Israel says it has launched new wave of strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon
Israel’s military has announced it is carrying out more strikes on southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
Nearly 560 people, including at least 50 children, have already been killed this week in Israel’s bombing campaign, which it says is targeting weapons and terrorist infrastructure used by Hezbollah. Thousands of people have been injured and tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
More details soon …
Key events
Reports on Wednesday morning so far appear to show a widened arena of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The militant group claimed to have targeted the Mossad in Tel Aviv. The Israeli military said a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defence systems, and it was “a heavy missile, going towards Tel Aviv, towards civilian areas in Tel Aviv.”
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, at least three people have been killed and nine injured by an Israeli strike on the town of Maysaara, which is in the mountains north of Beirut, the farthest north Israel has struck since the beginning of fighting.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has added to his earlier comments about Hezbollah with a post on his official social media channels which says “Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is standing up firmly for Gaza and putting itself in the middle of these bitter events, is taking part in jihad on the path of God,” adding in Arabic “Hezbollah is victorious.”
Lebanon’s #Hezbollah, which is standing up firmly for #Gaza and putting itself in the middle of these bitter events, is taking part in jihad on the path of God.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) September 25, 2024
حزب الله منتصر.
— الإمام الخامنئي (@ar_khamenei) September 25, 2024
Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip as well as Lebanon. The Hamas-led health ministry in the Gaza Strip has reported the killing of 85 people and the injury of 104 others by military action in the past 24 hours. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
The total figures since 7 October are given by the ministry as at least 41,495 Palestinians killed and 96,006 wounded. During the same time period, Israel says “346 soldiers have fallen in combat” during its ground offensive in Gaza
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports “Thousands of victims are still trapped under the rubble or scattered on the roads, as ambulance and civil defence teams are facing difficulties in reaching them due to the continued Israeli attacks, the massive amount of debris and the shortage of fuel and heavy equipment.”
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Lebanon.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday “The organisational strength and human resources of Hezbollah is very strong and will not be critically hit by the killing of a senior commander, even if that is clearly a loss,” Reuters reports.
Pope Francis called Israeli strikes on Lebanon a “terrible escalation” of the Middle East conflict on Wednesday at the end of his weekly general audience at the Vatican.
The pope said the attacks were “unacceptable” and urged the international community to do everything possible to halt the fighting.
Reuters reports Francis did not specifically identify Israel, but said he was “saddened by news from Lebanon in recent days that bombardments have caused much destruction and many victims”.
Lebanese health minister Firas Abiad has been at Beirut International Airport, where a shipment of medical aid from Turkey was arriving.
A large number of flights to and from Beirut have been cancelled, due to the ongoing Israeli airstrikes across the country. Middle East Airlines is still scheduling flights to various destinations across the Middle East, but Athens, Paris and Larnaca are the only European destinations where flights are scheduled to depart for.
On its official Telegram channel Israel’s military has stated that it intercepted “several projectiles” out of “approximately 40 projectiles” fired into the Upper Galilee region. No casualties have been reported.
At least three people have been killed and nine injured, reports Lebanon’s health ministry, after an Israeli airstrike on Maysaara.
William Christou
William Christou reports from Beirut for the Guardian
An airstrike targeted the town of Maysaara, a town in the mountains north of Beirut, the farthest north Israel has struck since the beginning of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah last year. The strike comes just a few hours after Hezbollah launched a missile which it claimed was targeting the Mossad in Tel Aviv, which Israel says it intercepted.
The strike on Maysaara, a little over 60 miles from the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon, caused alarm in Lebanon. Many have looked at the mountains north of Beirut as a potential refuge in the case of a full-scale war with Israel, drawing on experience from the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel which left the area relatively untouched.
On Tuesday night, an airstrike carried out on Jiyeh, about 10 miles south of Beirut, was heard across the capital city and the surrounding mountainsides. Israeli media claimed a senior leader in the Palestinian militant organisation Islamic Jihad was the target of the strike, though the organisation did not confirm the claims.
Since the weekend, Israel’s intensified aerial campaign on Lebanon has re-defined which areas of Lebanon are “safe” from fighting, as strikes repeatedly hit Beirut and areas immediately south – a previous red-line over the last year.
Israel says it has launched new wave of strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon
Israel’s military has announced it is carrying out more strikes on southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
Nearly 560 people, including at least 50 children, have already been killed this week in Israel’s bombing campaign, which it says is targeting weapons and terrorist infrastructure used by Hezbollah. Thousands of people have been injured and tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
More details soon …
UK for UNHCR has launched an emergency appeal for aid for Lebanon. Emma Cherniavsky, the chief executive, said:
These devastating bombings in Lebanon are claiming innocent lives and forcing thousands to flee their homes. This is a region that has already been devastated by war, and the toll on civilians is unacceptable. An end to the hostilities is desperately needed. In the meantime, we urgently need donations to help UNHCR scale up emergency aid, and avert further suffering and devastation.
Israeli media reports the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has severely criticised prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his plans to attend the UN general assembly in person.
In a statement it said:
While the country is burning and 101 hostages have been abandoned in the Hamas death tunnels for 355 days, the prime minister chooses another unnecessary show trip to the US.
Israel claims Hezbollah missile was heading towards civilian areas in Tel Aviv
Emma Graham-Harrison
IDF International Spokesperson, LTC Nadav Shoshani, said the attempt to hit Tel Aviv this morning was the first time Hezbollah has fired towards Tel Aviv, and the group had deployed a surface-to-surface heavy long range missile.
The missile, which was intercepted, was heading towards civilian areas of the city and Israel responded with an attack against the launcher, he told journalists.
Hezbollah said the attack targeted headquarters of the Mossad intelligence agency, but Shoshani said it was directed at a different part of the city.
“The Mossad headquarters is not in that area, it is a bit east and north of that area. Their missile triggered alerts in Netanya and Tel Aviv along the coastline,” Shoshani said.
“Hezbollah is definitely trying to escalate the situation”, he said, but added the country treats all attacks against its citizens as an equal threat, whether in Haifa or Tel Aviv. “Any fire towards Israel is something we do not accept, and we plan on acting to defend ourselves and remove the threat,” he said.
He said Israeli attacks “in recent weeks” had taken out a significant part of Hezbollah’s arsenal and its chain of command, so although the group were trying to increase the number and range of their attacks on Israel, their capacity to do so had been reduced.
Israel estimated that Hezbollah had 150,000 missiles at the start of the war. Shoshani, declined to say how many had been destroyed.
Israel has brought in tighter restrictions, which include school closures, in northern parts of the country, including the city of Haifa. Shoshani said there are now over a million Israelis under these restrictions. Although an initial estimate would be up to 1.3 million people, many are thought to have headed south to stay with friends and relatives, he added.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that “several civilians were killed and others were injured on Wednesday after Israeli occupation warplanes targeted large areas in the Gaza Strip.”
It adds that “Israeli gunboats opened fire towards the western areas of the Gaza Strip” and that agricultural land east of Khan Younis was targeted by aircraft.
The claims have not been independently verified.