Israel continues strikes on Lebanon following Nasrallah killing

On Sunday, state news agency SANA reported that blasts were heard in the vicinity of Damascus, Syria, and indicated that an investigation was underway to determine the cause.

France's foreign minister will travel to Lebanon on Sunday, his ministry said, amid spiralling fears that the region could be headed toward an all-out war.

Jean-Noel Barrot will take off from Paris shortly, to land in Lebanon on Sunday evening to "exchange with the local authorities and bring French support, especially humanitarian", the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The trip comes as Israel continues a campaign of air strikes in Lebanon targeting Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

On Saturday Barrot spoke with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, saying Paris was calling for "an immediate halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon" and was "opposed to any ground operation", according to the foreign ministry.

France also "calls on other actors, notably Hezbollah and Iran, to abstain from any action that could lead to additional destabilisation and regional conflagration", it said on Saturday.

A Lebanese security told AFP that Israel had conducted a fresh strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut Sunday with AFP correspondents hearing a loud explosion and seeing smoke billowing from the area.

"Israel carried out an air strike on Beirut's southern suburb," said the official, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Israel's Army Radio said the Israeli military targeted another Hezbollah operative and were verifying to see if the official was still alive, without saying who.

غارة على الضاحية pic.twitter.com/SQn7ZBToYY

— Al Modon - المدن (@almodononline) September 29, 2024

Israeli military airstrikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 11 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave said on Sunday, as Israeli planes bombarded several northern, central and southern areas.

A school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip was among buildings hit, killing four people and wounded several others, Gaza medics said.

In another strike, three people were killed in a house in Gaza City, medics said. Four others were killed in three separate airstrikes in Nuseirat and Khan Younis in central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah confirms top commander Ali Karaki was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Intense Israeli attacks may have forced up to a million people to flee parts of Lebanon in possibly the worst displacement crisis in the tiny country's history, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Sunday.

Mikati told reports that "the estimated number is very high and may reach one million" - which would amount to roughly a sixth of Lebanon's population.

"It is the largest displacement movement that may have happened... in Lebanon," he said.

The body of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been recovered from the site of an Israeli air attack on Beirut's southern suburbs and is intact, a medical source and a security source told Reuters on Sunday.

While Hezbollah's statement on Saturday confirming Nasrallah's death did not say how exactly he was killed nor when his funeral would be, the two sources said his body had no direct wounds and that it appeared the cause of death was blunt trauma from the force of the blast.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners protested at the gates of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus on Sunday, accusing Britain of offering tacit support to Israel's ongoing operations in Gaza and elsewhere.

Chanting "Out with the bases of death" a couple of hundred people holding Palestinian and Cypriot flags peacefully protested outside the locked gates of the facility, Britain's largest in the Middle East.

Britain last week sent additional troops to Cyprus to be in position to assist any potential evacuation of nationals trapped in Lebanon, which is reeling from a barrage of Israeli air strikes which culminated in the killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday evening.

The UK has two military bases on Cyprus, a former British colony.

RAF Akrotiri has been used in the past as a staging point for airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen in retaliation for attacks on Red Sea shipping that the Iran-backed group says is a response to the war in Gaza.

"This is an issue of independence and sovereignty for Cyprus," said Peter Iosif, a member of the Cyprus Peace Council, an organiser of Sunday's demonstration.

"At this time it becomes even more obvious how the British bases are acting against the will of the Cyprus people," he said.

In response to the protests, a British bases spokesperson said: "No RAF flights have transported lethal cargo to the Israeli Defence Forces."

"In addition, it is standard practice for the UK Ministry of Defence to routinely authorise requests for (a) limited number of allies and partners to access the UK's air bases.

Such activity must be in line with UK policy for evacuation and humanitarian purposes only."

Today's Anti-War Protest outside British Bases, in Akrotiri, Cyprus.
STOP Genocide and Murderous Attacks in Middle East! pic.twitter.com/hfAa6O61NO

— DiEM25 in Cyprus (@DiEM25_CY) September 29, 2024

The Palestinian Health Ministry has announced that Israeli attacks on Gaza since last year have resulted in at least 41,595 deaths and 96,251 injuries.

Lebanon's Information Minister said during a cabinet session on Sunday that diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire with Israel were still "underway".

Lebanon's top Christian cleric urged diplomacy in the conflict between Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah, and said Israel's killing of the group's chief, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, had wounded the hearts of the Lebanese people.

The Israeli military says it has killed another high-ranking Hezbollah official in an airstrike.

The military said Sunday that it killed Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah's Central Council, in an airstrike the day before. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

Several senior Hezbollah commanders have been killed in Israeli strikes in recent weeks, including the group's overall leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut on Friday.

At least 11 people have been killed in an airstrike targeting a house in the town of Ain, located in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, according to the National News Agency.

Rescue teams have recovered six bodies from the rubble, and efforts are continuing to retrieve the remaining five victims.

Since 8 October, a total of 1,640 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 104 children and 194 women, with the majority of casualties resulting from Israeli airstrikes over the past two weeks.

At least six people have been injured and one arrested during an Israeli raid in Aqqaba, an occupied West Bank city northwest of Tubas.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), five of the injured were taken to Tubas Turkish Government Hospital, with one in critical condition due to a chest injury.

The sixth injured person was reportedly arrested by Israeli forces while receiving medical care, as reported by the Wafa news agency.

The report also indicated that Israeli troops surrounded the home of former prisoner Qutaybah al-Shawish during the early morning raid.

Kamel Bani Ouda, director of the Palestinian Prisoners' Society in Tubas, informed Wafa that al-Shawish was detained after being attacked by police dogs while sheltering in a neighbour’s house.

The Jordanian army said in a statement a grad rocket from southern Lebanon fell this evening in an uninhabited desert area in Muwaqqar, adding no human or material damage occurred as a result.

US President Joe Biden called for a ceasefire after Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon -- part of an extended bombing campaign against the strongholds of the Iran-backed group.

"It's time for a ceasefire," Biden said in response to a reporter asking whether an Israeli ground invasion was inevitable.

Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, commenting on the killing of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said on Sunday that what Iran terms resistance groups will continue to confront Israel with the help of Iran, according to Iranian state media.