is reporting that the target of the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday was the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

The Guardian has not yet been able to verify this report.

As we reported earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed it targeted Hezbollah’s central command in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the IDF strike on Beirut flattened six buildings.

Updated

Israel says it carried out an airstrike against Hezbollah military HQ in Beirut suburbs

Israel carried out what it said was a strike against Hezbollah’s main military headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday afternoon, in what were the largest airstrikes carried out on Beirut since the beginning of fighting nearly a year ago.

According to Israeli spokesperson Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military targeted the Hezbollah headquarters, which was built “under residential buildings in Beirut in order to use them as human shields”.

The airstrikes rocked Beirut, with the series of explosions heard across the city and multiple large plumes of smoke billowing from the strike sites. The smoke could be seen from the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive north of the capital city.

According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings were destroyed by the airstrikes.

Videos showing the site of the airstrike showed several buildings that had completely collapsed, with fires burning under the rubble. Emergency responders arrived on the scene, but reports of a death toll had yet to emerge.

Updated

Israel bombed Dahiyeh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, late Friday afternoon local time, with at least six loud explosions heard across the city.

Multiple large plumes of smoke billowed above the southern suburb of Beirut, visible from the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive away.

Israel said it conducted an airstrike against Hezbollah’s military headquarters in the area. It was the largest bombing of Beirut since hostilities broke out nearly a year ago. It was the fifth time that Israel struck Beirut in a week.

Updated

Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, has said the death toll in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of Friday was 25. One attack killed nine members of a family, including four children, in the border town of Shebaa, mayor Mohammad Saab told Reuters.

More than 700 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks since Monday, according to a tally of official tolls.

The shops behind us were hit. The young boy who was with me was martyred [killed], and I’m still alive,” said 13-year-old Syrian Abdallah Tawfik Al-Hamid, lying in a hospital bed in southern Lebanon following an airstrike.

Hezbollah said it had fired rockets into Israel on Friday at Kiryat Ata near the city of Haifa some 20 miles from the border, and at the city of Tiberias, declaring the attacks a response to Israeli strikes on villages, cities and civilians.

Though Israeli air defences have shot down many of Hezbollah’s rockets, limiting damage, the attacks have displaced tens of thousands and shut down normal life across much of northern Israel as more areas fall into its crosshairs.

Updated

Fresh explosions rock southern Beirut

A series of powerful explosions shook Beirut a little earlier today and thick clouds of smoke reportedly rose over the city.

Witnesses told the news agency Reuters of what appeared to be a fresh round of bombing on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital.

Lebanese media said there were a series of Israeli airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the city.

Israel’s foreign minister yesterday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and continued airstrikes that have killed hundreds of people in Lebanon this week and heightened fears of a regional war.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said four buildings had been destroyed in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.

Updated

Back on the ground in Lebanon, there are fresh reports of air strikes on the capital.

Massive, thick clouds of smoke were seen rising from Beirut today after multiple explosions were heard, according to Reuters witnesses.

We await further details.

Updated

Summary of the day thus far

  • Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN’s general assembly, where he said his country is winning. He declared that there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach and called for a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

  • Speaking of Hezbollah, Netanyahu said “enough is enough” and that “we won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes.”

  • The Israeli leader also criticised the United Nations and the ICC prosecutor, and said that no army has done what Israel is doing to minimise civilian casualties.

  • Earlier, the prime minister said in a statement that Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the US ceasefire proposals on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead. “Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes,” the statement said.

  • UK defence secretary John Healey is looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully” and that airstrikes and rocket fire exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah present a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”.

  • The Lebanese health minister, Firass Abiad, said 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of today. Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

  • Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they had targeted Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone.

  • The UN said on Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties.

  • The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that more than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours.

  • Australia suggested the world set “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood” in a sign of increasing frustration about the stalled peace process.

  • Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US-based charity, firing on her car in what officials said was a case of mistaken identity.

Updated

The American embassy in Beirut has said that it “is not evacuating U.S. citizens at this time”.

“There is a commercially available flight that U.S. citizens who expressed interest in departing Lebanon will have to book and pay directly with the airline,” it said.

Updated

Number of diplomats leave UN general assembly chamber for Netanyahu speech

Here’s footage of diplomats leaving the chamber ahead of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the UN general assembly in New York.

Updated

Netanyahu also criticised the United Nations, referring to it as a “swamp of antisemitic bile”.

“Until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.”

He also took aim at the international criminal court’s prosecutor.

Updated

In his speech at the UN general assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Israel doesn’t want to see a single innocent person die.

“No army has done what Israel is doing to minimise civilian casualties: we drop fliers, we send text messages, we make phone calls by the millions to ensure that Palestinian civilians get out of harm’s way,” he said.

Updated

Outside the luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue, a small group of anti-Benjamin Netanyahu protestors gathered across the street. Some waved Israeli flags while others held signs with Netanyahu’s face imprinted with a red handprint.

One protestor, Yehuda Cohen, 55, condemned Netanyahu’s speech at the UN.

“While there is intense war in Israel, he’s dealing with himself … he thinks he’s the great speaker, he will save Israel by speaking, he’s actually destroying Israel. He’s responsible for the events of 7th of October,” Cohen said.

“He must put everything aside, stop the war and go for a hostage deal. I want my son back home. I sent my son to the army so he can protect Israel. On the 7th of October, they were outnumbered, he was neglected and kidnapped … The Israeli government, it’s not that they’re doing nothing for a hostage deal, they’re doing everything to prevent a hostage deal,” Cohen added.

Updated

Netanyahu calls for peace agreement with Saudi Arabia

Netanyahu also stressed the need to achieve a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, citing the experience of the Abraham accords.

“I say to you, what blessing such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring – it would be a boon to the security and economy of our two countries, it would boost trade and tourism across the region, it would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut,” he said.

“Such a peace, I’m sure, would be a true pivot of history: it would usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism, between Mecca and Jerusalem,” the Israeli leader said.

“One of the best ways to foil Iran’s nefarious designs is to achieve the peace,” he added.

Updated

'We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes', Netanyahu says

Speaking of Hezbollah, Benjamin Netanyahu said the group has murdered the citizens of many countries and attacked Israel unprovoked.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes,” he added. “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another 7 October-style massacre,” he said.

Updated

“Hamas has got to go,” Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said at the UN general assembly.

Israel seeks a demilitarised and deradicalised Gaza, he stressed.

The hostages must be returned to their families, he said.

Updated

'We are winning', Netanyahu says, warning Iran that there's no place Israel cannot reach

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at the UN general assembly.

“We are winning,” he declared, showing a map he termed “the curse” of Iran’s influence and another which he described as a blessing.

Netanyahu also called for an end to the “appeasement” of Iran. Everything must be done to ensure Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons, the Israeli leader added.

Updated

In a speech at the UN general assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his country will not rest until the remaining hostages are brought home.

Updated

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking of the “curse” of 7 October and the atrocities committed that day.

Updated

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, says at the UN general assembly that he didn’t intend to come this year, but after he heard the “lies and slander” levelled at Israel he decided to come and “set the record straight”.

“Israel seeks peace, Israel yearns for peace,” he said, adding that Israel must defend itself against “savage murderers”.

Updated

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is about to speak at the UN general assembly. The chair is calling for order in the chamber.

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, has said that Israel will continue to use all means at its disposal to return the north’s residents to their homes safely.

UK defence secretary John Healey is looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully”, reports the Press Association (PA).

Healey said on Friday airstrikes and rocket fire exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah present a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”.

The PA reports that Healey faced questions about a possible ground invasion after Israeli army chief Lt Gen Herzi Halevi told troops on Wednesday that ongoing airstrikes were “to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah”.

Speaking to broadcasters, Healey said his “first concern remains the safety of British nationals in Lebanon”.

He added:

The travel advice remains the same – don’t go to Lebanon. If you are in Lebanon, then get out and there are still commercial flights leaving so people can do that.

But I left Labour conference earlier this week to chair a Cobra committee in government because we are making the preparations you’d expect of government ahead of any potential developments in the future.”

The PA news agency understands the UK government has successfully asked airlines to increase capacity on routes out of Lebanon, with Foreign Office teams in Beirut to support British consulate services.

It is thought they are ready to facilitate evacuations by sea or air, which could be triggered if the security environment degrades further and British nationals are no longer able to leave the Middle East through other routes.

Asked about the rumoured ground invasion, the PA reports Healey as replying:

We’re watching this really carefully. That will be a matter for the Israelis.

At the moment, it’s airstrikes. At the moment, there are missiles from the Lebanese Hezbollah directed at Israel. This conflict serves no one.”

The defence secretary said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would “hear about the calls from many countries led by the United States and Britain for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon – 21 days in which the fighting should stop on both sides” when he attends the UN general assembly in New York on Friday.

“That gives everyone a chance to concentrate on the peace plan that is on the table, that the Israelis themselves say would allow them to get their citizens back into northern Israel and the Lebanese to return to their homes in southern Lebanon,” he added.

Updated

Lebanon facing deadliest period 'in a generation', says UN official

The UN said on Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.

“We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,” Riza told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut, reports AFP.

He pointed out that on Monday alone, the death toll was equal to around half of the 1,200 killed during 34 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

“The level of displacement, the level of trauma, the level of panic, has been huge,” he said. At the same time, Riza warned that Lebanon’s “health sector is completely overrun”.

“The events of last week, including the explosions of communication devices, have nearly depleted health supplies,” he said. Riza added: “With the recent escalations and hospitals reaching capacity, the system is struggling with limited resources to meet the growing demands.”

The hospitals in Lebanon “are overwhelmed”, agreed Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO).

She pointed out that the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had caused large numbers of serious injuries, especially to eyes and hands, which require specialised treatment.

A full 777 injured remain in hospitals after those blasts, “and 152 of those are critical cases”, Harris said, according to AFP. “That means they’re not leaving the hospital for quite some time, and so every day of bombing and blasts fills up beds that can’t be unfilled.”

At the same time, she said, 37 health facilities had been closed across Lebanon due to events. Harris stressed that aid agencies had done a lot to prepare for possible mass-casualty events in Lebanon in case the past year of cross-border fire were to escalate.

The WHO had helped “train most of the health workers in most of the hospitals for mass casualty”, she said. But “in our planning scenarios, we didn’t have anything like the numbers that have actually been affected”.

“It was way beyond anything that normal planning, even for a horrific event like this, would have expected.”

Updated

Australia has suggested the world should set “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood” in a sign of increasing frustration about the stalled peace process.

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will float the idea in a speech to the UN general assembly in New York on Saturday Australian time (Friday US time). Benjamin Netanyahu was also due to address the gathering amid mounting concern about an escalating regional war.

Wong will tell the general assembly that “every country in this room” must abide by the rules of war, and Israel “must comply with the binding orders of the international court of justice”, according to speech remarks distributed to media in advance.

Wong will say the Hamas-led attacks on Israel nearly one year ago “cannot and should not be justified” and the group must release all Israeli hostages.

But she will say 11,000 Palestinian children have been killed and two million people in Gaza face acute food insecurity in the resulting war. “This must end,” Wong will say.

“All lives have equal value.”

One of the most significant parts of Wong’s speech is her offer for Australia to “contribute to new ways to break the cycle of conflict”.

She will say Australia “shares the frustration of the great majority of countries” about a lack of progress, more than 77 years after UN general assembly resolution 181 outlined “a plan for two states side by side”.

You can rerad the full piece here:

Gunmen shoot and kill aid worker in Gaza, charity and family say

Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what government officials told her family was a case of mistaken identity, reports Reuters.

The car in which Islam Hijazi, Gaza programme manager at Heal Palestine, was travelling was intercepted on Thursday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Gunmen riding in three cars sprayed the vehicle with dozens of bullets, according to residents and the woman’s family.

“She was the mother of two small children and a humanitarian with the highest ethics and professionalism,” Heal Palestine, posted on its Facebook page. “HEAL Palestine is more dedicated than ever to serving Gaza, in her honor. Ceasefire now,” it added.

Reuters reports that her family issued a statement on Friday, saying they were told by government parties at the hospital where her body was taken that she was killed by mistake. Her killers, whose identity was not immediately clear, had failed to identify the vehicle she was driving, they said.

There has been no immediate comment from Hamas, according to Reuters.

“That was a bigger shock … How would an innocent soul be wasted and 90 bullets fired at her car just for mistaken identification?” the family said in a statement published by Palestinian media. Reuters was not able to verify the number of bullets fired.

The incident highlights growing chaos and anarchy in Gaza almost a year into Israel’s military offensive, which has weakened the ability of Hamas-run security services to police the streets, according to the group.

Updated

Yemen's Houthis say they attacked Israel's Tel Aviv and Ashkelon

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon, reports Reuters.

The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.

The Houthi’s military spokesperson said their operations will not halt in the coming days until Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop.

“We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon,” Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza.

Reuters reports that Lebanese health minister Firass Abiad said 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of Friday.

No further details were provided.

Updated

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they will soon issue a statement related to a military operation deep inside Israel, reports Reuters.

The Israeli army said it intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early on Friday.

Saudi Arabia forms global alliance to push for Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution

Saudi Arabia has formed a global alliance to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the country’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said on Thursday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly meeting in New York.

The alliance includes a number of Arab and Muslim countries and European partners, the Saudi state news agency reported, without specifying which countries had committed to join.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X that the first meetings would be in Riyadh and Brussels.

After the eruption of the Gaza war last October between Israel and Hamas that rules Gaza, Saudi Arabia put on ice US-backed plans for the kingdom to normalise ties with Israel, two sources familiar with Riyadh’s thinking said earlier this year, according to Reuters.

“Implementing the two-state solution is the best solution to break the cycle of conflict and suffering, and enforce a new reality in which the entire region, including Israel, enjoys security and coexistence”, bin Farhan was quoted as saying, reported Reuters.

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman said last week the kingdom would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state and strongly condemned the “crimes of the Israeli occupation” against the Palestinian people.

UK PM calls on Israel and Hezbollah 'to stop the violence' and 'step back from the brink'

Before a meeting with Donald Trump, the UK prime minister gave a speech at the UN general assembly where he told world leaders that Britain will approach international relations with less “paternalism” than before while listening more and speaking less.

He also pleaded with Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the brink of a wider war “that no one can control”.

“I call on Israel and Hezbollah: stop the violence, step back from the brink. We need to see an immediate ceasefire to provide space for a diplomatic settlement and we are working with all partners to that end,” he said.

More than 30,000 people have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in last 72 hours, says UNHCR

More than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.

In a post on X the UNHCR also shared a video of the UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, calling for a ceasefire.

Updated

Extra commercial flights have been scheduled this weekend to allow Britons and other foreign nationals to evacuate from Lebanon while Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah continues, mostly by Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines.

Official estimates are that there are 5,000 British citizens, single and dual nationals, and immediate family members who would be a priority for any emergency evacuation. Of those, several hundred are thought to be single nationals resident in the country.

Britain, along with other western nations, has been urging its citizens to leave Lebanon since early August, while commercial flights are available, though back-up evacuation plans were stepped up this week when 700 UK troops were moved back into the region.

Ministers are closely monitoring the status of Beirut’s international airport, and if it closes because of Israeli bombing near the capital, that is likely to be a trigger to launch an international rescue to allow foreign nationals to escape the hostilities.

However, with the summer holiday season over, the number of Britons leaving in recent days has been relatively modest, suggesting those remaining have close ties with Lebanon. Officials are monitoring closely how much demand there is for people to fly out this weekend, to assess the level of remaining need.

Japan to dispatch military planes for possible Lebanon evacuations

Japan is urging its citizens to leave Lebanon and has decided to prepare military flights for their possible evacuation, the government said on Friday.

Israeli bombing has killed hundreds of people this week in Lebanon, particularly in Hezbollah strongholds while the militant group has retaliated with rocket barrages.

“We’re currently checking the safety of Japanese citizens living in Lebanon, as well as urging them to leave the country while regular commercial flights remain in operation”, chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Friday morning, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Hours later, the defence ministry said air force planes had been ordered to go to Jordan and Greece to be on stand-by in case Japanese nationals need to be transported out of the region.

The C-2 transport aircraft would be used to evacuate about 50 Japanese citizens currently in Lebanon, media outlets including Kyodo News said, citing unnamed government sources.

Yoko Kamikawa, Japan’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday that Tokyo is “strongly concerned about the escalation of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah”.

Japan, she added, “strongly urges” all parties to “exercise the utmost restraint to avoid further escalation”.

As the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived in New York on Thursday ahead of his address to the United Nations general assembly, scheduled for Friday morning, protesters opposed to the war in Gaza gathered near UN headquarters.

One group of people who waved Israeli flags and campaign banners described themselves as an informal coalition of Jewish and Israeli-led organisations taking an anti-occupation and anti-war stance in relation to the Palestinian territories. They assembled close to the UN building in Manhattan to protest against Netanyahu’s arrival after he flew in from Israel overnight.

As it began to drizzle, a speaker addressed the crowd of about 50 people, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and telling those gathered that “Netanyahu will lie to the world” on Friday, just “like he lies to us Israelis”.

“Stop killing children, end the war, sign the deal, bring the hostages home,” the speaker continued. “There is no military solution.”

More protests are planned for Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday.

People carried signs reading “bring the hostages home” and “end the war”, and when Netanyahu’s name was mentioned in a speech, the crowd chanted “shame, shame, shame”.

Phylisa Wisdom, the executive director of the New York Jewish Agenda, one of the groups organising the protest, said the coalition was coming together to call on Netanyahu to reach a deal to end the war in Gaza, and bring out the remaining Israeli hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October last year.

“There is no solution but a diplomatic solution, and we’re making sure that this message cuts through and gets to Netanyahu, to our government, and to all allies of peace who care about Israeli and Palestinian lives,” Wisdom said. She added that the groups were also planning on protesting outside Netanyahu’s hotel.

Updated

Nearly 700 people killed in Lebanon this week, says health ministry

Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in October, in support of Hamas.

The US, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire to try to avoid an all-out war. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is striking Hezbollah “with full force” and will not stop until its goals are achieved.

Philippines says it will evacuate thousands from Lebanon if Israel invades

The Philippines said on Friday it will evacuate 11,000 citizens from Lebanon the moment Israeli forces cross the border to launch a ground offensive against Hezbollah, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Israeli bombing of Iran-backed Hezbollah strongholds around neighbouring Lebanon has killed hundreds of people this week, while the militant group has retaliated with rocket barrages.

Israel has rejected a US-backed 21-day ceasefire call, and its military chief has told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive.

“A ground invasion will lead to mandatory repatriation,” foreign undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said at a press conference in Manila, adding the plan was to move thousands out of the country via the sea. He did not provide other details, according to AFP.

Manila had earlier urged Filipinos to leave Lebanon before airlines stopped flying to Beirut but most of its citizens did not heed the call, Filipino diplomats said.

Millions of Filipinos work overseas – with large numbers concentrated in the Middle East – due to limited job opportunities at home. About 90% of those working in Lebanon are women migrant domestic workers, reports AFP.

“To some of them, getting killed in war is preferable to starving to death,” de Vega said, adding there have so far been no Filipino casualties from the Israeli air campaign against Hezbollah.

After Israel’s war with Hamas erupted last year following the group’s 7 October attack, Manila began voluntary repatriations of its citizens from the areas affected by the fighting.

So far, only 500 Filipinos have taken up the government’s offer to leave Lebanon, De Vega said.

Filipino ambassador to Beirut Raymond Balatbat said 196 Filipinos have fled southern Lebanon, where the Israeli campaign has been concentrated. Most Filipinos working in the country are based in central Lebanon around Beirut, he added.

Anthony Mandap, consul general at the Philippine embassy in Tel Aviv, said there are no plans as of now to repatriate 30,000 Filipinos working in Israel, reports AFP.

Updated

The Israeli military said drones and rockets crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon on Friday, as Lebanon’s Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on the Israeli city of Tiberias (see 9am BST).

The drones infiltrated the coastal area of Rosh HaNikra and were intercepted by the military’s defences, the Israeli military said, adding several rockets were also intercepted.

Israel strike kills 5 Syrian soldiers near Lebanon: state media

An Israeli airstrike on Friday killed five Syrian soldiers near the border with Lebanon, the Syrian state news agency, Sana, reported, citing a military source.

“The Israeli enemy carried out an aerial attack … on one of our military positions near Kfar Yabus on the Syrian-Lebanese border,” Sana quoted the source as saying, adding that five Syrian soldiers were killed and one was wounded.

The raid came a day after the Israeli army said its warplanes struck “infrastructure along the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli warplanes targeted a crossing that links Syria’s Qusayr area to Lebanon, causing “a number of wounded”.

The UK-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said it was the first such strike on Syria since Israel intensified its attacks on Lebanon’s Hezbollah this week.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group said its forces fired a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias on Friday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In a statement, Hezbollah said it was responding to Israel’s “savage” strikes on Lebanese towns and civilians. The Israeli military said drones and projectiles had crossed its territory from Lebanon.

Here are some of the latest images coming in on the newswires:

Ten global unions have filed a complaint urging Israel to pay back wages for more than 200,000 Palestinian workers deprived of salaries since the start of the war in Gaza.

The complaint, lodged at the International Labour Organization (ILO) on Friday, seeks unpaid wages and withheld benefits for workers employed in Israel before the 7 October attacks there by fighters from Palestinian militant group Hamas.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the unions cited “millions of dollars of lost income, causing severe financial insecurity … and widespread hardship for the affected workers and their families, who have no access to judicial remedies”.

Israel has ratified the ILO convention on the protection of unpaid wages, which is legally binding on signatories.

According to the complaint, 13,000 workers from the Gaza Strip have not been paid for work done before 7 October.

In addition, nearly 200,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank have not been allowed to enter Israel since the war erupted nearly one year ago and have not been paid for work done before it began, reports AFP.

The ILO estimates average daily wages for Palestinians employed in Israel under regular work permits at $79 a day, while for informal workers, weekly pay ranged from $565 to $700.

“These workers have experienced widespread wage theft due to the suspension of work permits and the unilateral termination of their contracts,” the unions said.

They include the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) and the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI).

AFP reports that the ILO can decide to name a committee to review the complaint and the Israeli government’s response, or in serious cases form an investigative committee.

Nine people killed in Israeli strike on Shebaa town in southern Lebanon, mayor says

An Israeli strike at about 3am local time on Friday killed nine people from the same family in the southern Lebanese border-town of Shebaa, including four children, mayor Mohammad Saab has told Reuters.

No further information was provided.

Updated

The House of Commons foreign affairs committee chairwoman has warned a ground invasion by Israel into Lebanon could favour Hezbollah and its legitimacy, reports the Press Association (PA).

Asked about escalating conflict in the Middle East, Emily Thornberry told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

I think that we need to be aware that we have perhaps more clout than we have done recently, and I think we’re in a fairly unique position, so … we are in a position to be able to pull people together.

I think that the UN general assembly meeting at this time means that many other nations can be pulled behind the declaration that has been made, and that will make it stronger.

We don’t know whether or not Israel is bluffing about a ground war. We do know that in 2006 that they got very bogged down, that at the moment they may be ahead because they’re using air power and surprise, but a ground war may well be different.

And actually, the poor Lebanese, who you know many of whom do not want Hezbollah in the bottom of their country, certainly don’t want to have the Israelis. And Hezbollah may well end up with more legitimacy as a result of that ground invasion.”

Israeli teams will continue meetings on US ceasefire proposals, Netanyahu says

Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the US ceasefire proposals with Lebanon on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, adding that he appreciated the US efforts.

“Our teams met (Thursday, 26 September) to discuss the US initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days,” he said in a statement, reports Reuters.

The comments came after Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli jets have been carrying out the heaviest bombardment against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in decades.

On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the UN general assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon.

Reuters reports that Netanyahu’s statement made no reference to the comments of Katz and other Israeli politicians, who have also rejected a ceasefire, saying only that there had been “a lot of misreporting around the US-led ceasefire initiative”.

“Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes,” the statement said.

“Israel appreciates the US efforts in this regard because the US role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region,” it said.

Israeli strikes over the past week have hit hundreds of targets in southern Lebanon and much deeper into the country, killing more than 600 people, reports Reuters.

At the same time, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and missiles at targets in Israel, including one fired at Tel Aviv. Israel’s air defence systems have intercepted many of the missiles, ensuring the damage has been relatively limited.

Australian PM urges Netanyahu to 'listen to the international community' amid fears of escalating conflict with Hezbollah

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has urged his Israeli counterpart to “listen to the international community” amid fears of an escalating conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, also declared that the world “cannot allow any party to obstruct” peace in the Middle East as she pressed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.

Speaking hours after the Israeli government rejected growing international calls to agree to a three-week ceasefire with Hezbollah, Albanese had a sharp message for Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I say to prime minister Netanyahu that he needs to listen to the international community, just like the other players in that region need to listen to the international community,” he told reporters in Melbourne.

“The calls are very clear when you have the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, other nations all calling for a de-escalation of this conflict.”

In New York, Wong addressed the UN security council and emphasised the urgent need for “de-escalation” and “dialogue”.

“Hezbollah are terrorists that have not complied with security council resolution 1701, but Lebanese civilians should not pay the price,” Wong said.

“Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza. Just as in Gaza, Australia calls for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon.”

In a pointed message to Israel, Wong said: “War has rules – even when confronting terrorists; even when defending borders.”

Israeli and US officials meet to discuss US-backed ceasefire proposal with Hezbollah

Israeli and US officials have met to discuss a US-backed ceasefire proposal with Hezbollah, the office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Thursday.

The meetings – which happened in New York on the sidelines of the UN general assembly – would continue in the days ahead, Netanyahu’s office said, adding that they appreciated the US efforts.

The statement came after Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli jets have been carrying out the heaviest bombardment against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in decades.

On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the UN general assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon.

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

  • Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel “will not stop” its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon despite calls from the US, France and other allies for an immediate three-week ceasefire. The Israeli prime minister told reporters that his government’s policy was clear as he landed in New York on Thursday. “We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force, and we will not stop until we reach all our goals,” Netanyahu said.

  • The US and France called for a 21-day temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah to make way for broader negotiations. A joint statement calling for “a diplomatic settlement” of the crisis was also endorsed by the UK, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. It called for an urgent cessation of hostilities, which presented “an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation”.

  • Lebanon’s minister for foreign affairs, Abdallah Bouhabib, has said his country is enduring a crisis that “threatens its very existence”. Speaking at the UN general assembly, he has said that his government welcomed yesterday’s ceasefire plan raised by the US and France – and demanded it be implemented.

  • US officials hope to persuade Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire proposal by the time he addresses the UN general assembly on Friday. They argue that a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could also provide a breathing space in which to revive long-stalled negotiations with Israel and Hamas over the release of Israeli hostages in return for a truce in Gaza. Hezbollah has yet to respond to the call for a truce, although it and its backer, Iran, have previously insisted it would halt its strikes only if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

  • Israeli airstrikes continued in Lebanon on Thursday, in which health authorities said 92 people had been killed. Two people were killed and 15 others injured, including a woman in critical condition, after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Thursday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel said it carried out a strike that it said killed one of the heads of the Hezbollah air force unit, Mohammad Surur. Hezbollah later confirmed his death.

  • Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement said it had targeted the northern Israeli town of Safed with dozens of rockets on Thursday in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Later on Thursday, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. The IDF said the sirens were triggered by a missile fired from Yemen, which it said was intercepted by Israel’s Arrow missile defence system.

Updated

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