More than 100 killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes

Saudi Arabia expressed its "great concern" at the conflict in Lebanon on Monday, calling for the country's "sovereignty and territorial integrity" to be respected.

A foreign ministry statement said: "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is following with great concern the developments taking place in the Republic of Lebanon."

As the country's health ministry said more than a hundred people had been killed in Israel's strikes on targets across the country on Sunday, Riyadh stressed the need to respect Lebanon's sovereignty.

"The Kingdom calls on the international community to assume its responsibilities towards protecting regional peace and security to spare the region and its people the dangers and tragedies of wars," it added.

Two people were killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut Monday, a Lebanese security source said.

An Israeli drone targeted an apartment belonging to two members of the Lebanese Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, said the source.

The death toll in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Sunday rose to 105, including 32 in Ain Deleb, a town southeast of the port city of Sidon, 33 in the northeastern district of Baalbek-Hermel and seven more in Marjayoun, Reuters tally of health ministry statements showed.

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it stands by the Lebanese people in light of current events, making its first comment since Israel's killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah but making no mention of him.

In a statement, the Saudi foreign ministry emphasized that Lebanon's sovereignty must be preserved.

Israel's military chief of staff said on Sunday that Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah had lost weapons, operatives and its leader in Israeli strikes and that Israel needs to keep hitting it hard

An unknown number of people have been injured after Israeli forces targeted a tent sheltering displaced people on al-Baraka Street in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, the Palestinian Civil Defense said, as cited by the Al Jazeera.

Hezbollah's Shura Council, the group's central decision-making body has selected Hashem Safieddine to replace the slain Hassan Nasrallah as the leader of Hezbollah, according to a Saudi report, as cited by Haaretz.

US President Biden says an all-out war 'has to be' avoided in the Middle East and he will speak with Israeli leader Netanyahu.

The bomb that Israel used to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last week was an American-made guided weapon, a US senator said on Sunday.

Mark Kelly, chair of the Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee, said Israel used a 2,000-lb (900-kg) Mark 84 series bomb, during an interview with NBC. His statement marks the first US indication of what weapon had been used.

"We see more use of guided munitions, JDAMs, and we continue to provide those weapons," Kelly said, using an abbreviation that stands for Joint Direct Attack Munitions. "That 2,000-pound bomb that was used, that's a Mark 84 series bomb, to take out Nasrallah," he said.

JDAMs convert a standard unguided bomb using fins and a GPS guidance system into a guided weapon. The US is Israel's longtime ally and biggest arms supplier.

A second French national has been confirmed to be killed in Lebanon, while the country's foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot arrived in in the country on Sunday night, his ministry said, making him the first high-level foreign diplomat to visit since Israeli air strikes intensified one week ago.

Israeli opposition lawmaker Gideon Saar is joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, Israeli television station N12 reported on Sunday, in a move likely to strengthen the premier politically.

Netanyahu and Saar were due to deliver a statement later on Sunday, the Prime Minister's Office said. 

Israel should not be allowed to attack countries of the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" one after the other, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was quoted as saying on Sunday by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

The Israeli military said Sunday evening it hit dozens more Hezbollah targets in Lebanon during a new barrage "a short while ago", as frequent cross-border air raids continued.

"During the intelligence-based strikes, the (air force) struck approximately 120 Hezbollah terror targets in southern Lebanon and deep inside Lebanese territory," a military statement said, adding that the targets included Hezbollah's infrastructure and "significant headquarters used by Hezbollah's different units".

Four people were killed and 29 wounded in Israeli strikes on Yemen on Sunday, the Houthi-run health ministry said in a statement.

Nawal Salama, a survivor of a devastating Israeli airstrike on a school in western Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, recounted the harrowing moment when the floor collapsed in an interview with news publication Al Jazeera.

The attack resulted in the deaths of at least four individuals and left many others injured.

Salama described how she was setting the table for lunch when she suddenly felt a hot object fall nearby, followed by waves of sand pushing her back.

"I started screaming in fear, even though I felt fine and uninjured. I heard my son screaming, but I saw that he was alright, as was my daughter," she recalled.

She struggled to see and found it difficult to breathe in the chaos.

"I completely lost my composure. Everything happened so fast. I managed to pull myself together and went outside, where I saw people on the ground—some in severe pain, others injured," she added.

"Thank God we are still alive. Four people were killed in the school, and I don’t know anything more," Salama concluded.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Sunday that Israel would strike at foes no matter the distance, after the military targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen.

"Our message is clear -- for us, no place is too far," Gallant said in a statement issued by his office after he monitored the strikes from an air force command and control room about 2,000 kilometres (1,300 miles) from Yemen.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has authorised the military to strengthen its presence in the Middle East by adding "defensive" air-support capabilities and placing additional forces on heightened readiness, according to a Pentagon announcement.

The statement did not specify which new aircraft would be sent to the region.

An Israeli attack on Sunday on the city of Baalbek-Hermel in eastern Lebanon killed 21 people and wounded 47 others, according to a preliminary toll, Lebanon's Health Ministry said in a statement.

The Israeli military said on Sunday it was striking several Houthi targets in Yemen, including power stations and a seaport, using dozens of aircraft.

The strikes came a day after the Iran-backed armed group said it targeted Israel's Ben Gurion Airport with a missile.

"In a large-scale air operation today, dozens of Air Force aircraft, including fighter jets, refuelling planes, and reconnaissance aircraft, attacked military-use targets of the Houthi terrorist regime in the Ras Issa and Hodeida areas of Yemen," military spokesman Captain David Avraham said in a statement to news agency AFP.

"The [Israeli military] targeted power stations and a seaport used for oil imports," a military statement said.

In July Israel also hit Hodeida port, causing what a port official said was at least $20 million in damage, after a Houthi drone strike penetrated Israel's air defences and killed a civilian in Tel Aviv.

The sites targeted Sunday were used by the Houthis, who seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014, to "transfer Iranian weaponry to the region and supplies for military needs", the statement said.

"The strike was carried out in response to recent attacks by the Huthi regime against the state of Israel," it added, after the rebels said they tried to hit Ben Gurion as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived back from New York.

The Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah station reported Sunday that Israeli strikes targeted "the ports of Hodeidah and Ras Issa" as well as two power stations after previously announcing "Israeli aggression on Hodeida".

According to Lebanon's Health Ministry, an Israeli attack on the city of Ain Deleb in southern Lebanon has resulted in the deaths of 24 individuals, based on initial reports.

The ministry also noted that 29 others were injured in a separate Israeli strike near the city of Sidon.

Pope Francis on Sunday slammed the "immoral" use of force in Lebanon and Gaza, amid ongoing Israeli strikes in both places.

"A country that acts this way with force, no matter the country, and that acts in such an excessive manner, (lends itself to) in immoral actions," said Francis when asked about the consequences of Israeli airstrikes on civilians aboard a flight back to Rome from Belgium.

Airstrikes have targeted Yemen's vital port city of Hodeidah, according to the Houthi group on Sunday.

Further updates on the situation are expected soon.

Thousands of people protested in Pakistan cities on Sunday after the Iran-backed group Hezbollah confirmed that its longtime chief had been killed by an Israeli air strike in Lebanon.

Hezbollah said on Saturday Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the strike on Beirut's southern suburbs a day earlier, dealing a massive blow to the group he had led for decades.

Around 4,000 people gathered in the Pakistan capital Islamabad and 3,000 thousand in the southern port city of Karachi during rallies and funeral prayers for Nasrallah led by Shiite Muslim groups.

"We stand against what Israel is doing in Palestine and Lebanon, this is why we are here today," 27-year-old Taskeen Zafar told news agency AFP during the rally in Islamabad.

"Pakistan strongly condemns the growing Israeli adventurism in the Middle East," Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Sunday.

"Yesterday's reckless act of killing the Secretary General of Hezbollah in Lebanon constitutes a major escalation in an already volatile region."

According to Wafa, Israeli forces have closed a military checkpoint northeast of Bethlehem, citing security sources.

The checkpoint, which links the central and southern occupied West Bank, was shut down, halting the movement of local residents.

Restricting movement is a key method Israel uses to enforce its occupation.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem commented on the situation, stating, "These conditions create constant uncertainty for Palestinians, making daily tasks difficult and hindering economic stability and development."

The Lebanese health ministry said Sunday that 14 paramedics had been killed in two days of intense Israeli bombardment in Lebanon's east and south and in Beirut where it had killed Hezbollah's leader.

"This series of attacks killed 14 paramedics in two days," the ministry said in a statement, adding it "condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli enemy's repeated attacks on medical centres" and that "paramedics do not participate in hostilities".

The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that an Israeli bombing of Umm al-Fahm School, which serves as a shelter for displaced people in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, resulted in the deaths of four Palestinians.

Additionally, 15 others, mostly women and children, were injured in the attack.

An Israeli strike on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Sunday killed a senior figure in the Sunni Jama'a Islamiya group, Mohammad Dahrouj, two security sources told news agency Reuters.

The group has fired rockets on Israel over the past year and Israel has previously conducted strikes targeting other leading figures from the group.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) has reported that at least 17 members of a single family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Zboud, located in the northern Bekaa Valley.

Rescue efforts are still underway as the search for survivors beneath the rubble continues, according to the NNA.

The Israeli military said on Sunday the strike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah this week in Beirut also "eliminated" more than 20 other members of the Lebanese armed group.

"More than 20 other [operatives] of varying ranks, who were present at the underground headquarters in Beirut located beneath civilian buildings, and were managing Hezbollah's terrorist operations against the state of Israel, were also eliminated," the military said in a statement that listed some of them.

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.