Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged rocket fire across the southern Lebanon border in the most intense skirmish since the war in Gaza began almost a year ago.
The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets inside Lebanon after the Shi’ite militia launched just over 100 rockets at northern Israel.
Israel closed schools and in many northern areas of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early on Sunday, with reports of rockets hitting Haifa, around 17 miles from the Lebanon border.
It comes after top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed among 36 others in an Israeli strike on an apartment block in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Friday.
Aqil, 61, was involved in Hezbollah’s bombing of the US embassy in Beirut which killed 63 people in April 1983, according to the US State Department.
He also over saw an attack on the US Marine Corps barracks seven months later which killed 231 US personnel.
The assassination followed a series of suspected Israeli attacks earlier in the week that blew up Hezbollah’s radio and pager devices, killing 39 people and wounding at least 3,000 others.
Hezbollah and Israel exchange rocket fire in most intense skirmish yet
Israel’s strike on Beirut killed 37, Lebanon says
Israel will ‘pay price’ for killing top commander, Hamas says
08:20 , Alexander Butler
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged rocket fire across the southern Lebanon border in the most intense skirmish since the war in Gaza began almost a year ago.
The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets inside Lebanon after the Shi’ite militia launched just over 100 rockets at northern Israel.
Israel closed schools and in many northern areas of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early on Sunday, with reports of rockets hitting Haifa, around 17 miles from the Lebanon border.
07:00 , Tara Cobham
The Israeli defence minister has warned that his country’s new phase of war “will continue until our goal is achieved”.
Yoav Gallant, who said this week Israel was launching a new phase of war on the northern border, posted on X on Friday: “The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.”
Tens of thousands of people have left their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza.
סיימתי כעת הערכת מצב עם הרמטכ״ל ובכירי צה״ל לאור ההתפתחויות בגזרה הצפונית והפעולה הממוקדת לחיסול הצמרת המבצעית של חיזבאללה.
גם בדאחייה בביירות – נמשיך ונרדוף את אויבנו כדי להגן על אזרחינו.
רצף הפעולות בשלב החדש יימשך עד להשגת מטרתנו: השבת תושבי הצפון לביתם בביטחון.
— יואב גלנט – Yoav Gallant (@yoavgallant) September 20, 2024
06:59 , Arpan Rai
Over 100 rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon early today, with some landing near the northern city of Haifa, as Israel and the Hezbollah militant group appeared to be spiraling toward all-out war following months of escalating tensions.The rockets streaked over a wider and deeper area of northern Israel than previous volleys and set off air raid sirens across the region. The Israeli military said rockets had been fired “toward civilian areas,” pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated four people for shrapnel wounds, including a 76-year-old man who was moderately wounded near Haifa, where buildings were damaged and cars set on fire. It was not immediately clear if the damage was caused by a rocket or an Israeli interceptor.The barrage came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed at least 37 people, including one of Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as women and children. Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of personal devices to explode just days earlier.
06:38 , Arpan Rai
Israel‘s military said it is striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after the Lebanese group’s initial response to deadly remote explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies days earlier.
This comes shortly after more than 100 rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon early today, with some landing near the northern city of Haifa, as Israel and the Hezbollah militant group appeared to be spiralling toward all-out war following months of escalating tensions.
06:35 , Arpan Rai
Israeli troops raided the offices of the satellite news network Al Jazeera in the Israeli-occupied West Bank early today, ordering the bureau to shut down amid a widening campaign by Israel targeting the Qatar-funded broadcaster as it covers the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera aired footage of Israeli troops live on its Arabic-language channel ordering the office to be shut for 45 days. It follows an extraordinary order issued in May that saw Israeli police raid Al Jazeera’s broadcast position in East Jerusalem, seizing equipment there, preventing its broadcasts in Israel and blocking its websites.
The move marked the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country. However, Al Jazeera has continued operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, territories that the Palestinians hope to have for their future state.
There was no immediate acknowledgement of the shutdown by Israeli forces.
Al Jazeera denounced the move as it continued broadcasting live from Amman in neighbouring Jordan.
Israel raids and shuts down Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah in the West Bank
06:30 , Arpan Rai
Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire in the early hours today, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost a year of war across Lebanon’s south.
Hezbollah has claimed rocket attacks on military targets in Israel’s north.
The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets yesterday, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels and said it would continue to strike targets of the Iran-backed movement.
Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many northern areas of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early this morning.
Sirens sounded all night as multiple rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by Israeli aerial defence systems, the military said.
Israeli media reported that a number of buildings were hit directly or by falling missile debris, and ambulance services said they treated some lightly injured people. No serious casualties were reported.
Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli Ramat David Airbase with dozens of missiles in response to “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon”, the group posted on its Telegram channel early today.
The successive barrages of rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah at Ramat David are the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began.
Iran-backed Iraqi militants in a statement also claimed an explosive drone attack on Israel early today.
06:00 , Tara Cobham
Hezbollah has said it will keep fighting Israel until it agrees to a ceasefire in its war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza – triggered by a Hamas-led rampage in southern Israel on 7 October.
US officials say that is unlikely anytime soon. Israel wants Hezbollah to cease fire and withdraw forces from the border region, adhering to a UN resolution signed with Israel in 2006, irrespective of any Gaza deal.
Anticipating retaliation, the Israeli military restricted gatherings and raised the alert level for residents of northern communities. The alert went as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, signalling Israel thought Hezbollah could strike deeper than it had since the war with Hamas began.
05:00 , Tara Cobham
David Lammy is looking at contingency plans to evacuate UK nationals from Lebanon as tensions rise in the Middle East.
The foreign secretary has already urged Brits to leave the country amid the conflict with Israel.
Ministers are keen to avoid a repeat of the chaotic scenes three years ago when as Britons attempted to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country.
Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:
Lammy considers plans to evacuate Britons from Lebanon as Israel conflict escalates
04:00 , Tara Cobham
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan has said he is worried about escalation but that the Israeli killing of a top Hezbollah leader brought justice to the group, which Washington designates terrorists.
“While the risk of escalation is real, we actually believe there is also a distinct avenue to getting to a cessation of hostilities and a durable solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel secure,” Sullivan told reporters.
03:00 , Tara Cobham
This week saw a dizzying escalation in the 11-month-old conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
First came two days of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah — deadly attacks pinned on Israel that also maimed civilians around Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s leader vowed to retaliate, and on Friday the militant group launched dozens of rockets into northern Israel. Later in the day, Israel said it killed the commander of Hezbollah’s most elite unit with a strike in Beirut that Lebanese authorities say left at least 37 dead.
Lee Keath reports:
What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah
02:00 , Tara Cobham
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged intense rounds of rocket fire and airstrikes after the Lebanese militant group was targeted by an attack which caused their communication devices to explode.
In an unprecedented attack, pagers used by the group were simultaneously detonated on Tuesday, sparking widespread panic in Beirut and southern Lebanon. The following day, walkie-talkies were also remotely detonated across the country.
The total death toll in those attacks has risen to 39, and more than 3,000 were injured.
My colleagues Tom Watling and Andy Gregory report:
What is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group hit in ‘double tap’ pager attacks?
Sunday 22 September 2024 00:30 , Tara Cobham
Saturday 21 September 2024 23:42 , Tara Cobham
Rescue workers in Beirut searched on Saturday for people still missing in rubble after an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah commanders the previous day killed at least 37 people in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, according to authorities.
Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed group, said that 16 members including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among those killed in the deadliest strike in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
Israel’s army said it hit an underground gathering of Aqil and leaders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, and had almost completely dismantled its military chain of command.
The attack levelled a multi-story residential building in the crowded suburb and damaged a nursery next door, a security source said. Three children and seven women were among those killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Cross-border strikes continued on Saturday: Israeli warplanes carried out the heaviest bombardment in 11 months of fighting across Lebanon’s south and Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in Israel’s north.
The Israeli army said it hit around 180 targets, destroying thousands of rocket launch barrels.
Friday’s strike sharply escalated the conflict and inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks this week in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.
Saturday 21 September 2024 22:30 , Alexander Butler
Exploding pagers and walkie-talkies – could our phones and cars be next?
Saturday 21 September 2024 21:30 , Alexander Butler
What has boobytrapping Hezbollah’s pagers actually achieved?
Saturday 21 September 2024 20:30 , Alexander Butler
How the plot to explode Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies unfolded
Saturday 21 September 2024 19:30 , Alexander Butler
The Hezbollah pager attacks prove that Israel has no strategy for peace
Saturday 21 September 2024 18:30 , Alexander Butler
What is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group hit in ‘double tap’ pager attacks?
Saturday 21 September 2024 17:30 , Alexander Butler
What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah
Saturday 21 September 2024 16:30 , Alexander Butler
Iran’s supreme leader has said that Israel is committing “shamless crimes” against children, not combatants.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was speaking on state TV from Tehran, where he told a group of envoys from Muslim countries that Israel is not “fighting men, but ordinary people”.
“Unable to hurt the real fighters in Palestine, they are venting their malicious anger on small children, on hospital patients, and on schools filled with young children,” he said.
Saturday 21 September 2024 15:30 , Alexander Butler
Saturday 21 September 2024 13:25 , Alexander Butler
Palestinians said an Israeli strike killed at least 22 people in a school sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza City on Saturday, while the Israeli military said the attack targeted a command centre of militant group Hamas.
The Gaza health ministry said most of those killed were women and children. The Hamas-run government media office said 13 children and six women were among the dead.
The military said it hit a Hamas command centre embedded in the compound that previously served as a school, repeating an accusation that the group uses civilian facilities for military purposes. Hamas denies that.
Reuters footage from the site showed blasted walls, wrecked and burnt furniture, and holes in the ceiling of one room as people tried to salvage what they could of belongings.
“The women and their children were sitting in the playground of the school, the kids were playing, and suddenly two rockets hit them,” said one witness Said Al-Malahi.
Saturday 21 September 2024 13:15 , Alexander Butler
Cyprus’s president called for restraint over escalating tensions in the Middle East in separate telephone conversations with the Lebanese and Israeli prime ministers on Saturday, his spokesperson said in a statement.
The east Mediterranean island is the closest European Union member state to the Middle East, and has good relations with both Lebanon and Israel. Cyprus was ready to act as a conduit for diplomacy as well as facilitate contacts between the sides, said spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis.
Saturday 21 September 2024 12:15 , Alexander Butler
How the plot to explode Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies unfolded
Saturday 21 September 2024 11:45 , Alexander Butler
Saturday 21 September 2024 23:29 , Tara Cobham
David Lammy is looking at contingency plans to evacuate UK nationals from Lebanon as tensions rise in the Middle East.
The foreign secretary has already urged Brits to leave the country amid the conflict with Israel.
Ministers are keen to avoid a repeat of the chaotic scenes three years ago when as Britons attempted to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country.
Whitehall Editor Kate Devlin reports:
Lammy considers plans to evacuate Britons from Lebanon as Israel conflict escalates
Saturday 21 September 2024 11:15 , Alexander Butler
What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah
Saturday 21 September 2024 10:47 , Alexander Butler
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday that Israel is committing “shameless crimes” against children.
His comments came a day after an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, killed 31 people, including three children and seven women, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Saturday 21 September 2024 10:15 , Alexander Butler
The Hezbollah pager attacks prove that Israel has no strategy for peace
Saturday 21 September 2024 09:49 , Alexander Butler
At least 31 people including three children and seven women were killed in the Israeli military’s airstrike on Beirut on Friday, the Lebanese health minister said.
Saturday 21 September 2024 09:15 , Alexander Butler
What is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group hit in ‘double tap’ pager attacks?
Saturday 21 September 2024 08:16 , Alexander Butler
Hezbollah has said a second senior commander, Ahmed Wahbi, was also killed in Israel’s strike on Beirut on Friday.
Wahbi oversaw the military operations of the Radwan special forces during the Gaza war until early 2024.
Hezbollah had earlier confirmed that its senior commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed in the strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Saturday 21 September 2024 07:36 , Alexander Butler
Hamas has warned Israel will “pay the price” for killing a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
The group, based in Gaza, described the killing as a “crime” and “folly”. Hamas is part of Iran’s so called axis of resistance.
The “axis of resistance” comprises a group of violent proxies across Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Palestine, coordinated by Iran’s Quds Force, the foreign arm of the IRGC.
The Quds Force’s aim is to export Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution abroad. The US assassinated the former head of the Quds Force, Qassem Solemaini, in January 2020.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the most powerful group in the axis, boasts 100,000 fighters and has exchanged fire with Israeli forces in near daily exchanges since Hamas attacked Israel last year.
Saturday 21 September 2024 07:00 , Holly Evans
This week saw a dizzying escalation in the 11-month-old conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
First came two days of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah — deadly attacks pinned on Israel that also maimed civilians around Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s leader vowed to retaliate, and on Friday the militant group launched dozens of rockets into northern Israel. Later in the day, Israel said it killed the commander of Hezbollah’s most elite unit with a strike in Beirut that left at least 14 dead.
Read the full article here:
What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah
Saturday 21 September 2024 06:00 , Holly Evans
An Israeli man has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in a plot to assassinate prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other senior officials after being recruited by Iran, Israel’s internal security service has said.
The suspect – who was arrested in August – is a 73-year-old businessman with links to Turkey who had been smuggled into Iran for two meetings to discuss assassinating either Mr Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant or the head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency, it was alleged in a joint statement from the Israeli police and Shin Bet.
The allegations date back to April, when when the Israeli man – named as Moti Maman – agreed to meet a wealthy businessman living in Iran for business purposes.
Read the full article here:
Israeli man arrested over ‘Iran-backed plot to assassinate Netanyahu’
Saturday 21 September 2024 05:00 , Holly Evans
Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the UK government of “undermining” Israel’s right to self-defence.
Israel’s prime minister criticised the new Labour administration for suspending around 30 arms exports to the country amid concerns they could be used in violations of international humanitarian law in the Gaza conflict.
Sir Keir Starmer has also dropped the previous Conservative government’s plan to challenge the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) application for an arrest warrant against Mr Netanyahu.
Read the full article here:
Netanyahu accuses UK of undermining Israel’s right to self-defence
Saturday 21 September 2024 04:00 , Holly Evans
After nearly a year of conflict, senior US officials reportedly have lost hope that Israel and Hamas will reach a ceasefire deal before Joe Biden leaves office.
“No deal is imminent,” an unnamed official toldThe Wall Street Journal. “I’m not sure it ever gets done.”
“There’s no chance now of it happening,” another official, from an Arab country, added in the same report. “Everyone is in a wait-and-see mode until after the election. The outcome will determine what can happen in the next administration.”
Read the full article here:
US no longer expects Israel-Hamas ceasefire before Biden leaves office
Saturday 21 September 2024 03:00 , Holly Evans
Pagers across Lebanon have exploded in what appears to be a highly advanced and unexpected deadly attack.
The particularly novel and surprising nature of the attack has led some to worry that it could represent a new front in warfare. And many have asked whether that might mean that all of our consumer devices could really be considered safe.
The simple answer is: yes, they are. There is nothing at all to indicate that the attacks suggest there is any danger to the smartphones and other technology that most people carry around every day.
Read the full article here:
Are our smartphones safe? Experts speak out about dangers after pager explosions
Saturday 21 September 2024 02:00 , Holly Evans
Human rights advocates are calling for an independent investigation into the deadly explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon and Syria, suggesting the blasts may have violated international law if the devices were fashioned as booby traps.
The explosions that have been widely blamed on Israel killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 3,000, including many members of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Israel has not confirmed or denied involvement.
The United Nations human rights office and some advocacy groups have cried foul, arguing that the strikes were “indiscriminate” because it’s nearly impossible to know who was holding the devices, or where they were, when they went off. But some academics insist the explosions were precisely focused because the devices had been distributed to Hezbollah members.
Read the full article here:
Did Middle East device attack violate international law? Advocates want an investigation
Saturday 21 September 2024 01:00 , Holly Evans
Saturday 21 September 2024 00:00 , Holly Evans
Paging devices used by Hezbollah forces in Lebanon and Syria exploded near-simultaneously on 17 September, leaving 12 dead and almost 3,000 injured. The following day later, walkie-talkies exploded all over Lebanon, killing 20 and injuring at least 400. Both attacks are widely assumed to be the work of Israel.
The scale of the attacks, as well as their theatrical nature, can be seen as a bid by Israel’s military and intelligence forces to repair their reputation, left in tatters following the 7 October Hamas attacks.
It could also represent an attempt by Israel to address the problem of its northern border. Visiting the area this week, I have seen the effects of the continual exchanges of rocket and missile attacks, which have led to 60,000 people being evacuated from Israeli towns. According to reports, Lebanese villages have also been evacuated as a result of the fighting.
Read the full article here:
The Hezbollah pager attacks prove that Israel has no strategy for peace