Israeli airstrike reportedly targets senior Hezbollah commander; Lebanon says more than 270 killed – Middle East crisis live

At least 492 have been killed so far in Lebanon today by Israeli air strikes on south and eastern parts of the country and on a southern suburb of Beirut.

Almost 1,650 people have been injured as well, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The death toll is expected to rise through the night as overstretched rescue crews work to remove people from under the rubble of collapsed buildings and reach remote areas hit by airstrikes. Israeli Military Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said in a statement on Monday that Israel had targeted “combat infrastructure that Hezbollah has been building for the last 20 years.”

Airstrikes in the Bekaa valley continued into the late hours of Monday night, with the governor of Baalbek-Hermel in the Bekaa saying that the airstrikes were constant.

“We have had dozens of airstrikes on the governorate of Baalbek-Hermel today. We have opened schools for shelters for displaced people,” Bachir Khodor, the Baalbek governor, told The Guardian. He said that he was prepared for the situation to get even worse.

The roads leading from south Lebanon to the north were still at a virtual standstill, despite police opening up both sides of the coastal highway to facilitate traffic northwards. Many people had been stuck on the roads for over ten hours, with some injured unable to reach hospitals due to the gridlock.

In Beirut, the capital city, the diaster management cell had converted 12 schools into shelters — nine were already full by the time of publishing.

Hello again, global Guardian live blog readers, it’s midnight in Beirut, 10pm local time in London and 5pm local time in New York (where world leaders are starting to fly in for the United Nations general assembly, the annual gathering which opens tomorrow and where the Middle East crisis is likely to dominate the agenda).

We are closing this blog now but do join us when we resume on Tuesday. Meanwhile, our latest news report is here.

Here’s where the day stands:

At least 492 have been killed so far in Lebanon today by Israeli air strikes on south and eastern parts of the country and on a southern suburb of Beirut. Almost 1,650 people have been injured as well, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The death toll keep rising as more information comes in from the onslaught of bombings today as Israel targets its northern neighbour in an effort to counterattack against Hezbollah.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s air strikes in Lebanon today have destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets, adding to the most difficult week for the Iranian-backed movement since its creation.

The Israeli military is preparing for the next stage of its operation in Lebanon after launching a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets on Monday morning, the military chief of the general staff Herzi Halevi said. There is rising tension on the ground in Lebanon and a collective bracing to see whether Israel intends a ground invasion of its neighbour.

Israel carried out what it said was a “limited” airstrike in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, with Israeli media reporting that the target of the strike was Ali Karaki, the No 3 military commander in Hezbollah. The Lebanon-based group later said Karaki was well and in a safe place.

Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahieh became the latest target of Israel’s military offensive in nextdoor Lebanon. The Israeli military has just said the capital is a target, although few details are available at present.

The United States has said the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) raid and shutdown of the media network Al Jazeera’s office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, is “inconsistent with US support for freedom of the press in the West Bank and all over the world”. Israeli forces raided the office of Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and issued a 45-day closure order, the Qatari broadcaster said.

Lebanon’s health minister Firas Abiad has said that 274 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, including 21 children and 31 women. More than 1,000 people have been injured, the health minister added. Abiad said Israeli airstrikes targeted “hospitals, medical centers and ambulances”. At least two ambulances were damaged and destroyed, and one member of Lebanon’s civil defence was injured by Israeli airstrikes today.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (Unifil) issued a statement on Monday afternoon expressing “grave concern” for the safety of civilians in southern Lebanon amidst the most intense Israeli bombing campaign since last October and urging the need for de-escalation from both Hezbollah and Israel.

Senior UN officials have called for the immediate end to the conflict in Gaza on the eve of the UN general assembly meeting in New York, saying in a statement: “These atrocities must end,” adding: “We urgently call for a sustained, immediate and unconditional ceasefire. This is the only way to end the suffering of civilians and save lives. All hostages and all those arbitrarily detained must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

Israel began airstrikes in the Beqaa valley, carrying out four airstrikes in a neighbourhood near Baalbek, east Beqaa, a Hezbollah source told The Guardian. A spokesperson for the Israeli military had told residents to evacuate the area some two hours before, warning that Israel would soon commence airstrikes against Hezbollah targets there.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, in his first statement since Israel launched a wave of deadly attacks across Lebanon, has told Israeli citizens that he had promised Israel would change the balance of power in the north, and that is what the IDF is doing. Netanyahu said the missions being carried out were aimed at destroying what he claimed were thousands of missiles and rockets aimed at Israeli cities. Netanyahu said there were complicated days ahead, and urged Israeli citizens to follow home front defence guidelines.

An Israeli military official, speaking to Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said Israel was focused on aerial operations and had no immediate plans for a ground operation. They said the strikes today, which have killed at least 180 people, were aimed at curbing Hezbollah’s ability to launch more strikes into Israel. While Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-constant fire since the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel, the two sides have generally avoided incursions across the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries.

Lebanon is opening schools as emergency shelters amid ‘heavy displacement’ of population caused by Israeli airstrikes. Responding to the displacement of people after Israel launched a string of airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, the interior ministry has opened schools in Beirut, Tripoli and in the east and the south to act as temporary refugee shelters. Heavy traffic and chaotic scenes have been reported as people try to flee.

Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, has called Israel’s wave of airstrikes “a genocide in every sense of the word”. Mikati made the comments at the start of a cabinet meeting in Beirut on Monday in which he said that Israel’s airstrikes aim to destroy Lebanon’s towns and villages, according to an update from the Associated Press news agency. Mikati said that the Lebanese government was calling on the United Nations, the UN security council and world nations to “deter the aggression”.

Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant has told the Israeli public they must “stay calm, disciplined and fully compliant with the home front command’s instructions” in the coming days as Israel expands its military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, held a call to brief Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, overnight on IDF operations against Hezbollah. Gallant, whose position in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet has recently been the subject of much speculation, said he “provided the secretary with a situation assessment of Hezbollah threats” and briefed him on “IDF operations to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to launch attacks against Israeli civilians”. Gallant added that the pair “also discussed the wider regional situation and the threats posed by Iran and its proxies”.

At least 492 have been killed so far in Lebanon today by Israeli air strikes on south and eastern parts of the country and on a southern suburb of Beirut.

Almost 1,650 people have been injured as well, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The death toll is expected to rise through the night as overstretched rescue crews work to remove people from under the rubble of collapsed buildings and reach remote areas hit by airstrikes. Israeli Military Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said in a statement on Monday that Israel had targeted “combat infrastructure that Hezbollah has been building for the last 20 years.”

Airstrikes in the Bekaa valley continued into the late hours of Monday night, with the governor of Baalbek-Hermel in the Bekaa saying that the airstrikes were constant.

“We have had dozens of airstrikes on the governorate of Baalbek-Hermel today. We have opened schools for shelters for displaced people,” Bachir Khodor, the Baalbek governor, told The Guardian. He said that he was prepared for the situation to get even worse.

The roads leading from south Lebanon to the north were still at a virtual standstill, despite police opening up both sides of the coastal highway to facilitate traffic northwards. Many people had been stuck on the roads for over ten hours, with some injured unable to reach hospitals due to the gridlock.

In Beirut, the capital city, the diaster management cell had converted 12 schools into shelters — nine were already full by the time of publishing.

The United Nations general assembly (UNGA) gets under way in New York tomorrow and the crisis in the Middle East will be top of many people’s agenda, especially since the annual UNGA preceded the attack on southern Israel last October led by Hamas out of Gaza.

US president Joe Biden will be at the gathering tomorrow, while Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will address the assembly later in the week. There are calls for an emergency session of the UN security council and passions will be running high amid the bombardment of parts of Lebanon by Israel today, on top of remote attacks on electronic devices last week, in an offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The Ukraine fightback against Russia’s invasion is now well into its third year and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will address the UNGA as well as meet with Biden at the White House later in the week.

Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian moments ago said Israel wanted to drag the Middle East into a full-blown war by provoking Iran to join the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

It is Israel that seeks to create this all-out conflict,” he told journalists after his arrival in New York to attend the UNGA, saying the consequences of such instability would be irreversible.

And here are images of people from those fleeing southern Lebanon, evacuating further north within the country, to get away from Israeli air strikes coming across the border today.

Some even as far as Beirut despite the city’s southern suburb being bombed on Monday.

Buildings being turned into emergency evacuation centres.

After evacuating.

Southern Lebanon

Here are some additional images from the Israeli strikes on the southern suburb of Beirut earlier today.

More from just south of Beirut.

And this:

First responders:

Hezbollah has issued information stating that its southern front commander, Ali Karaki, is safe despite his apparently being the target of airstrikes just hours ago on Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut.

Karaki, the No. 3 leader of the military operation of Hezbollah, the powerful, Iran-backed Islamist movement, is “well” and is in a safe place, according to the group.

It was reported earlier today that the strike in Beirut, much further north than previous strikes on Monday further south and east in Lebanon, was directed by Israel at killing Karaki.

At least 356 people have been reported killed and 1,246 injured today in Lebanon since Israel began launching air strikes within the country this morning.

Parts of southern and eastern Lebanon were hit first and within the last two hours there were additional strikes on the southern suburb of Beirut.

The heightened death toll was reported by Lebanon’s health ministry.

It added that among those killed on Monday were 42 women and 24 children.

Israeli warplanes began pounding southern Lebanon in the early morning and then expanded its strikes to the Beqaa valley by the afternoon. Within the last two hours there was also an airstrike on the southern suburb of Beirut – the second time the capital city was struck by Israel this week.

More government leaders outside of Israel and Lebanon are responding with apparent growing alarm to the Israeli strikes on parts of Lebanon today, which are in response to Iran-backed Hezbollah’s sustained attacks on northern Israel in the last year in solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian cause.

As a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza, appears further away than ever today, the eruption of the Israeli military response to Hezbollah in Israel’s northern neighbour, Lebanon, is further ratcheting up tension and fears in the whole region.

Turkey has now issued a warning.

Israel’s attacks on Lebanon mark a new phase in its efforts to drag the entire region into chaos,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement, AFP reports.

Then Egypt’s foreign ministry called earlier today on “international powers and the United Nations security council to intervene immediately” to stop “the dangerous Israeli escalation in Lebanon”.

And Iraq seeks and “urgent” Arab meeting at the United Nations general assembly getting under way fully in New York, the UN HQ, tomorrow.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s air strikes in Lebanon today have destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets, adding to the most difficult week for the Iranian-backed movement since its creation.

Today is a significant peak. On this day we have taken out of order tens of thousands of rockets and precise munition. What Hezbollah has built over a period of 20 years since the second Lebanon War, is in fact being destroyed by the IDF,” he said in a statement, Reuters reports.

This comes as regional leaders are voicing acute worries about the situation that’s developed today, on top of what happened with remote attacks targeting Hezbollah members in Lebanon last week, and what happens next. More details on this last point very soon.

The United States is sending additional troops to the Middle East during the sharp surge in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said moments ago.

Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The US currently has about 40,000 troops in the region, the Associated Press writes.

The new deployments come after significant strikes by Israeli forces against targets inside Lebanon that have killed hundreds and as Israel is preparing to conduct further operations and the State Department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.

Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the US Embassy urges US citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” the State Department had cautioned on Saturday.

The Israeli military is preparing for the next stage of its operation in Lebanon after launching a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets on Monday morning, the military chief of the general staff Herzi Halevi said.

Essentially, we are targeting combat infrastructure that Hezbollah has been building for the past 20 years. This is very significant. We are striking targets and preparing for the next phases,” he said in a statement, Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Halevi gave no further details, while adding that he would “elaborate shortly”.

Having hit parts of southern and eastern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, Halevi said the Israeli army was now “preparing for the next phases” of its operation.

There is rising tension on the ground in Lebanon and a collective bracing to see whether Israel intends a ground invasion of its neighbour, which has not been signaled so far as the military strikes are currently from the air (subsequent to last week’s remote attacks carried out by Israel engineering to blow up hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies within Lebanon).

There are images trickling in over the international news wires of the response to Israeli strikes in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

Here is another scene:

Scenes of urgency among first responders, authorities and bystanders in souther Beirut following air strikes by Israel a little earlier.

US president Joe Biden is meeting with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in the Oval Office at the White House and mentioned briefly that he will discuss with him efforts to de-escalate the current situation in Lebanon.

Right now the situation is only escalating. Reuters also said that Biden intended to discuss with him efforts to end Israel’s war in Gaza, as well.

There should be more details later.

The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, also plans to discuss efforts to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal in her separate meeting with the UAE leader.

This as the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, is alarmed by the escalating situation in Lebanon and very concerned by the large number of civilian casualties reported by Lebanese authorities, his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said moments ago.

Israel carried out what it said was a “limited” airstrike in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, with Israeli media reporting that the target of the strike was Ali Karaki, the number three military commander in Hezbollah.

It was the second time Beirut was struck by Israel in a week, and the latest in Lebanon’s bloodiest day since its 1975-1990 civil war. More than 270 were killed and over 1,000 injured after Israel carried out a punishing aerial assault on wide swathes of south Lebanon and the Beqaa valley.

Sirens went off to the east of Haifa immediately after the strike on Beirut.

Yesterday, funerals were held in Dahieh for Ibrahim Akil, the second-in-command of Hezbollah’s military wing, along with other senior commanders killed in a Friday airstrike on the southern suburb.

 

Updated: September 23, 2024 — 5:10 pm

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