Middle East crisis live: New Israeli military division sent to Lebanon, IDF says, as vigils and ceremonies mark 7 October anniversary

Israel’s military has declared areas around a number of towns in northwest Israel as closed to the public on Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that a “new closed military zone” would be imposed along the border with Lebanon would now include the towns of Shlomi, Rosh Hanikra, Hanita, Arab al-Aramshe and Adamit.

It is the fourth closed military zone imposed on the border since the IDF launched its ground operations in Lebanon last week, according to the Times of Israel.

Many parts of northern Israel have been evacuated due to heavy rocket and missile fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

New Israeli strikes have been reported in south Beirut on Monday night.

Lebanese state media reported that two strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, and smoke could be seen above the area.

It comes just shortly after the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for civilians in the Lebanese capital to leave specific buildings.

We reported earlier that a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, named by the Palestinian health ministry as Hatem Ghaith, was shot dead by Israeli forces in Qalandia refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

Seven other people, including three children, were injured in the Israeli raid on Qalandia refugee camp, north of occupied Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement that its teams treated five injured people from the raid in Qalandia camp, some of them “very critical”.

A 66-year-old Palestinian man was killed in a separate Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The ministry said Ziad Abu Haleel was killed when Israeli forces “attacked him during a raid on his home in Dura, south of Hebron”.

Abu Haleel’s son, Murad, told AFP his father died after being beaten by Israeli soldiers who had come to arrest his brother. He said:

My father tried to stop them, so they struck him twice on the chest, then pushed him, causing his chest to collide with the door, which led to his martyrdom.

The US has announced new sanctions on three individuals and a “sham charity” it accused of being prominent international financial supporters of Hamas, as well as on a financial institution in Gaza that it accused of being controlled by the militant group.

In a statement announcing the latest sanctions, the US treasury department said they “play critical roles” in financing Hamas’s “terrorist activities”.

The US treasury department will continue “relentlessly degrading the ability of Hamas and other destabilizing Iranian proxies to finance their operations and carry out additional violent acts,” the US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said in a statement. She added:

The Treasury Department will use all available tools at our disposal to hold Hamas and its enablers accountable, including those who seek to exploit the situation to secure additional sources of revenue.

Here are some images taken by my colleague Julius Constantine Motal of protests in New York on Monday to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on 7 October.

The Hamas attacks on southern Israel last year killed nearly 1,200 people, according to Israeli government figures, including hundreds at a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, and saw about 250 hostages taken to Gaza.

The Israeli offensive into Gaza it triggered has since killed nearly 42,000 people, most of them civilians, according to health authorities.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has issued another warning for civilians to immediately leave the area near specific buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs ahead of expected Israeli airstrikes.

IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted maps of the specific buildings in the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood and Hadath neighbourhood, warning residents to evacuate and stay away from the buildings for a distance of no less than 500 metres.

A second Brazilian government charter flight for its nationals in Lebanon left Beirut on Monday, according to the Brazilian air force.

The plane carrying 227 Brazilians, including 49 children, will stop for fuel in Lisbon before heading to São Paulo’s Guarulhos airport, where it is due to arrive Tuesday, a statement said.

The plane carried medical and hospital supplies donated by Brazil to Lebanon, its foreign ministry said.

The first repatriation flight landed in São Paulo on Sunday, where Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was on site to greet those fleeing the violence in Lebanon.

We reported earlier that Israel’s military claimed that it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired at central Israel from Yemen.

The missile triggered sirens in the area, including in Tel Aviv.

Yemen’s Houthi group have since claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Iran-backed group said they fired two missiles at military targets in the Jaffa area in central Israel.

Air France and its low-cost airline Transavia announced they are suspending flights to Tel Aviv and Beirut, citing security concerns.

Flights to Tel Aviv are suspended until 15 October, and flights to Beirut until 26 October, the Air France-KLM group airlines said, adding:

The resumption of service will be subject to an evaluation of the situation on the ground.

Here are some of the latest images sent to us from the newswires from Lebanon, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The World Bank is looking to free up emergency funds for Lebanon, potentially including up to $100m (£76m)through the use of special clauses in existing loan deals, its managing director of operations told Reuters.

The Washington-based development lender currently has $1.65bn (£1.26bn) in loans to the country including a $250m loan approved this week to help connect dispersed renewable energy projects in the country.

Amid fighting across southern Lebanon, the bank was currently discussing ways in which it could help support the economy, including through the use of so-called Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERCs) clauses. The World Bank’s managing director of operations, Anna Bjerde, said:

We can use our existing portfolio and free up some money for really critical, short-term liquidity needs.

Israel’s military has declared areas around a number of towns in northwest Israel as closed to the public on Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that a “new closed military zone” would be imposed along the border with Lebanon would now include the towns of Shlomi, Rosh Hanikra, Hanita, Arab al-Aramshe and Adamit.

It is the fourth closed military zone imposed on the border since the IDF launched its ground operations in Lebanon last week, according to the Times of Israel.

Many parts of northern Israel have been evacuated due to heavy rocket and missile fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It’s just past 8.30pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

Israel launched an intense wave of air raids on southern Lebanon on Monday with 100 aircraft targeting about 120 sites in the space of an hour, according to the country’s military. The bombing came as an IDF spokesperson issued an urgent warning to Lebanese civilians to avoid being on the beach or on boats on the coast from the Awali River southward until further notice.

A fresh round of airstrikes hit Beirut’s suburbs late on Sunday. In southern Lebanon an Israeli strike killed at least 10 firefighters, the latest in a series of strikes that have killed dozens of first responders, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 30 strikes overnight into Sunday, while Israel’s military said about 130 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

At least 1,400 Lebanese people, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group from the blue line boundary between the two countries so tens of thousands of Israeli citizens can return home.

Israel also intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza, calling for evacuations of the north of the territory amid renewed military operations. Israeli tanks advanced into Jabalia on Monday, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic urban refugee camps, after encircling it, residents said. “We are in a new phase of the war,” the Israeli military said in leaflets dropped over the area. “These areas are considered dangerous combat zones.”

At least 41,909 Palestinian people have been killed and 97,303 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday. The territory’s health ministry said the toll included 39 deaths in the previous 24 hours.

Ceremonies were held across Israel on Monday as the country marked the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks. Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reiterated his vow to bring back all hostages still held in Gaza. Israel’s government has failed to agree a hostage exchange and ceasefire deal with Hamas in the ten months since a brief negotiated pause in fighting ended late last year. As memorial events took place across Israel, violence continued to rage on multiple fronts, with Israel also expanding its ground operation into Lebanon with elements of a third division joining the fighting.

Families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza gathered near Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence and stood during a two-minute siren, replicating a custom from Holocaust Remembrance and Memorial Day. Out of 251 people taken hostage on 7 October 2023, an estimated 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.

Joe Biden commemorated the anniversary of the 7 October attacks in Israel with a candle-lighting ceremony at the White House. The US president paid tribute in a statement earlier on Monday to “the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust” and condemned the “vicious surge in antisemitism in America” since the attacks. Biden also spoke with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, on Monday.

Hezbollah has instructed fighters not to target Israeli forces near a UN peacekeeper base in the Lebanese border town of Maroun al-Ras, according to a statement by one of the group’s field commander on Monday. The Israeli military is setting up a forward operating base near a UN peacekeeping mission on the blue line in southern Lebanon. The base put peacekeepers at risk, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

Israel’s military claimed on Monday that it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired at central Israel from Yemen. The missile set off air raid sirens across large swaths of central Israel, sending residents running for shelter. The IDF statement did not say who fired the missile.

Israel does not have confirmation that the potential successor to the former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has died, a government spokesperson said. Asked if Israel could confirm the death of Hashem Safieddine, who chairs Hezbollah’s executive council, the Israeli spokesperson said: “When it is confirmed, as and when, it will be on the IDF (Israeli military) website.”

A 12-year-old Palestinian child was shot dead by Israeli security forces in Qalandia refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. It said seven other people, including three children, were wounded in the same incident. The child was named by the agency, citing the health ministry, as Hatem Ghaith.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed that Israel would pay a price for the “genocide” in Gaza. In comments likely to enrage the Israeli prime minister on Monday, Erdoğan said “Just as Hitler was stopped by an alliance of humanity, Netanyahu and his murder network will be stopped in the same way.”

The UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, disputed claims that there had been a “stepping back” in the government’s support of Israel. Starmer said stopping all arms sales to Israel will “never” be his position. The UK has withdrawn the families of its embassy staff working in Israel due to the escalation in fighting.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said on Monday that “force alone” will not provide Israel with security. Barrot said that France remained a staunch defender of Israel’s security, but that it was vital to be frank about the civilian suffering in Gaza and added “We have a responsibility to act today to avoid Lebanon finding itself in a short horizon in a dramatic situation like Syria found itself a few years ago.”

 

Updated: Oktober 7, 2024 — 8:55 am

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