Lebanese PM Mikati says ready to deploy army to south as Israel steps up Lebanon bombardment

An Israeli strike on Lebanon's Zahle district killed five people late on Tuesday, the Lebanese health ministry said. 

The strike targeted the Riyaq area, with three of those killed being children. 

An additional 16 people were wounded in the attack. 

Two Hezbollah drones have breached Israeli airspace, the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that no injuries have been reported so far. 

The drones were identified as coming from Lebanon, with the Israeli army not saying that the drones were intercepted by air defences. 

A letter from top U.S. officials in which they told Israel to improve Gaza's humanitarian situation or risk military aid is being reviewed by Israel, an Israeli official in Washington said late on Tuesday.

"Israel takes this matter seriously and intends to address the concerns raised in this letter with our American counterparts," the Israeli official said.

The United States has told Israel it must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on U.S. military aid, according to the letter.

(Reuters)

Qatar's Prime Minister said his country will press for a ceasefire, saying the current situation in Gaza "can not be accepted by any honest person".

Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani made the comments to Qatar Television, where he added that they will not "be exhausted as long as there is an expectation of results".

"We succeeded last November through a liberation and ceasefire deal and unfortunately, this was not completed," he added.

"We made several extensive contacts with the Lebanese side and explained to them Qatar’s position, which is to stop the war in Lebanon", he continued.

The United States opposes the bombing campaign that Israel has carried out in Beirut in past weeks and has communicated its concerns particularly over the civilian death toll, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.

"There are specific strikes that it would be appropriate for Israel to carry out. But when it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut for the past few weeks, it's something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to," Miller said.

The civilian death toll was among Washington's concerns, he said, without elaborating.

Miller's comments represent a harsher tone than Washington has adopted so far toward Israel's military operations in Lebanon, which Israel says are aimed at degrading Hezbollah and pushing its forces north and away from the border.

Israel dramatically escalated its bombing campaign of Lebanon in recent weeks, heavily hitting areas in south Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa region. Other areas of Lebanon have also been hit.

Hezbollah said it downed a second Israeli drone on Tuesday, adding that it was seen "burning" over Israeli territory.

Fighters from the group's "air defence units shot down a second Israeli Hermes 450 drone," on Tuesday, Hezbollah said, adding that "it was seen burning in the skies of occupied Palestine."

The Gaza Strip remains in a state of "constant peak emergency", a UN official said, as aid groups continue to face severe challenges in delivering assistance after more than a year of war on the enclave.

"Every day is a struggle to make sure that we can provide our assistance," Antoine Renard, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the occupied Palestinian territories, told AFP shortly after a visit to Gaza.

Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel's assault on the territory. In recent weeks, Israel has been intensifying attacks in the north of the besieged Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned hundreds of thousands of people are trapped.

"People in the north of Gaza are relying solely on assistance. They practically have no access to fresh food -- just staples provided by UNRWA and WFP," Renard said, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

He said that most residents have survived so far on tinned food, a situation he describes as "unsustainable".

"It's unique to actually have one year into a war where people are just depending on processed food that is coming from cans," he said.

"We face issues with crossings. We face issues in having our assistance not being under bombs," he added, noting that looting of the goods once in the territory was also a problem.

Despite a desperate need to increase the amount of aid going in, he said no WFP food aid has managed to reach northern Gaza since 1 October, requesting that "crossings be reopened" by Israel.

An Israeli air strike on Gaza's Khan Younis killed a well-known Palestinian footballer, Imad Abu Tima, 21, along with nine other members of his family, various reports stated on Tuesday.

The young footballer played for the Ittihad Khan Younis Club, and also represented Palestine's under-20 national team in 2021. 

Around 400 athletes have been killed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023, Palestine's National Olympic Committee has said.

An Israeli airstrike on the east of Khan Younis this morning slaughtered Palestinian football player Imad Abu Tima and his entire family.

He played for Ittihad Khan Younis and represented the U20 Palestinian national team in 2021.

Just 21 years old. pic.twitter.com/BqDn2HePHe

— Leyla Hamed (@leylahamed) October 15, 2024

The Pentagon said on Tuesday a letter co-authored by U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to Israeli officials about the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "private correspondence" and declined to discuss it in detail.

The letter followed a recent decrease in humanitarian aid to people in Gaza and stated the effect of Israel's military operations and restrictions has been 'extremely' dire for people in northern Gaza. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote a letter to Israel on Sunday to make clear Washington's concerns about the levels of humanitarian assistance that have been making it to Gaza, the State Department said on Tuesday.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing that the U.S. knows it is possible to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and that bureaucratic and logistical obstacles can be surmounted.

"We need to see further changes by the government of Israel," Miller said, adding that there are implications under U.S. law and Washington hopes that Israel will make the changes outlined in the letter.

Around 3,000 French citizens have left Lebanon since fighting broke out between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday.

Barrot also told the French parliament's foreign affairs committee that no decision had been taken regarding evacuations from Lebanon.

Overall, there were about 24,000 French citizens in Lebanon. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said he was opposed to agreeing to a "unilateral ceasefire" in Lebanon during a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to a statement released by his office.

"The prime minister said in the conversation that he is opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon, and which will only return it to the way it was," Netanyahu said, according to a statement.

The Biden administration believes it has won assurances from Israel that it will not hit Iranian nuclear or oil sites as it looks to strike back following Iran's missile barrage earlier this month, two US officials said Tuesday.

The administration also believes that sending a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel and roughly 100 soldiers to operate it has eased some of Israel's concerns about possible Iranian retaliation and general security issues.

The Pentagon on Sunday announced the THAAD deployment to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran's ballistic missile attacks on Israel in April and October, saying it was authorized at the direction of President Joe Biden.

However, the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic discussions, cautioned that the assurance is not iron-clad and that circumstances could change. The officials also noted that Israel's track record on fulfilling assurances in the past is mixed and has often reflected domestic Israeli politics that have upended Washington's expectations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not forget his country was created as a result of a resolution adopted by the United Nations, French President Emmanuel Macron told cabinet on Tuesday, urging Israel to abide by UN decisions.

Tensions have increased between Netanyahu and Macron with the French leader last week insisting that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon was the only way to stop the conflicts.

France has also repeatedly denounced Israeli fire against UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, who include a French contingent.

"Mr Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN," Macron told the weekly French cabinet meeting, referring to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

"Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN," he added, as Israel wages a ground offensive against the Iran-backed Shia militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where the UN peacekeepers are deployed.

His comments from the closed door meeting at the Elysee Palace were quoted by a participant who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named.

Turkey's foreign minister on Tuesday called for sanctions against Israel, urging the international community to cut support over the conflict in the Middle East.

"We have reached the limit of words, diplomacy and international politics. We must start with sanctions," Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told ruling party delegates at a meeting about the future of Palestine.

Turkey has long been a fierce critic of Israel's now year-long military campaign in Gaza and its recent deadly push into Lebanon, accusing the United Nations of failing to sanction Israel over the conflicts.

Fidan said Israel had not so far responded to calls to halt the Gaza war, meaning "the international community must now resort to legal action. Israel needs to be boycotted," he said.

Israel was "not paying any price economically, politically, or militarily" for its actions in Gaza, and the only way that would change was if the world "cut off support".

"If we cannot, Israel will continue the genocide and massacre in Gaza," he said.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday announced a visit to Lebanon later this week, and said heeding Israel's unilateral demand for UN peacekeepers to be withdrawn from the country would be a "grave mistake".

Speaking in the lower house of parliament, she said she expected to be in Lebanon on Friday and said a withdrawal of the UNIFIL mission "would be a grave mistake and undermine the credibility" of the United Nations.

(Reuters)

Lebanon's health ministry said on Tuesday that 41 people had been killed in Israeli strikes a day earlier, more than half of them in a northern Christian village.

"41 people have been killed and 124 injured" the ministry said, in "Israeli strikes on Lebanon yesterday," including 21 in the northern village of Aito. The newest figures bring the overall death toll since Israel on 23 September launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon to 1,356.

Hezbollah said its fighters targeted Israeli bulldozers and a tank near a south Lebanon border village on Tuesday, as the two sides face off at the frontier.

Hezbollah fighters targeted "three bulldozers and a Merkava tank on the outskirts of Ramia with guided missiles", causing a fire and casualties, the Iran-backed group said in a statement.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused Israel of attempting to "eliminate the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital".

In a post on X, the ministry said that settler organisations were continuing to expand illegal settlements and said that "the Israeli colonial agenda" sought to expand the road network in the occupied West Bank in order to annex Palestinian land.

The ministry further stated it was engaged in diplomacy to expose Israel's "colonial ambitions." 

The far-right Israeli government continues its systematic war crimes to eliminate the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. This includes escalating policies of genocidal war, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement against… pic.twitter.com/oTMLtphdSq

— State of Palestine - MFA 🇵🇸🇵🇸 (@pmofa) October 15, 2024

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel must take urgent steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza to avoid legal action involving U.S. military aid, Axios reported on Tuesday.

"We are writing now to underscore the US government's deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and seek urgent and sustained actions by your government this month to reverse this trajectory," they wrote in an 13 October letter to their Israeli counterparts, cited by an Axios reporter on X.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱Secretary of State Blinken & Secretary of Defense Austin sent a letter on Monday to Israel demanding it takes steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza in order to avoid consequences in U.S. law for U.S. milirary aid to Israel. See letter here: pic.twitter.com/N9DDMqsL7u

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) October 15, 2024

The deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, has said that his group was facing what he described as Israel's "expansionist" ambitions in the region.

Qassem said that his Hezbollah's decision to get involved after the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation, a reference to the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October, was to support Palestinians against the "usurping, occupying entity" and in part to face "Israel's expansionist project".

He said Israel - with support from "the Great Satan America" - wanted to create a new Middle East and control the entire Arab region.

He accused both Israel and the US of being complicit in genocide.

In his speech, the third since Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Beirut on 27 September, Qassem emphasised that Hezbollah had remained "strong", reiterating that "no leading position is vacant" within the group.

Britain on Tuesday sanctioned organisations involved in the construction of Israeli settler outposts in the West Bank, a government update showed.

The sanctions target seven settler outposts or organisations and were taken under Britain's global human rights sanctions regime, the notice showed.

Those sanctioned included the AMANA entity, which Britain said was "involved in the construction of illegal settler outposts and providing funding and other economic resources for Israeli settlers involved in threatening and perpetrating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank."

(Reuters)

The Pentagon said components for an advanced anti-missile system began arriving in Israel on Monday and that it would be fully operational in the near future, according to a statement on Tuesday.

"Over the coming days, additional U.S. military personnel and THAAD battery components will continue to arrive in Israel," Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder said.

"The battery will be fully operational capable in the near future, but for operations security reasons we will not discuss timelines." 

(Reuters)

Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Tuesday that Lebanon was ready to bolster the army's presence in the south after any ceasefire, adding that Israeli troops were making brief cross-border incursions.

"Currently we have 4,500 soldiers in south Lebanon, and we wish to increase them to between 7,000 and 11,000," Mikati told AFP in an interview, adding that as soon as a ceasefire is reached, "we can move soldiers" from other parts of the country to the south. "The information we have is that there are brief (Israeli) incursions" into south Lebanon, he added.

During the interview Mikati also said that security had been tightened in the country's only airport in Beirut, to remove any pretexts for an Israeli attack.

"The government is doing everything in its power to remove any pretexts from the Israelis' hands," he said, adding that "tightened security has been in place for a week at the airport", located near Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold that has seen intense Israeli bombardment.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched a barrage of rockets on Tuesday towards the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Hezbollah fighters launched "a big rocket salvo" at Haifa "in defence of Lebanon and its people" and in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians, the group said in a statement.

The Israeli army has presented to political officials the conditions under which they believe Israel can reach an agreement in Lebanon as Israel steps up cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah. 

Israel's Channel 12 reported on Monday that the Israeli army was seeking to dismantle Hezbollah's capabilities and to ensure it could not rearm, a goal that has not yet been explicitly stated as Israeli policy. 

Channel 12 said that army officials also suggested that Israel was seeking the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, maintaining the UN-manned Blue Line, which separates Lebanon and Israel.

It said Israel was also seeking international supervision of the Lebanon-Syria border to prevent the alleged transfer of weapons from Iran. 

Resolution 1701 calls for, among other things, the withdrawal of Israeli forces behind the Blue Line and the establishment of a demilitarised zone between the UN-manned frontier and the Litani River - essentially entailing the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces away from the frontier.

An assailant shot dead an Israeli policeman and wounded five other people near the southern city of Ashdod on Tuesday in what police called a "terrorist" attack.

The gunman was killed during the attack at the Yavne interchange along the highway connecting Ashdod to Tel Aviv, the authorities said.

"A terrorist wounded five people, including a policeman who was critically injured and then died later," a police spokesman said.

The attacker had approached the main road on foot, fatally wounding the policeman before going on a shooting rampage and wounding others.

An Israeli paramedic at the scene "shot the terrorist and neutralised him", said Zaki Heller, a spokesman with emergency service provider Magen David Adom.

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it had been able to start its polio campaign in central Gaza and vaccinate tens of thousands of children despite Israeli strikes in the designated protected zone hours before.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević told a Geneva press briefing that over 92,000 children, or around half of the children targeted for polio vaccines in the central area, had been inoculated on Monday.

"What we have received from colleagues is that the vaccination went without a major issue yesterday, and we hope It will continue the same way," he said.

Other humanitarian agencies have previously voiced concerns about the viability of the polio campaign in northern Gaza, where an Israeli offensive is under way.

Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month, after a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

(Reuters)

Israel's economy grew slower in the second quarter than previously thought, data showed on Tuesday, as Israel's war on Gaza continued to weigh on growth.

Gross domestic product rose by an annualised 0.3 in the April-June period, the Central Bureau of Statistics said in its third estimate, down from 0.7 percent reported a month ago and from an initial 1.2 percent published in August.

The economy was supported by gains in consumer and state spending and in investment in fixed assets, while exports fell.

Last week, the Bank of Israel trimmed its Israeli economic growth estimate in 2024 to 0.5 percent from a prior estimate of 1.5p percent.

Along with a weakening economy, inflation has spiked and central bank officials have warned of possible interest rate increases. It held rates steady last week for a sixth straight policy meeting.

First-quarter GDP growth was unrevised at 17.2 percent, as the economy bounced back from a steep contraction in the fourth quarter of 2023 when the war began.

(Reuters)

Two United Nations agencies on Tuesday called for more funding to address "increasing" needs in Lebanon, where the war between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

"We are preparing for the reality that the needs are increasing," said UNICEF deputy executive director Ted Chaiban and World Food Programme deputy executive director Carl Skau in a joint statement, adding: "We need additional funding, without conditionalities".

Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group said Tuesday it had carried out a rocket attack targeting the suburbs of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv a day earlier.

Hezbollah fighters launched "a rocket barrage at Tel Aviv's suburbs" on Monday night, a statement said, adding that the attack came "in defence of Lebanon and its people, and responding to Israeli" attacks on "cities, villages and civilians".

Lebanon's Hezbollah said it downed an Israeli drone on Tuesday, without saying where, as the Iran-backed group battles Israeli troops near the border and as Israel bombs south and east Lebanon.

Hezbollah fighters from the group's "air defence units... downed an Israeli Hermes 450 drone" just after midnight, the armed movement said in a statement.

The UN human rights office said on Tuesday it had received reports that most of the 22 victims of an Israeli air strike on a building in northern Lebanon were women and children.

"What we are hearing is that amongst the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children," UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing in response to a question about a strike on Aitou on Monday.

"We understand it was a four-story residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL (International Humanitarian Law), so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality," he said, calling for an investigation.

At the same press briefing, the UN refugee agency's Middle East Director Rema Jamous Imseis said that new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that over a quarter of the country was now affected.

"Now we have over 25% of the country under a direct Israeli military evacuation order," she said. "People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they're fleeing with almost nothing."

(Reuters)

Israel will take into consideration the United States's opinion but will act against an Iranian missile attack based on its own "national interests", the prime minister's office said Tuesday.

"We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest," Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

Gaza's Ministry of Health have said that in the last 24 hours Israeli strikes have killed 55 people and wounded a further 329 others.

The ministry added that Israel's war on Gaza has killed 42,344 people, and injured a further 99,013 others.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said today that Israel has deliberately chosen to expand its aggression by implementing pre-planned plans in the West Bank and Lebanon, stressing that after all the killing and destruction, it will have no choice but to adopt a two-state solution. 

His comments came at the opening of the regular session of the Qatari Shura Council.

He said that his country was making efforts to stop the fire and will continue to do so, calling for an end to the aggression on Gaza and Lebanon.

"We will continue to make every effort to reach an agreement that ends this war despite the obstacles that hinder mediation efforts," he said.

"We follow the approach of dialogue, and support the settlement of disputes through peaceful means," he added.

"We warned against the escalation in Lebanon and the Israeli aggression against it and its consequences for the region, and we called on the international community to stop the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians," he said, reiterating that the Palestinian issue was at the forefront of Qatar’s priorities.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) grouping has claimed a new drone attack on Israel.

The group on Telegram yesterday that an attack on "a vital target in the east of our occupied territories [Israel] by a drone with advanced capabilities".

As in previous statements, IRI said the claimed attacks had come "in support of our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity [Israel] against civilians, including children, women and the elderly".

IRI has increased its attacks - at least in terms of claimed strikes - against Israel since the flare-up with Hezbollah began in late September.

An area in the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah province on the western Yemeni coast was targeted in joint US-British strikes, according to local media in Yemen.

The Al-Satif district was targeted by US-British attack yesterday in a bid to "pressure" the Iran-backed movement into abandoning its support for the Palestinians in Gaza. 

On 5 October, Yemeni media reported a series of joint US-UK strikes on areas controlled by the Houthis, including the capital, Sanaa.

The strikes came after the group claimed a series of attacks on ships and Israeli cities following a month-long lull. 

Yesterday, the Houthi chief negotiation team, Mohammed Abdulsalam, held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in the Omani capital, Muscat over developments in Gaza and Lebanon. 

Fresh Israeli strikes hit various areas in central and southern Lebanon overnight and early this morning, with one raid hitting a hospital in the Bekaa Valley.  

A series of Israeli air raids targeted several areas in the Bekaa in central Lebanon and in the south. 

Meanwhile, a hospital in the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley had sustained "major damage" in Israeli strikes in the early hours of this morning. Footage shared online showed scenes of damage caused by Israeli strikes. 

Fierce clashes were reported between Hezbollah fighters and a group of Israeli infantry soldiers who were trying to enter the town of Rab Thalatheen in southern Lebanon.  

Yesterday, Hezbollah released a video showcasing some of its weapons and military capabilities, saying they were "very good". 

Iranian commander Esmail Qaani on Tuesday attended the funeral in Tehran for slain general Abbas Nilforoushan who was killed last month alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

The funeral procession for Nilforoushan, a general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, began at the Imam Hossein Square, according to a live broadcast on state television.

Qaani - who heads the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations arm - had disappeared from public view and was rumoured in some media to have been targeted in an Israeli strike on Lebanon before reappearing.