Israel Lebanon latest: Israel says it killed more Hezbollah commanders in Beirut as Biden and Netanyahu speak

At least one journalist was killed in northern Gaza as the Israeli army was accused of attacking a group of reporters in Jabalia refugee camp.

Al-Aqsa TV photojournalist Mohammad Al-Tanani was killed and reporter Tamer Lubbad was injured in the Abu Sharakh roundabout area of Jabalia, the network said yesterday.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera said its photojournalist Fadi Al-Wahidi was also injured by Israeli army gunfire while reporting on the latest ground invasion.

The “gunfire was directed at the Al Jazeera team, injuring its photojournalist Fadi Al-Wahidi with a bullet to the neck during coverage,” said Anas Al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera correspondent.

The Israeli military said it has killed two Hezbollah commanders in southern Lebanon and its fighter jets attacked ammunition depots in the Beirut area and ammunition depots and other military infrastructures in southern Lebanon

.Ground clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran, spread along southern Lebanon’s mountainous frontier yesterday as the Middle East was on high alert awaiting Israel’s response to an Iranian missile strike last week.

Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 2,100 people, most of them in the last few weeks, and forced 1.2 million from their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Hezbollah has dropped the demand for a truce in Gaza as a condition for reaching a ceasefire in Lebanon, rowing back from an often-repeated promise to keep fighting until Israel halts its offensive against Hamas.

Ever since Hezbollah began launching missiles across Lebanon’s border, Hezbollah officials have consistently said they would not stop until Israel ended the war in Gaza.

Naim Qassem, the deputy leader of Hezbollah, broke that link in a televised speech, even as he promised to continue to stand with Hamas and Palestinians in their battle with Israel.

“We support the political activity being led by [Nabih] Berri under the title of a ceasefire,” Qassem said. “If the enemy (Israel) continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.”

At least 400,000 people remain trapped in northern Gaza, the UN has said, as Israeli forces press on with a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp.

The commissioner general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has warned that tens of thousands of people have nowhere to go despite evacuation orders from the Israeli army.

The Israeli military says the raid, now in its fifth day, is intended to stop Hamas fighters staging further attacks from Jabalia and to prevent them regrouping.

Lebanon yesterday said it arrested two Syrians on suspicion of being spies for Israel as Benjamin Netanyahu’s troops continue to pound southern Beirut.

The Lebanese army intelligence arrested two Syrians “for photographing different places… and documenting the results of enemy air strikes”, the military said on X.

The Lebanese army said the arrests were “a result of surveillance and follow-up of Israeli spy networks and enemy agents”.

The duo had documented “search and rescue operations and the recovery of bodies” at Israeli strike sites and were “recruited through social media”, it added.

Over 2,000 Turkish citizens and some foreign nationals started boarding a Turkish military ship that brought in aid last night and will take them out of Lebanon.

Zehra Cibbin, an ethnic Arab from the southeastern Turkish city of Mardin who lives in Beirut with her Lebanese husband, got off a bus packed with the other evacuees, her two children in tow and luggage in hand.

“It’s indescribable. They bombed the street below our house. From that moment on, it was over for me, I said I didn’t want to stay in Beirut anymore,” Ms Cibbin, 46, told the Associated Press.

Apart from the Turkish citizens, people from Bulgaria, Romania and Kazakhstan were among those who applied to evacuate on the ships.

Officials did not provide numbers.“Israel’s aggression has severely impacted Lebanon and our brothers here,” said Ali Baris Ulusoy, the Turkish ambassador to Lebanon.

Israeli airstrikes have killed about 40 people in Jabaliya and another 14 from farther north between Sunday and Tuesday, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said yesterday.

The toll is likely higher as there are bodies buried under the rubble and in areas that can’t be accessed, it said.

Israel’s military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said that Israeli troops were operating in Jabaliya to prevent Hamas from regrouping and had killed about 100 militants, without providing evidence.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, the health ministry said.

A wounded Israeli soldier urged the UK not to forget the mistake of Neville Chamberlain by being more like Churchill and standing up against “the evil of Iran”.

Barak Deri, an Israeli Defence Force reservist, has been hailed as a hero in his country and is visiting London this week as part of a mission to win support for Israel’s struggle in the ongoing war on multiple fronts in the Middle East.

The 32-year-old, who was wounded and is likely to be disabled for the rest of his life, arrived in the UK with a simple warning that “Israel’s war is the West’s war” and the demand: “We cannot be quiet, we must send a clear message that another Holocaust is not an option.”