Israeli airstrikes intensify in south Lebanon amid heightened tensions with Hezbollah

Hamas said Thursday it "highly appreciates" Hezbollah's support after the Lebanese group's leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to keep fighting Israel until a ceasefire has been reached in Gaza.

The group said Nasrallah's stance frustrated "plans to undermine the support front of our people and resistance in the Gaza Strip" with deadly communications device explosions in Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon.

 A diplomatic solution in the Middle East is achievable and is urgent, the White House said on Thursday, as Reuters reported Israel carried out dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon.

The White House believes a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas would "lower the temperature" in the region, spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said.

(Reuters)

Israel carried out dozens of strikes on Thursday across southern Lebanon, three Lebanese security sources told Reuters, saying it was some of the most intense bombing since the start of the war in October.

(Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding security consultations at the headquarters of the Israeli army in Tel Aviv, meeting with defence and security chiefs. 

According to a report in Israel's Channel 12 Netanyahu is preparing for war with Hezbollah, although it is hoped that military action against the group could compel it into negotiations.

One senior official was quoted as saying that "Israelis must be prepared for dramatic days in the north."

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel is reporting that military sources told the publication that military officials will be presenting Netanyahu with plans for the north which would see the return of displaced Israeli's to their homes without a widening conflict.

Amid the reported meetings Israel has ramped up its air campaign in south Lebanon, with new reports in Haaretz reporting that the Israeli military has struck 50 targets in past hour. 

Israel's army said it hit some 30 Hezbollah rocket launchers along with other "infrastructure" in air strikes carried out in Lebanon on Thursday.

"With the direction of IDF (military) intelligence, the IAF (air force) struck approximately 30 Hezbollah launchers and terrorist infrastructure sites, containing approximately 150 launcher barrels that were ready to fire projectiles toward Israeli territory," the military said in a statement.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has postponed a planned trip next week to Israel amid the escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese border, a source familiar with the issue said on Thursday.

The source did not give a reason for the postponment. 

(Reuters)

Bulgarian broadcaster bTV reported on Thursday that 1.6 million euros connected to the deadly exploding pagers attack in Lebanon passed through Bulgaria and were transferred on to Hungary. It cited sources at the State Agency for National Security.

Bulgarian authorities said on Thursday that their interior ministry and state security services had opened an investigation into a company's possible ties. They did not name the company they were investigating. Local media reports said Sofia-based Norta Global Ltd had facilitated the sale of the pagers to Hezbollah. 

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that Israel's military actions against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah "will continue".

"In the new phase of the war there are significant opportunities but also significant risks. Hezbollah feels persecuted. The sequence of our military actions will continue," Gallant said, according to a statement from his office.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Tuesday expressed his "deep concern over rising tensions and civilian casualties" in Lebanon, after thousands of Hezbollah communication devices exploded.

Lammy reiterated his message for British citizens to leave Lebanon, saying the "situation could deteriorate rapidly", after the deadly attacks blamed on Israel.

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My message to British nationals in Lebanon is leave while commercial options remain.

Tensions are high and the situation could deteriorate rapidly.

See the latest travel advice: https://t.co/oeWXh6FKnA.

— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) September 19, 2024

Four people were injured after the Israeli army raised the town of Al-Haniya in Lebanon, three Palestinians and a Lebanese.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said the injuries were minor and were treated in the emergency room.

Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Hezbollah following a series of device explosions, killing dozens.

Israel will face "a crushing response from the axis of resistance", Iran's Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami told Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday, according to state media, after attacks on Lebanese Hezbollah's communication devices.

The axis of resistance refers to Iran-aligned armed groups in the Middle East, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, and Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces.

Lebanon and Hezbollah have blamed Israel for the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 37 people and wounded around 3,000, although Israel has not directly commented on the attacks, which security sources say were probably carried out by its Mossad spy agency.

"Such terrorist acts are undoubtedly the result of the Zionist regime's (Israel) despair and successive failures. This will soon be met with a crushing response from the axis of resistance, and we will witness the destruction of this bloodthirsty and criminal regime," Salami said in his message to Nasrallah.

(Reuters)

The Israeli military said two soldiers were killed on Thursday near Israel's northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces are engaged in near-daily clashes with the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah.

Reservist Major Nael Fwarsy, 43, and Sergeant Tomer Keren, 20, "fell in combat" in separate incidents, a military statement said.

Israeli jets are carrying out huge sonic booms over the Lebanese capital, Beirut, during a speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday, a Reuters witness said.

Lebanese residents, already on edge following this week's blasts across the country that the group blamed on Israel, were panicked fearing a major escalation.

(Reuters)

Following the device attacks, Nasrallah warned that 'punishment will come'.

"I'm not going to talk about time or place or type of operation. But of course, the punishment will come. When, where, how? You'll know when the time comes. We won't talk about it here."

"The enemy knows that what it has done does not shake our organization, our strength or our determination. On the contrary, it makes us even stronger."

Addressing Netanyahu, the chief said: "You won't succeed in returning the citizens of the north home. Do whatever you want, you won't succeed. The only solution is to stop the aggression against the people of Gaza. Neither military escalation, murder, nor an all-out war will bring your settlers and inhabitants back to the border."

Nasrallah said: "We will not fall. We will become stronger and prepare for worse."

"We say to the enemy: the Lebanese front will not stop until the war in Gaza is over," he says.

"Despite all the massacres, the wounded and the sacrifices, I say this, whatever the obstacles and sacrifices, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop its support for Gaza, the West Bank and Palestine!"

Nasrallah said: "Yes, we have received a hard and severe blow," during his speech, as Israeli planes flew at very low altitude over Beirut - according to L'Orient Today.

"What happened on Tuesday...constitutes a violation of all laws and red lines, without regard for anything, neither humanitarian nor ethical."

The chief added that Israel's objective has been largely thwarted and has set up various committees to investigate and study all possible scenarios. 

"We'll call them the 'Tuesday massacre' and the 'Wednesday massacre.' Many disasters were avoided, as many wounds were minor, and a number of these beepers were switched off, while others had not yet been distributed."

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is currently making a speech in light of the device attacks on Hezbollah on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

"The Israelis broke all the rules of confrontation," Nasrallah said, calling the attack a "massacre".

"We were targeted by the Israeli enemy," he added. "It was an act of war against the people of Lebanon."

Israeli media reported on Thursday that Israel has proposed a new deal that would see captives released from Gaza in exchange for safe passage for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the cessation of fighting.

Public broadcaster Kan reported that the proposal would also call for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a new governance system in Gaza, though no details were provided.

The Times of Israel said an Israeli official had confirmed that captive envoy Gal Hirsch "presented the plan to the Americans, who were expected to pass it on to unspecified Arab officials".

When asked about the AFP reports at a press conference on Thursday, government spokesman David Mencer did not specifically address them, instead referring to previous statements calling for the international community to pressure Hamas to make concessions to reach a deal.

"Whoever wants to assist in the effort to release our hostages needs to pressure the murderous Sinwar and not the prime minister of the State of Israel," he said.

US President Joe Biden will welcome United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to the White House on Monday for talks on issues ranging from the war on Gaza and Sudan to responsible artificial intelligence development.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said the visit would be the first-ever by a president of the Gulf Arab country to Washington, adding that Vice President Kamala Harris would meet separately with the UAE leader.

The United States has been increasingly concerned about the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries becoming a conduit for advanced US AI technology reaching China, which it fears could use the technology to bolster its military.

(Reuters)

Prince Khalid bin Bandar Al Saud, Saudi Arabia's ambassador, told Sky News that the Middle East is the closest to regional war since the 1970s.

"I'd like to say I was optimistic, but it is difficult to see where that optimism would come from," he said when asked about his reaction to the conflict.

"The situation on the ground is getting worse and worse... I think this is the closest we've been to a regional war since 1973."

Al Saud said it is time to put in "renewed efforts" to stop war in places like Gaza.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday called for a de-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, as Lebanon said 37 people had now been killed by booby-trapped hand-held devices.

"Today the risk of escalation is once more increasing in a dangerous way" in Lebanon, said Sanchez, at a news conference with visiting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

"So we must again make a fresh appeal for restraint, for a de-escalation and for peaceful coexistence between countries, in the name of peace," he added.

Sanchez was speaking to journalists after more than an hour's talks with Abbas.

Neither Sanchez nor Abbas referred directly to the explosions in Lebanon, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A UN committee on Thursday condemned severe violations by Israel of a global treaty protecting children's rights, saying its military actions since 7 October had a "catastrophic" impact on them.

"The committee condemns in the strongest terms the severe violations of rights under the convention in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories), including the tremendous loss of life as a result of the state party's military actions," the four-person committee said in a document, referring to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Israel's delegation argued in a series of UN hearings earlier this month that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank. It said that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law. 

(Reuters)

Three Palestinians were killed, and four others were injured by Israeli fire during a military raid in the occupied West Bank's city of Qabatiya, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported on Thursday.

(Reuters)

Lebanon's Prime Minister called Thursday for the United Nations to oppose Israel's "technological war" on his country ahead of a Security Council meeting on exploding devices used by Hezbollah that killed 32 people.

Najib Mikati said in a statement the UN Security Council meeting on Friday should "take a firm stance to stop the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the technological war it is waging".

At least eight people were wounded from an anti-tank guided missile attack on the Lebanon border - according to hospital officials.

The Times of Israel reports that Rambam Hospital in Haifa and Ziv Hospital in Safed admitted eight people, including two in moderate-to-serious condition. 

It is being reported that the "Hezbollah attack from Lebanon" struck the Ramim Ridge area, claiming to have targeted an Israeli army position.

Air France has extended its flight suspension to and from Israel and will not resume flights to Ben Gurion Airpor before 20 September.

Dutch airlines Transavia Airlines also said it will cancel flights to Israel until and including 19 September.

Israel's police arrested an Israeli citizen reportedly recruited by Iranian intelligence to plot the assassinations of top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a joint statement by the police and Shin Bet said Thursday.

"An Israeli citizen was recruited by Iranian intelligence to promote assassinations of Israeli figures. He was smuggled twice into Iran and received payment for carrying out missions," the statement said.

It said that Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, and other top officials were among the targets.

The Israeli citizen, "a businessman who lived in Turkey for an extended period," maintained connections with Turkish and Iranian individuals, the police said.

Israeli media reported that the arrested man was a Jewish person from the city of Ashkelon.

The police said he was asked while in Iran to carry out security missions in Israel, including transferring "money or a gun" and threatening other Israelis recruited by Iran before later being asked to plot assassinations.

"This is a very serious case that exemplifies the enormous efforts of Iranian intelligence agents to recruit Israeli citizens to promote terrorist activities in Israel", a senior Shin Bet official was quoted as saying.

Turkey on Thursday accused Israel of seeking to expand the war in Gaza to Lebanon, terming as "alarming" a wave of deadly explosions that swept through Hezbollah strongholds.

"The escalation in the region is alarming," Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on state-run TRT television. "We see Israel mounting its attacks towards Lebanon step by step."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday called for restraint in the Middle East after a second deadly wave of unprecedented device explosions at Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon.

"I warn all sides against further escalation," Baerbock wrote on social media platform X. "Strikes and counterstrikes do not bring the region one millimetre closer to peace".

Lebanon's Hezbollah group said 20 of its members were killed, with a source close to the group telling AFP on Thursday that they had died in walkie-talkie blasts blamed on Israel the day before.

The group sent separate death notices for each member from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning, saying they had been killed "on the road to Jerusalem", the phrase used by Hezbollah to refer to fighters killed by Israel.

"The 20 Hezbollah members were killed by walkie-talkie explosions" across Lebanon on Wednesday, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Earlier Wednesday, the health ministry said the second wave of explosions of electronic devices in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon killed 20 people and left more than 450 people wounded.

Wednesday's blasts came a day after the simultaneous detonation of pagers used by Hezbollah killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded up to 2,800 others across Lebanon in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel.

Israel did not comment on the incidents.

Japanese firm Icom said Thursday that it had stopped producing the radio model reportedly used in recent blasts in Lebanon around ten years ago.

"The IC-V82 is a handheld radio that was produced and exported, including to the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014. It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company," Icom said in a statement.

"The production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit has also been discontinued, and a hologram seal to distinguish counterfeit products was not attached, so it is not possible to confirm whether the product shipped from our company," it said.

It added that products for overseas markets are sold exclusively through its authorized distributors and that its export programme is based on Japanese security trade control regulations.

Over 130 world leaders will meet at the United Nations next week, faced with wars in the Middle East and Europe threatening to spread, frustration at the slow pace of efforts to end those conflicts, and worsening climate and humanitarian crises.

While the war on Gaza and Russia's war in Ukraine are set to dominate the annual high-level UN General Assembly, diplomats and analysts say they don't expect progress toward peace.

"The wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are going to be the three main crisis-points in focus at the General Assembly. I don't think we are likely to see breakthroughs on any of them," said Richard Gowan, U.N. director at the International Crisis Group.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week told Reuters that the wars in Gaza and Ukraine were "stuck with no peaceful solutions in sight".

(Reuters)