Israel strikes Beirut as residents flee and Lebanon border crossing cut off – latest

Israeli strike in northern Lebanon has killed a leader of Hamas armed wing along with three of his family members, Hamas media said.

Israel stated that it is considering various options in response to Iran’s missile strike on Tuesday, which Iran launched in retaliation for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

More than 2,000 people have been killed so far in Israel’s attacks across Lebanon, including 127 children and 261 women, according to the country’s health ministry.

Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an attack on Iran’s oil facilities as Israel pursues its goals of pushing back Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and eliminating their Hamas allies in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday he would think about alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields if he were in Israel’s shoes, adding that he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.

Many buildings have been reduced to rubble in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Nearly all the storefronts in the main market street, Moawad Souk, were damaged and the road filled with broken glass.

“We’re alive but don’t know for how long,” said Nouhad Chaib, a 40-year-old man already displaced from the south.

The Islamic Health Authority, a civil defense agency linked to Hezbollah, said 11 medics had been killed in three separate Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon on Friday.

The Israeli military said that in the past day it had struck several weapons storage facilities, command and control centres, and additional Hezbollah infrastructure sites in the Beirut area.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, visiting Beirut and meeting with top Lebanese officials, said Tehran supported efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon provided it was backed by Hezbollah and was simultaneous with a Gaza ceasefire.

A bugging device was found in Boris Johnson’s bathroom after a visit by Benjamin Netanyahu when he was foreign secretary, the former prime minister has claimed.

Mr Johnson alleged that his security team had made the discovery when they did a sweep of the toilets after the Israeli premier had used them during a meeting in 2017.

Writing in his memoir, “Unleashed”, the former Tory MP said Mr Netanyahu had excused himself during talks at his old office to use the washroom, described as “a secret annex… a bit like the gents in a posh London club.”

Iran’s missile salvo was partly in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hezbollah secretary-general Nasrallah, a dominant figure who had turned the group into a powerful armed and political force with reach across the Middle East.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a huge crowd in Tehran Iran and its regional allies would not back down.

Israel’s adversaries in the region should “double your efforts and capabilities… and resist the aggressive enemy,” Khamenei said in a rare appearance leading Friday prayers, at which he mentioned Nasrallah and called Iran’s attack on Israel legal and legitimate. He said Iran would not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel.

The semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Ali Fadavi as saying on Friday that if Israel attacked, Tehran would target Israeli energy and gas installations.

Axios reporter Barak Ravid cited three Israeli officials as saying that Hezbollah official Safieddine, rumoured to be Nasrallah’s successor, had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut overnight but his fate was not clear.

Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on Friday the military was still assessing the Thursday night airstrikes, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

Earlier the Israeli military reported that it had killed the head of Hezbollah’s communication networks, Mohammad Rashid Sakafi. It declined to comment on the report that Safieddine was targeted.

Hezbollah made no comment on the fate of Sakafi.

Khamenei said assassinations would just spur more attacks. “Every strike launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity,” he said, adding that Afghanistan should join the “defence”.

A blast was heard and smoke was seen over Beirut’s southern suburbs in the early hours of Saturday, Reuters witnesses said, shortly after the Israeli military issued two alerts for residents of the area to immediately evacuate.

The first alert on Saturday called on residents specifically present in a building at Burj al-Barajneh neighborhood. The second alert mentioned those present in a building at Choueifat district.

The strikes on Beirut come as fighting between the Lebanese Hezbollah group and Israel rages amid Israel’s military escalation in the country.

Hamas’ armed wing al-Qassam Brigades confirmed death of one of its commanders Zahi Yaser Oufi in an Israeli strike on the West Bank city of Tulkarm along with seven other fighters, the group said in a statement on Friday.

The Israeli military said that it killed Oufi, head of the Hamas network in Tulkarm, in an attack on Thursday.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon as a result of the conflict in the past year, most of them in the past two weeks, according to the Lebanese government, which has not broken down the overall figure to detail the numbers of civilians and Hezbollah fighters killed.

The Lebanese government has accused Israel of targeting civilians, pointing to the dozens of women and children killed.

Israeli officials say the military precisely targets Hezbollah’s military capabilities and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. It accuses the group of hiding among civilians, which the group denies.

Prior to the deaths of two Israeli soldiers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights announced by the military on Friday, Hezbollah had killed 47 people – soldiers and civilians – over the past year, according to data published on Sept. 2 by Alma, an Israeli think tank specializing in Hezbollah.

An American killed in Lebanon this week was a US citizen, a State Department spokesperson said on Friday, adding that Washington was working to understand the circumstances of the incident.

Kamel Ahmad Jawad, from Dearborn, Michigan, was killed in Lebanon in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, according to his daughter, a friend and the US congresswoman representing his district.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller earlier this week said it was Washington’s understanding that Jawad was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen. On Friday, the department said that he was a US citizen.

“We are aware and alarmed of reports of the death of Kamel Jawad, who we have confirmed is a US citizen,” the spokesperson said.

“As we have noted repeatedly, it is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy.”

Israel says it is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, who have been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began a year ago.

Its recent military campaign in Lebanon has killed hundreds and wounded thousands, according to the Lebanese government, which has not said how many of the casualties were civilians versus Hezbollah members. The Israeli bombardment has also driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes.

The governor of Michigan has urged the US government to do more to rescue Americans stuck in Lebanon, many of them from Michigan, during Israel’s military offensive in the country.

Israel carried out another series of punishing airstrikes Friday, hitting suburban Beirut and cutting off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria for tens of thousands of people fleeing the Israeli bombardment of the Hezbollah militant group.

The overnight blasts in Beirut’s southern suburbs sent huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shook buildings kilometers (miles) away in the Lebanese capital. Additional strikes sent people running for cover in streets littered with rubble in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, where at least one building was leveled and cars were burned out.

The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah’s central intelligence headquarters around midnight. It did not say who it was aiming for or if any militants were killed in that strike, but it claimed to have killed 100 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 10 consecutive airstrikes in the area. Some 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched about 100 rockets into Israel on Friday, the Israel military said.

The Israeli military also said that a strike in Beirut the day before killed Mohammed Rashid Skafi, the head of Hezbollah’s communications division. The military said in a statement that Skafi was “a senior Hezbollah terrorist who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000” and was “closely affiliated” with high-up Hezbollah officials.

Thursday’s strike along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Beirut, led to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa Border Crossing — the first time it has been cut off since Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire almost a year ago.

Israel said it targeted the crossing because it was being used by Hezbollah to transport military equipment across the border. It said fighter jets had struck a tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Iran and other proxies into Lebanon.

Hezbollah is believed to have received much of its weaponry through Syria from Iran, its main backer.