Gaza war: Haniyeh killed by ‘short-range’ projectile, Iran says

The New Arab's liveblog on Gaza's war in Israel and regional tensions in the Middle East has now ended, and will resume tomorrow morning at 9am.

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Britain's marine security agency UKMTO said on Saturday it had received a report of an incident 170 nautical miles southwest of the Yemeni city of Aden, where Houthi militants have been targeting commercial ships in solidarity with Palestinians.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty expressed on Saturday to his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib his country's "deep concern over the dangerously increasing pace of escalation" in the region.

Abdelatty affirmed, in a phone call with Bou Habib, Egypt's support to Lebanon in confronting the threats surrounding it, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement. 

Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli strike struck a school compound in Gaza City on Saturday, killing at least 10 people.

"There are 10 martyrs and several wounded due to Israeli bombardment on Hamama school," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it had hit a Hamas command and control centre located inside the compound.

The UK government on Saturday urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country immediately, amid fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah and a broader regional conflict.

In a statement, the foreign ministry said British nationals should depart the Middle Eastern country "now while commercial options remain available".

"Tensions are high, and the situation could deteriorate rapidly," said Foreign Minister David Lammy.

"While we are working round the clock to strengthen our consular presence in Lebanon, my message to British nationals there is clear -- leave now."

The Foreign Office said it was "strengthening" its support for Britons in the country by deploying "border force, consular officials and military personnel to the region".

The officials will offer "additional support" to embassy staff while the military personnel will provide embassies with "operational support to help British nationals", the ministry said.

"This is alongside Landing ship RFA Cardigan Bay and HMS Duncan already being in the eastern Mediterranean to support allies with humanitarian requirements, with the Royal Air Force also putting transport helicopters on standby," the statement added.

"With the potential for exit routes out of Lebanon -- including roads -- being affected, limited, or closed, due to events escalating with little warning, teams will continue to urge British nationals to leave while commercial options remain available."

The US embassy in Lebanon urged its citizens Saturday to leave Lebanon on "any ticket available", amid fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah and a broader regional conflict.

Despite flight suspensions and cancellations, "commercial transportation options to leave Lebanon remain available", the embassy statement said. "We encourage those who wish to depart Lebanon to book any ticket available to them, even if that flight does not depart immediately or does not follow their first-choice route."

And yet another one from the US embassy - I’m so torn. Leave back or stay. pic.twitter.com/jgrKNV3pM4

— Dalal Mawadدلال معوض (@dalalmawad) August 3, 2024

Hezbollah confirms death of its operatives, Ali Nazih Abd Ali, on its Telegram channel, Al Jazeera is reporting.

The Israeli military claimed that this attack successfully assassinated an important operative of Hezbollah, in Tyre.

A monitor of Syria's war said one person was killed Saturday in an Israeli strike on a vehicle, after reporting overnight raids on a truck convoy entering Lebanon from neighbouring Syria.

"An Israeli drone targeted a car on the Damascus-Beirut road near the Zabadani area... leading to the death of a person who was inside," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

There were no reports of an Israeli strike on Syrian state media, and the identity of the person killed was not immediately clear.

Since Syria's civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including from Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The raids intensified after after Israel began waging its military offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 7, then eased after an April 1 strike blamed on Israel hit the Iranian consular building in Damascus.

Three Palestinians, including a child, were shot and injured by Israeli forces during in a raid in the vicinity of the Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus.

Red Crescent spokesman Ahmed Jibril reported that ambulance crews dealt with three injuries, including a 14-year-old child who was shot in the thigh. The other causalities sustained injures in the hand and foot.

A second Israeli drone strike near Tulkarem – hitting a car close to the village of Bal’a – killed four people, confirming earlier Israeli army claims about the strike, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

Citing local sources, Wafa said that Israeli army forces surrounded the vehicle after attacking it and blocked ambulances from reaching the scene.

This brings the overall death toll today in Tulkarem area to nine, after an earlier drone strike on a car there killed five others, including a Hamas military commander.

The head of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee said that Tehran's response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh "is inevitably coming", in an interview with The New Arab's Arabic-language site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Ibrahim Azizi added that the response will "be painful and firm", will cause "remorse and "teach a lesson that the enemy will not forget".

"We will not hesitate to defend our national security, the interests of our people, and our revolutionary values," he added.

"Our response will be In a way that makes the Americans and Zionists regret these actions and warms the hearts of the Islamic nation," he said, but stressed that Iran "seeks security, peace, and stability in the region", without giving up om "national interests, national pride, and Islamic revolutionary values".
 

Iran Revolutionary Guards say 'short-range projectile' killed Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

More details to come...

One Lebanese person has been killed in the city of Tyre, in what Lebanese media outlet An-Nahar described as an "Israeli raid".

المشاهد الأولى من استهداف سيارة بين بلدتي #البازورية و #وادي_جيلو pic.twitter.com/zer76slB1p

— Annahar (@Annahar) August 3, 2024

A high-level Israeli delegation, including Mossad chief David Barnea and Shin Bet director Ronen Bar have arrived in Cairo for hostage and Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Axios is reporting, citing two sources.

The Israeli officials will reportedly hold discussions with the head of Egyptian intelligence services, Abbas Kamel.

Discussions on security arrangements along the Egypt-Gaza border and the re-opening of the Rafah crossing will also be included.

🚨🚨BREAKING: A high-level Israeli delegation which includes the director of Mossad David Barnea and the director of Shin Bet Ronen Bar arrived in Cairo today for talks with the head of Egyptian intelligence Abbas Kamel on the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, the security…

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) August 3, 2024

Israeli warplanes and a drone have  struck the southern Lebanese town of Tayr Harfa, the Lebanese National News Agency is reporting.

NNA did not immediately report any casualties from the attack.

Flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain suspended until at least Tuesday due to "security" concerns in the region, parent company Air France-KLM said.

The two French airlines first stopped servicing the route on Monday, a day after Israel vowed to retaliate following rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

"Any resumption of operation will be subject to a renewed evaluation on the ground," a spokesman said Saturday, adding that passengers with reservations could rebook at no extra cost.

Flights to Tel Aviv will continue as normal, he added.

Iran said on Saturday it expects Lebanon's Tehran-backed Hezbollah group to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets after Israel killed the Hezbollah military commander.

Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces, saying it is targeting military positions over the border, one day after Israel began its military onslaught of Gaza.

But a strike claimed by Israel in an overcrowded residential area of South Beirut changed the calculus, Iran's mission to the United Nations said.

"We expect... Hezbollah to choose more targets and (strike) deeper in its response," said the mission quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

"Secondly, that it will not limit its response to military targets."

The US Defense Department will move a fighter jet squadron to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region, the Pentagon said on Friday, as President Joe Biden made good on his promise to beef up the American military presence to defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies and safeguard US troops.

In a statement, the department said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the European and Middle East regions and is taking steps to send more land-based ballistic missile defense weapons there.

Sweden said Saturday it was shutting its embassy in Beirut amid fears the war in Gaza could escalate into a region-wide conflict, after urging thousands of its citizens to leave Lebanon.

The killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders this week, blamed on Israel, have heightened regional tensions amid the Gaza war.

"The foreign ministry has instructed its staff to leave Beirut and travel to Cyprus, and the foreign ministry is planning a temporary relocation of its embassy," Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Swedish Radio.

The decision had been taken "initially for the month of August but may be extended depending on the security situation."

"The ministry is monitoring developments closely," he said.

According to the foreign ministry, as many as 10,000 Swedish nationals may have travelled to Lebanon this summer, defying a travel warning in place for the country since October 2023.

"I urge Swedes in Lebanon to leave the country by whichever means possible, while they still can," he said.

At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed and 91,128 injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

A source close to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said late Friday that Israel carried out strikes on a convoy of trucks entering Lebanon from Syria.

"Three Israeli strikes targeted a convoy of tanker trucks on the Syrian-Lebanese border in the Hawsh el-Sayyed Ali area, injuring one Syrian driver," the source told AFP.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes in the border area, the source added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor also reported Israeli strikes inside Syria near the border with Lebanon, without mentioning any casualties.

The strikes targeted an area near a border crossing "used by Hezbollah to move trucks and group members" between Lebanon and Syria, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

"One of the strikes targeted a truck convoy," while another targeted "a farm on the outskirts of Qusayr in Homs province", the Observatory said on Saturday.

Iran has arrested over a dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials and staff workers at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran, in response to the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, The New York Times reported citing Iranian sources "familiar" with an ongoing investigation.

The Revolutionary Guards Corps’ specialised intelligence unit for espionage is handling the investigation, and is hunting down suspects that it hopes will lead it to members of the assassin team that carried out the killing, two Iranian officials told NYT.

At least five people have been killed after Israeli forces targeted a home in the Miraj area, south of Khan Younis, Al Jazeera is reporting.

16 Palestinians have been detained across the West Bank on Saturday, Palestinian media reported.

Among those arrested was from areas in and around the cities Ramallah, east Jerusalem, Nablus, Bethlehem and Jenin WAFA said.

تغطية صحفية: قوات الاحتلال تعتقل الشاب نضال عصفور عقب مداهمة منزله في بلدة الطور بالقدس المحتلة. pic.twitter.com/lrTH7VdfnP

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 3, 2024

An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank killed five people in the city of Tulkarm, Palestinian news agency WAFA said.

One of those were killed was allegedly a Hamas military commander called Haitham Balidi, while the identity of the others were not clear, according to the WAFA report, which cited health officials.

The Israeli military said it had carried out an airstrike against a militant cell around the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Hamas media said a vehicle carrying fighters had been struck and that one of the commanders of its Tulkarm brigades was killed.