Middle East crisis live: Hezbollah claims to have killed Israeli soldiers crossing border; no safe space left in Beirut, mayor says
Hezbollah says it has killed and injured Israeli soldiers crossing the Lebanese border
William Christou
William Christou has been reporting for the Guardian from Beirut
Hezbollah has claimed in a statement to have killed and injured Israeli soldiers crossing the Lebanese border near a UN position near the al-Labouneh forest, in the western section of the border area. Hezbollah said that the attack forced Israeli soldiers to withdraw behind the border. These claims have not been independently verified yet.
Israel deployed a fourth division to its northern border today in support of its “Operation Northern Arrow”, which started with an intense aerial campaign on 23 September and expanded on Monday to include ground offensives across the border.
The Hezbollah attack came after its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem said in a speech today that the group is still capable of repelling an Israeli advance into Lebanese territory in the south.
Key events
We reported earlier that the leaders of the US, UK, France and Germany were set to hold talks on the Middle East and Ukraine in Berlin on Saturday (see post at 13.59).
It has since been announced that the US president, Joe Biden, is pulling out of the trip to focus on the response to Hurricane Milton, expected to make landfall as an “extremely dangerous hurricane” in Florida on Wednesday night, local time.
A statement from the White House reads:
Given the projected trajectory and strength of Hurricane Milton, President Biden is postponing his upcoming trip to Germany and Angola in order to oversee preparations for and the response to Hurricane Milton, in addition to the ongoing response to the impacts of Hurricane Helene across the southeast.
The office of Keir Starmer, the UK’s prime minister, said he still plans to travel to Berlin on Saturday for talks with the leaders of France and Germany, two of the three other members of the so called “quad”.
Here are some of the latest images coming out of the newswires from Gaza:
Several civilians have been killed and others injured in Israeli attacks today across the Gaza Strip, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.
Several civilians were reported to have been killed at the western entrance to the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
One man was killed and others injured after an Israeli warplane targeted land near the entrance to the Gaza town of Zawayda, according to the Wafa report, which has not been verified by the Guardian.
Elsewhere, three civilians were reportedly injured by an Israeli airstrike on a tower in the the al-Alami area of the Jablia refugee camp in the territory’s north, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic urban refugee camps.
The Israeli army has surrounded the northern city of Jabalia since Sunday, as well as other nearby neighbourhoods, ordering residents to flee southward towards the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi, even though it has been targeted in deadly Israeli airstrikes and is severely overcrowded.
The Israeli military claims its forces are in Jabalia to fight Hamas militants, dismantle military infrastructure and prevent Hamas from regrouping.
There have also been reports today of a house being bombed in the al-Rimal neighbourhood in the centre of Gaza city.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 43 Palestinians in Gaza have so far been killed by the Israeli military on Tuesday.
Prosecutors in the Netherlands are considering a request to open a criminal case against senior Israeli intelligence officials for allegedly interfering with an investigation by the international criminal court (ICC).
The request was filed last week by a group of 20 complainants, most of whom are Palestinian, asking the Dutch prosecution service to examine allegations Israel tried to derail the ICC’s inquiry into alleged crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to lawyers for the group, the criminal complaint was filed in response to an investigation by the Guardian revealing how Israeli intelligence attempted over a nine-year period to undermine, influence and allegedly intimidate the ICC chief prosecutor’s office.
The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call prompted the Dutch government to raise concerns earlier this year with Israel’s ambassador to the Netherlands.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Harry Davies, here:
During a briefing with the military’s northern command, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Hezbollah “is a battered and broken organisation, without significant command and fire capabilities, with a disintegrated leadership following the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah”.
He earlier suggested that Hashem Safieddine, the most likely replacement for Nasrallah, has also most likely been killed (see post at 14.12 for more details).
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had killed about 250 Hezbollah fighters, including a number of battalion and company commanders, since the start of its ground invasion. These figures have not been independently verified by us yet.
There is no safe place left in Beirut, city’s mayor says
As we have been reporting, Beirut, Lebanon’s capital city, has been the site of an intense Israeli bombing campaign over the last few weeks, which has flattened residential buildings and heavily populated civilian areas. The Israeli attacks have largely focused on Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut where airstrikes have frequently hit what Israel claimed to be Hezbollah targets. Beirut bombings by the Israeli military last month killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and much of the militia’s top command. Many civilians were reported to have been killed in the attacks on the capital, which have sparked a humanitarian and refugee crisis.
The city’s mayor, Abdallah Darwich, has given an interview to the BBC, in which he says there is “no safe place in Beirut” because of Israel’s attacks.
He said that it is not just Hezbollah strongholds being targeted, but other areas too.
Darwich told BBC News:
You do not know who is living in this building or that building, so you do not know if there is a target there. You can no longer say Beirut is safe. Where the next Israeli target is, nobody knows.
The BBC reports:
Darwich has closed all of the city’s 139 public schools and repurposed them into shelters. But all are now full, holding 51,000 refugees in largely unsanitary conditions. More people are on the streets around Beirut.
After the 2006 war, before Hezbollah became the major force in Lebanon, Gulf states donated vast sums of money to help the country rebuild. Banners hung in Beirut proclaiming, ‘Thank You Qatar’ and ‘Thank You Saudi’.
“Now there is no ‘Thank You Qatar’, no ‘Thank You Saudi’,” the mayor says. “Now nobody is promising to help us rebuild.”
The city was still reeling from the combined effects of the 2019 financial crisis, the port blast, and an earthquake, before this war began.
“Give us peace in Beirut, and we can fix everything,” Darwich says. “But we cannot live in this cycle of destruction.”
Here are some more quotes from Matthew Hollingworth, the World Food Programme country director in Lebanon, who has been speaking to a Geneva press briefing (see his earlier comments at the post at 13.45).
He voiced concern about Lebanon’s food supply, saying thousands of hectares of farmland across the country’s south has burned or been abandoned, adding that harvests will not occur and produce is rotting in fields.
Hollingworth told reporters:
Agriculture-wise, food production-wise, (there is) extraordinary concern for Lebanon’s ability to continue to feed itself.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said as far back as April that Israeli airstrikes had turned southern Lebanon into a “devastated agricultural area” (Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire since last October – it is over the last few weeks that Israeli attacks on Lebanon have intensified).
“Eight hundred hectares have been completely damaged, 340,000 heads of livestock have died, and about 75% of farmers have lost their final source of income,” Mikati said at the time. “This problem will extend to the coming years,” he added.
Hezbollah says it has killed and injured Israeli soldiers crossing the Lebanese border
William Christou
William Christou has been reporting for the Guardian from Beirut
Hezbollah has claimed in a statement to have killed and injured Israeli soldiers crossing the Lebanese border near a UN position near the al-Labouneh forest, in the western section of the border area. Hezbollah said that the attack forced Israeli soldiers to withdraw behind the border. These claims have not been independently verified yet.
Israel deployed a fourth division to its northern border today in support of its “Operation Northern Arrow”, which started with an intense aerial campaign on 23 September and expanded on Monday to include ground offensives across the border.
The Hezbollah attack came after its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem said in a speech today that the group is still capable of repelling an Israeli advance into Lebanese territory in the south.
Warning sirens are sounding again in northern Israel, the IDF reports. Earlier two significant barrages of projectiles were aimed at Haifa. The current alert is for Rosh HaNikra, in Israel’s far north, close to southern Lebanon.
In its lead editorial this morning, Israeli newspaper Haaretz has accused finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of “promoting a dangerous agenda”, claiming the pair “are shamelessly exploiting 7 October to re-settle Gaza.”
In the editorial, it writes:
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir are sticking to their mission of exploiting what they see as a historic opportunity that fell into the Jewish people’s lap last 7 October.
Their goal is to occupy the Gaza Strip and settle it with Jews, and this goal dictates their positions, including their irresponsible willingness to sacrifice the hostages. This is also what lies behind their demand to transfer responsibility for humanitarian aid in Gaza to the Israel Defense Forces. The problem is that their hunger for occupation is receiving an attentive ear from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Smotrich doesn’t care what the IDF thinks … and he doesn’t hide the fact that his goals are different from the ones set by the government. And even though he is finance minister, he is similarly indifferent to the heavy economic costs of administering Gaza’s aid. All these are esoteric considerations for someone who views transferring responsibility for humanitarian aid as a step on the road to imposing a de facto military government on Gaza.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are promoting a dangerous agenda that contradicts the declared goals of the war as well as the interests of sovereign Israel, which still sees itself as part of the family of nations. They must not be allowed to carry out their plan and thereby endanger Israel.
Israel’s Kann network reports that Israeli forces have raised their flag in Maroun El Ras inside southern Lebanon. Earlier Israel’s military claimed to have taken “operational control” of what it said was a Hezbollah combat compound. The village is adjacent to the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries, on the Lebanese side.
Israel has described the invasion into Lebanese territory as “limited, localised, targeted operational activities”. 1.2 million Lebanese people have been forced from their homes by Israel’s airstrikes on Lebanon. Tens of thousands of Israelis have also had to flee northern Israel due a year long campaign of fighting between Israel, Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces in the region.
A shipment of medical aid from France has arrived in Beirut. Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that caretaker public health minister Dr Firas Abiad was there to receive it. He is quoted as saying:
This is the third plane to arrive today at Rafic Hariri international airport. The effort we see is a joint effort between the state of Qatar and France to deliver aid to Lebanon, and this will result in greater ease and a greater quantity of aid that will reach Lebanon.
Earlier aid also arrived from Qatar, with a representative of the Qatari government saying “This is a message to the international community as a whole that the door of cooperation is open with the Lebanese Republic in order to support our brothers in Lebanon, especially since we are talking about more than 1.2 million displaced persons.”
Israel defense minister Gallant says most likely Hezbollah replacement for Nasrallah has also likely been killed
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, has suggested that the most likely replacement for assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has also most likely been killed.
Israeli media reports that in comments during a visit to the IDF Northern Command, Gallant referred to senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, saying:
Hezbollah is an organization without a leader, Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated. This has a dramatic effect on everything that happens. There is no one to make decisions, no one to act.
The actions we are taking are being observed all over the Middle East. When the smoke in Lebanon clears, they will realise in Iran that they have lost their most valuable asset, which is Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, said earlier today in a speech broadcast in Lebanon that the question of who will succeed Nasrallah remains undecided, with Qassem saying the group will choose a new leader soon but that it is a complex procedure.
Qassem claimed that Israel’s military operation inside southern Lebanon had been a failure, and that the group’s military capabilities were intact. At least 100 projectiles are estimated to have been launched by Hezbollah on Tuesday aimed in the direction of the Israeli city of Haifa. Buildings were damaged and one person was reported lightly wounded.
Israel has said it is expanding its ground operation there with the deployment of a fourth division.
The leaders of the US, UK, France and Germany are set to hold talks on the Middle East and Ukraine in Berlin on Saturday, the spokesperson for British prime minister Keir Starmer has said.
“The prime minister will travel to a meeting of the Quad in Berlin on Saturday. Leaders will discuss the situation in Ukraine as well as the concerning developments in the Middle East,” Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters, referring to the ‘Quad’ grouping of the UK, the US, France and Germany.
Starmer has rejected repeated calls for a complete ban on UK arms exports to Israel. Addressing the House of Commons on the anniversary of the 7 October Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed, Starmer said yesterday that “to do so would include a ban on arms for defensive purposes”, something he opposed.
“Over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, tens of thousands orphaned, almost 2 million displaced, facing disease, starvation, desperation, without proper healthcare or shelter,” Starmer said. “It is a living nightmare and it must end,” he said, as he reiterated calls for a ceasefire and for Israel to allow more aid into the territory ahead of the winter.
UN warns Lebanon could face same ‘spiral of doom’ as seen from Israel’s war in Gaza
UN humanitarian officials have warned that urgent action is needed to prevent the escalating conflict in Lebanon from spiralling into a similar scene of devastation that has resulted from Israel’s war on Gaza.
“We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening,” Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for the UN’s World Food Programme, told reporters.
Hollingworth said he had spent the first half of the year coordinating WFP’s operations in Gaza before taking the helm of its Lebanon office, and was deeply concerned by the similarities.
He said:
It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom… We shouldn’t allow that to happen.
Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since last October, according to the territory’s health ministry. Much of Gaza’s health care system has been destroyed in the attacks, along with its infrastructure and schools. The destruction has not only forced millions of people to leave their homes but also made it impossible for many to return.
Israel says the aim of its assault on Lebanon is to allow approximately 60,000 displaced people to return to their homes across northern Israel.
Summary of the day so far…
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The Israeli military said its soldiers had begun a ground offensive in southwestern Lebanon, marking a shift as previously its invasion had focused on the eastern side of the border.
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Three weeks of intense Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 1,400 people and displaced another 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.
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The deputy leader of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, accused the US of being a partner in what he described as crimes taking place in Gaza. He also said that Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon had been a failure, that the group’s military capabilities were intact, pledging that its attacks would force more people in northern Israel from their homes.
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Two Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s Shia-majority southern suburbs almost immediately after Qassem’s speech.
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Israeli media reported that a 70-year-old woman has received a shrapnel wound to her hand in Haifa after an earlier barrage of about 85 rockets fired at the northern Israeli city.
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The situation in Lebanon is getting worse by the day, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, told the European Parliament, as he reiterated calls for a ceasefire. About 20% of the Lebanese population had been forced to move due to Israeli airstrikes, he said.
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Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, warned Israel that any attack on Iran’s infrastructure will be met with retaliation, a week after Tehran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel.
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The Israeli military said it killed Suhail Hussein Husseini – commander of Hezbollah’s logistical headquarters – in a strike in an area of Beirut, where Israeli airstrikes continued overnight.
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In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed 17 people in a refugee camp in the centre of the Palestinian territory on Tuesday, medics said. The health ministry said Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 41,965 Palestinian people and injured 97,590 since 7 October 2023.
Israeli forces have detained at least 30 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over the past day, including a journalist, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reports, citing updates from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
23 detentions were reported to have taken place in Hebron, while the others were in Nablus, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem.
Over 11,000 Palestinians have been detained in Israeli raids across the occupied West Bank since last October, the groups have said.
Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the occupied West Bank. They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.
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