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The Guardian - AU
World
Philip Wen (now); Maya Yang, Hayden Vernon, Amy Sedghi, and Rachel Hall (earlier)

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon criticise ‘apparently deliberate’ attack by Israeli forces – as it happened

Israel Hezbollah Lebanon United Nations Penny Wong Agence FrancePresse Behrouz Kamalvandi Nabatiyeh Najib Mikati Gaza
Destroyed buildings and debris remain after Israeli airstrikes in Tyre, Lebanon, earlier this week.
Destroyed buildings and debris remain after Israeli airstrikes in Tyre, Lebanon, earlier this week. Photograph: Scott Peterson/Getty Images

This blog has now closed. You can read our latest report on the conflict here and all our coverage from the region here.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday, the Pentagon says, after Austin and secretary of state Antony Blinken jointly penned a letter earlier this week urging Israel to improve Gaza’s humanitarian situation.

“The Secretary encouraged the Government of Israel to continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation, noting the recent action by Israel to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance entering Gaza,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The full readout from the Pentagon:

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Oct. 16 to review Israel’s operations in Lebanon and broader regional security matters. Secretary Austin and Minister Gallant discussed the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel. The Secretary encouraged the Government of Israel to continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation, noting the recent action by Israel to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance entering Gaza.

The Secretary reinforced the importance of taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Armed Forces. Secretary Austin raised the need to pursue a diplomatic pathway to provide security for civilians on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border as soon as feasible. The Secretary reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering, enduring, and ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, and made clear that the United States is well postured to defend U.S. personnel, partners, and allies.

Among the Israeli airstrikes that have pounded areas across Lebanon, 15 people were killed late Tuesday in the southern town of Qana, where Israeli bombardments in previous conflicts are seared into local memory, the Associated Press reports.

In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more people, including four U.N. peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.

“Qana always gets its share,” Mayor Mohammed Krasht told the AP, referring to the town’s grim history.

The Israeli military said Tuesday’s strikes targeted and killed Jalal Mustafa Hariri, a Hezbollah commander. There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.

Associated Press photos and video of the scene showed several flattened buildings and others with their top floors collapsed. Rescue workers carried away the remains of dead people and used a bulldozer to remove rubble, as they searched for more victims.


Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, meanwhile accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a municipal council meeting to discuss relief efforts in Nabatiyeh, where six people were killed.
“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he asked in a statement.

Israel also resumed its barrage on Beirut’s southern suburbs after a six-day pause, hitting what it said was an arms warehouse under an apartment building, without providing evidence. The military warned residents to evacuate before the strike, and there were no reports of casualties.

Hezbollah has a strong presence in southern Beirut, known as the Dahiyeh, which is also a residential and commercial area home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group.

In Nabatiyeh, more than half a dozen strikes hit the city and surrounding areas, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which said 16 people were killed and 52 wounded.

The top US official working on the humanitarian situation in Gaza reportedly told aid groups that the US would not consider withholding weapons from Israel for blocking food and medicine from entering the territory – a rare admission by someone in the administration.

According to a report in Politico, at a meeting in Washington on 29 August, Lise Grande told the leaders of more than a dozen aid organisations that the US could consider other tactics to convince Israel to allow life-saving aid into Gaza – such as applying pressure through the UN, but stressed that the administration would continue to support Israel and would not delay or stop weapons shipments.

The report cites conversations with three people in the meeting and two others who were briefed on it, along with a set of detailed notes from the encounter reviewed by Politico.

A humanitarian aid official who attended the meeting said Grande noted that Israel is one in a “tight circle of very few allies” that the US will not oppose, nor will it “hold anything back that they want.”

“She was sort of saying, with certain allies, we can’t play bad cop,” the aid official said.

While Grande’s statements were made more than a month ago, Politico points out her candid assessment of the odds of the US taking action on weapons for Israel raises questions about the seriousness of recent Biden administration threats to do just that.

The Biden administration had warned Israel that it faces possible punishment, including the potential stopping of US weapons transfers, if it does not take immediate action to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A letter written jointly by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, exhorts Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to ease humanitarian suffering in the territory by lifting restrictions on the entry of assistance within 30 days or face unspecified policy “implications”.

Updated

Israeli army says UN peacekeepers in Lebanon 'not a target'

The Israeli army insisted Wednesday that it was not targeting UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, after the Unifil force reported being fired at in the latest in a series of incidents, AFP reports.

“Unifil infrastructure sites and forces are not a target,” the Israeli army said in a statement.

Unifil earlier (see post here) said Israeli army forces had fired at one of its positions in south Lebanon.

In a statement on X, Unifil wrote:

This morning, peacekeepers at a position near Kafer Kela observed an IDF Merkava tank firing at their watchtower. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged. Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire on a Unifil position.

The incident is the latest in a string of violations that Unifil, the UN force deployed since 1978 to southern Lebanon, has blamed on the IDF, and prompting widespread international condemnation.

Several peacekeepers have been injured since Friday as Israeli ground troops have begun to advance farther north in Lebanon after weeks of intense fighting and airstrikes.

The UN peacekeeping mission said on Sunday two Israeli tanks destroyed a gate and forcibly entered a base in the south of the country as Israel’s ground operation against Hezbollah moved deeper into Lebanese territory. In response, the Israeli military said a Merkava tank had been trying to evacuate injured soldiers and had backed into the Unifil post accidentally.

Updated

Summary

Here’s a look at where things stand:

  • Israeli forces have fired at a UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) tower in Kafer Kela, a village in south Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping group reported on Wednesday. In a statement on X, Unifil wrote: “This morning, peacekeepers at a position near Kafer Kela observed an IDF Merkava tank firing at their watchtower. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged. Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire on a Unifil position.”

  • Israeli forces have reportedly stormed the Jazalone refugee camp in the West Bank and deployed tear gas, Al Jazeera reports. A young girl was reportedly treated for breathing issues.

  • Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said that there have been no conversations with any parties on a Gaza ceasefire for the last three to four weeks, Reuters reports. “On the prospects of the negotiation … basically in the last three to four weeks, there is no conversation or engagement at all, and we are just moving in the same circle with the silence from all parties,” he said.

  • Shaban al-Dalou, the 19-year-old Palestinian who was burned to death in his makeshift tent when Israel bombed the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital complex in Deir el-Balah on Monday, would have turned 20 today. “Losing him is an incredibly massive loss,” al-Dalou’s uncle, Mohammed al-Dalou said, adding: “He left a mountain of pain and memories.”

  • In a statement released on Wednesday, Hezbollah said that it targeted “at 6.50pm (1550 GMT) … the occupied town of Safed with a salvo of rockets” in “defense of Lebanon and its people”. The reported attack marks the third attack in 24 hours which Hezbollah said was a response to Israeli raids across Lebanon which have killed more than 2,300 people in recent weeks.

  • The risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is “very high”, the World Health Organization has warned, after a case of the acute and potentially deadly infection was detected in the conflict-hit country, AFP reports. The WHO highlighted the risk of cholera spreading among hundreds of thousands of people displaced since Israel escalated its campaign against Hezbollah.

  • An Israeli strike on a municipality building in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh earlier today killed 16 people and wounded 52, the Lebanese health ministry said, giving a final toll. The Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, earlier condemned the deadly Israeli strikes, saying they intentionally targeted a municipality meeting.

Updated

The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has been heckled by pro-Palestinian advocates as she gave a speech warning that “disregard for international humanitarian law is increasing”.

The Guardian’s Daniel Hurst reports:

Addressing the University of Tasmania on Tuesday night, Wong released Australia’s new humanitarian policy and repeated the government’s call for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.

But the speech was interrupted by pro-Palestine advocates who called on the government to take firm action against the Israeli government rather than express concerns.

Wong initially responded to the hecklers by saying that she recognised that “everyone’s voice matters” in a democracy and that “this is a very distressing [time]”. She added: “I don’t actually believe, and I’ve never believed, that we gain anything by shouting each other down.”

For the full story, click here:

Updated

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Gaza has released the following figures of its rescue efforts amid Israeli attacks on its staff members and volunteers in the past year:

  • 34 PRCS staff and volunteers have been forcibly detained and disappeared.

  • 34 PRCS staff and volunteers were injured while on duty.

  • PRCS facilities were destroyed or damaged 75 times.

  • 29 PRCS ambulances were taken out of service.

Israeli forces have routinely targeted rescue and healthcare workers amid its deadly war on Gaza. In May, the Human Rights Watch released a report in which it found that Israeli forces are attacking known aid worker locations across the narrow strip.

“This pattern of attacks despite proper notification of Israeli authorities raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment and capacity to comply with international humanitarian law,” the HRW said.

Updated

The brother of a teenage Palestinian computing student who burned to death in a blaze sparked by an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital compound has described how he tried to save his injured sibling as flames engulfed tents.

“I heard the sound of bombing, I looked out and saw very black smoke next to our tent,” said Mohammed al-Dalou, speaking to Reuters at the location of the strike in Deir al-Balah, where charred ground and twisted debris lay between still-standing tents.

Dalou, 17, said he ran out of the tent and saw his father pulling his younger siblings from the flames. When he tried to reach his older brother Shaban, people held him back, he said.

Three other people died, including Dalou’s mother, Ala’a Abdel Nasser al-Dalou, 37. “I can’t describe the feeling. I saw my brother burning in front of me and my mother was burning,” Mohammed said.

Footage taken by witnesses on mobile phones shows 19-year-old Shaban, who was being treated for an injury, lying on his back on a bed, frantically waving his arms before being engulfed by the blaze. The images, which have been viewed by millions around the world since the attack on Monday, have prompted further outrage at a time when Israel faces acute concern from its allies about its conduct of the war in Gaza.

Updated

Earlier today, the UN representative for Palestine addressed an emergency UN security council meeting.

Riyad Mansour told the international community “it is time to act” amid growing concern over the lack of aid reaching Palestinians on the ground:

Updated

Israeli forces have reportedly stormed the Jazalone refugee camp in the West Bank and deployed tear gas, Al Jazeera reports.

A young girl was reportedly treated for breathing issues.

Updated

Here are some images coming through the newswires from Lebanon, where Israeli forces have killed more than 2,300 people – including at least 28 healthcare workers – in recent weeks while forcibly displacing 1.2 million people across the country:

Updated

Unifil: IDF fires at watchtower near southern Lebanon

Israeli forces have fired at a UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) tower in Kafer Kela, a village in south Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping group reported on Wednesday.

In a statement on X, Unifil wrote:

This morning, peacekeepers at a position near Kafer Kela observed an IDF Merkava tank firing at their watchtower. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged. Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire on a Unifil position.

It went on to add:

We remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces have fired numerous times at Unifil posts in Lebanon, damaging towers while also wounding at least five peacekeepers and forcibly entering a base. Unifil has also called the IDF’s actions “shocking violations”.

Israel has urged Unifil to withdraw from its bases, to which the peacekeeping force said, “We’re staying,” attributing its mandated presence to the UN security council.

Updated

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said that there have been no conversations with any parties on a Gaza ceasefire for the last three to four weeks, Reuters reports.

Speaking at the European Union-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Brussels, Sheikh Mohammed said:

On the prospects of the negotiation … basically in the last three to four weeks, there is no conversation or engagement at all, and we are just moving in the same circle with the silence from all parties.

Updated

Flattened buildings and streets lined with piles of rubble and debris can be seen in footage of the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes on the town in southern Lebanon that killed at least 15 people:

The global non-profit charity ActionAid has released the following statement from its Beirut-based regional campaigns coordinator, Sabine Abiaad:

We are living in constant fear, unsure when the next attack might happen, leading to anxiety and depression. I am in my forties, and I’ve lived through every phase of war in Lebanon. Now, I find myself facing a painful déjà vu as my daughter, a teenager, and my 12-year-old son ask me the same questions I used to ask my own mother: ‘Are we going to survive? Will we be targeted? Are we going to be killed?’ Old traumas come flooding back, and the child in me, who lived through the earlier conflict in Beirut, is still afraid. I try to reassure them, telling them we should be grateful because we still have our home. But the threat is everywhere – it hangs over our heads, day and night, like a constant, invisible weight that never lets us feel truly safe.

Conflict and the psychological pressure disrupt every aspect of our daily life, leaving us in a constant struggle to adapt to unpredictable conditions, uncertainty and creating a constant state of mental fatigue.

More than 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon since Israel launched its attacks on the country several weeks ago. An additional 1.2 million people have been forcibly displaced across the country as the World Health Organization warns of a growing cholera risk.

Updated

Nineteen-year-old Palestinian burned to death in Israeli airstrike would have turned 20 today

Shaban al-Dalou, the 19-year-old Palestinian who was burned to death in his makeshift tent when Israel bombed the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital complex in Deir el-Balah on Monday, would have turned 20 today.

In a new report for Drop Site News, Gaza-based journalist Abubaker Abed spoke to al-Dalou’s family about their son.

“His life was only work during the war. He would get up in the early morning, bring all the necessities for his family, and buy all the needs for the makeshift falafel stall. He was his family’s heart and hope. If he ever wanted to find some respite, he would relax and swim in the sea for one hour or so and then come back immediately for work,” al-Dalou’s cousin said.

Al-Dalou, who was a student at Gaza’s al-Azhar University, which Israel destroyed, would have turned 20 today. Abed reports that al-Dalou had been applying to universities in Qatar, Ireland and the UK before he was burned to death in the Israeli airstrike – with his IV still connected to him. Al-Dalou had survived a previous Israeli airstrike on a mosque on 6 October and had spent hours each day studying in his tent while recovering from his injuries.

“Losing him is an incredibly massive loss,” al-Dalou’s uncle, Mohammed al-Dalou said, adding: “He left a mountain of pain and memories.”

Updated

Hezbollah said it has fired rockets at the Israeli town of Safed, Reuters reports.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Hezbollah said that it targeted “at 6.50pm (1550 GMT) … the occupied town of Safed with a salvo of rockets” in “defense of Lebanon and its people”.

The reported attack marks the third attack in 24 hours which Hezbollah said was a response to Israeli raids across Lebanon which have killed more than 2,000 people in recent weeks.

Updated

As well as warning about the risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon after a case was identified there, the WHO urged Israel to ensure the necessary conditions to finish the job of vaccinating Gaza’s children against polio, after reaching more than 150,000 with the required second dose.

Despite continuing Israeli military operations in the territory, the second round of a polio vaccination campaign, aiming to reach more than 590,000 children under the age of 10, got under way on Monday.

“The total number of children who received a second dose of polio vaccine in central Gaza after two days of vaccination is 156,943,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X along with a video showing the WHO’s vaccination efforts. “The vaccination continues today. At the same time, 128,121 children received vitamin A supplements.

“We call for the humanitarian pauses to continue to be respected. We call for a ceasefire and peace,” he said.

Hezbollah said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli town of Safed today, the third such attack in 24 hours which the Lebanese armed group described as a response to Israeli raids, AFP reports.

Militants from the Iran-backed group targeted “at 6:50 pm (1550 GMT)... the occupied town of Safed with a salvo of rockets” in “defence of Lebanon and its people,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

WHO: cholera case confirmed in Lebanon, risk of spread 'very high'

The risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is “very high”, the World Health Organization has warned, after a case of the acute and potentially deadly infection was detected in the conflict-hit country, AFP reports.

The WHO highlighted the risk of cholera spreading among hundreds of thousands of people displaced since Israel escalated its campaign against Hezbollah.

“If the cholera outbreak ... spreads to the new displaced people, it might spread very fast,” Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO’s representative in Lebanon, told reporters at an online news conference.

Lebanon’s health ministry said a cholera case had been confirmed in a Lebanese national who went to hospital on Monday. The patient, from Ammouniyeh in northern Lebanon, had no history of travel, the ministry said.

Lebanon suffered its first cholera outbreak in 30 years between 2022 and 2023, mainly in the north of the country. The disease, which causes severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps, generally arises from eating or drinking food or water that is contaminated with the bacterium, according to the WHO.

The UN health agency has for months been warning that the disease could resurface amid “deteriorating water and sanitation” among the displaced and their host communities, Abubakar said.

US tells Israel it opposes daily strikes on Beirut

The US has told Israel it opposes near-daily strikes in densely populated Beirut and it was crucial that Israeli operations be conducted in a way that does not threaten civilian lives, Reuters reports.

The comments by spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre at a daily press briefing come as more strikes continue in Beirut. The State Department said yesterday it opposed the strikes.

Updated

An Israeli strike on a municipality building in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh earlier today killed 16 people and wounded 52, the Lebanese health ministry said, giving a final toll.

The Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati earlier condemned the deadly Israeli strikes, saying they intentionally targeted a municipality meeting.

The World Health Organization called for the protection of health care facilities in Lebanon, where Israel has intensified its military campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, AFP reports.

“WHO calls for an end to attacks on health care facilities,” the UN agency said in a statement, adding that heavy bombardment was “forcing a growing number of health facilities to close, particularly in southern Lebanon”.

Here’s Keir Starmer earlier telling the House of Commons he was ‘looking at’ sanctions against the extreme-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who are serving in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

Starmer’s response came after the Liberal democrat leader, Ed Davey, asked what actions the government would take after Smotrich said starving 2 million Palestinians in Gaza was ‘justified and moral’ and Ben-Gvir called Israeli settlers who killed Palestinians in the West Bank ‘heroes’.

Starmer replied: ‘We are looking at that because they’re obviously abhorrent comments … along with other really concerning activity in the West Bank but also across the region’

The Israeli military says it has killed another Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, AP reports.

The army said that Jalal Mustafa Hariri, Hezbollah’s commander of the Qana area, was killed in a strike alongside other Hezbollah militants.

There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah, though Lebanese authorities say 15 civilians were killed in Israeli attacks in the town.

The Israeli military says Hariri was responsible for planning and executing a large number of attacks against Israel.

Israel has killed several Hezbollah officials in recent attacks, including the militant group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

UN humanitarian chief says essential supplies are ‘running out’ in Gaza

The top UN humanitarian official is accusing Israel of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, saying there is barely any food left in the north where an Israeli offensive is underway, AP reports.

Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council today that no food entered northern Gaza from 2 October to 15 October, “when a trickle was allowed in.”

“All essential supplies for survival are running out,” she said. “There is now barely any food left to distribute, and most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel.”

Throughout Gaza, Msuya said, less than one third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October “were facilitated without major incidents or delays.”

She said the level of suffering and reality in Gaza is brutal and worsens every day as Israeli bombs fall, fierce fighting continues and “supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.”

Msuya urged all Security Council members to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected. It requires that civilians are protected and receive supplies to meet their essential needs wherever they are.

UNIFIL’s EU members want 'maximum pressure' on Israel to stop 'incidents'

EU ministers met today with UN peacekeepers in Lebanon and expressed “the shared will to exert maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Israel” to prevent further “incidents” against the UN mission, AFP reports.

Italy and France organised a video conference among the 16 EU countries that participate in UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, where the ministers “strongly condemned” attacks the mission has blamed on Israel, the Italian defence ministry said in a statement.

It said it had called the meeting – the day before a summit of EU leaders opens in Brussels – to seek a joint approach to fire against the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, as Israel wages a ground offensive against the Iran-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

“Another key point that emerged from the meeting was the shared will to exert maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Israel, so that no further incidents occur,” it said. “At the same time, it was made clear that Hezbollah cannot use UNIFIL personnel as a shield in the conflict.”

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has strongly condemned the fire against the peacekeepers, who include a significant number of Italians, and is due to visit Beirut on Friday.

The US is watching to ensure that Israel’s actions on the ground show that it does not have a “policy of starvation” in the northern Gaza Strip, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told this afternoon’s UN security council meeting, Reuters reports.

She told the council that such a policy would be “horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and US law.”

“The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this statement,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

The US has told Israel it must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave or face potential restrictions on US military aid.

Israel “remains committed to working with our international partners to ensure aid reaches those who need it” in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters ahead of the meeting.

“The problem in Gaza is not a lack of aid. The problem is Hamas, which hijacks the aid – stealing, storing and selling it to feed their terror machine, while civilians suffer,” he said. Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that it was stealing aid and says Israel is to blame for shortages.

The Slovenian ambassador called Israel’s destruction of northern Gaza a “siege within a siege”.

Speaking at the UN security council’s meeting this afternoon on the war in Gaza, Samuel Žbogar said Slovenians were no strangers to sieges, given the country’s history in World War II and the Yugoslav Wars.

He went on to call for an immediate ceasefire and for the immediate release of the hostages held by Hamas.

Updated

Lebanese Red Cross: Israel strike injured two paramedics during UN-coordinated mission

The Lebanese Red Cross said a strike by Israel injured two paramedics during a UN-coordinated mission this afternoon.

The tweet, translated from the original Arabic, said: “Following the raid on the Jwaya area [near the city of Tyre] in the south, two ambulances of the Lebanese Red Cross moved with their crews at 4:30 pm on Wednesday, October 16, after making the necessary contacts with UNIFIL.

“The crews arrived at the location at 4:52 and began scanning the area to search for the injured in order to treat and rescue them. At 5:10, the location was targeted, and two paramedics were slightly injured by shrapnel.

“The paramedics returned with the two vehicles to Jabal Amel Hospital, where the necessary medical examinations were conducted. Their condition is not worrisome.”

Israel has faced criticism in recent days following its attacks on UN forces stationed in Lebanon.

Updated

The US has imposed sanctions on what it described as a Lebanon-based sanctions evasion network that funnels millions of dollars to Hezbollah, Reuters reports.

The action targeted three individuals linked to Hezbollah’s finance arm and four Lebanon-based companies registered to conceal ties to the militant group, according to a Treasury Department statement.

The US also sanctioned three individuals involved in the production and sale of the amphetamine known as captagon. The majority of the world’s captagon is produced in Syria, with smaller production in neighbouring Lebanon. Western governments estimate illegal trade in the pills generates billions of dollars for the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and its allies, including Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has reported its fighters in southern Lebanon were locked in clashes on with Israeli troops “at point-blank range”, according to AFP.

The Iran-backed armed group said militants were engaged in “ongoing” and “violent clashes with the Israeli enemy forces in the vicinity of the Al-Qawzah village at point-blank range with various types of machine guns,” it said.

In a tweet about an hour ago, the IDF said it had “eliminated dozens of Hezbollah terrorists” in targeted operations in southern Lebanon.

The Guardian could not independently verify the footage posted in the tweet.

Israel says any Hezbollah ceasefire negotiations will be held 'under fire'

Israel will not stop fighting a now weakened Hezbollah before it can safely return its citizens to their homes near the Lebanese border and any ceasefire negotiations will be held “under fire”, defence minister Yoav Gallant said, Reuters reports.

“Hezbollah is in great distress,” Gallant said near the border, according to a statement from his office. “We will hold negotiations only under fire, I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza and I am saying it here.”

Iran’s atomic energy agency has said that a potential Israeli attack on nuclear facilities “will not succeed” or “cause any serious damage”, predicting that such an attack was “unlikely” to happen, AFP reports.

The remarks come as the region braces for Israel’s retaliation after Iran launched about 200 missiles at Israel at the start of this month.

“It is very unlikely to happen,” said agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi in a video interview with the Nournews agency. “In the event of an attack on a key site: be sure it will not succeed,” he said.

Tehran said its 1 October attack on Israel was in retaliation for the killing of Iran-aligned militant leaders in the region and a general in its Revolutionary Guards.

The missile barrage came after an Israeli air raid killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Revolutionary Guards general Abbas Nilforoushan in Beirut on 27 September.

AP reports on further strikes by Israel in Lebanon this afternoon.

Israeli warplanes struck a two-story building in Yammouneh, in the Bekaa Valley, killing two people, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency. The victims were a local woman and a displaced person, the report said.

Two people were killed and nine others injured in a separate airstrike on the Rayak-Baalbek highway, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Several Lebanese army soldiers were wounded when the strike landed near their military vehicle, the news agency reported.

An Israeli airstrike on Douair, near Nabatieh in south Lebanon, destroyed shops and residential apartments, the report said. It is unclear if there were casualties.

The two Israeli ministers threatened with sanctions by UK prime minister Keir Starmer have responded, Reuters reports.

Previous foreign secretary David Cameron had planned to sanction Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir before his then-governing Conservative Party lost power in July. Starmer told parliament he too was looking at the option.

Starmer was responding to a question about Smotrich’s comments that starving civilians in Gaza might be justified and Ben-Gvir’s remarks that perpetrators of settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were heroes.

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir each said the threat of sanctions would not lead to a change in their positions. “They don’t scare me and I will continue to act only according to Israel’s highest national interests,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement, while Smotrich said “no threat will prevent me from doing the right and moral thing for the citizens of Israel.”

We have live coverage of the UN security council’s meeting on the war in Gaza. You can watch it here or at the top of the blog:

AFP reports that Beirut is creaking under the burden as displaced people converge on the city as Israel ramps up its war with Hezbollah.

Fadi Baghdadi, a member of the city’s disaster management unit, said its already-ailing infrastructure is now “in a deplorable state” due to the crisis.

He said more than 55,000 people forced to flee their homes were staying in 169 shelters dotted around Beirut, adding that all the centres were now full. Another estimated 200,000 people have found shelter in apartments and houses, he added.

All these people “need water, (extra) rubbish is being dumped, the sewage is increasing”, Baghdadi said, adding that the traffic was so bad that emergency vehicles were sometimes struggling to reach their destinations.

Trash has piled up around overflowing dumpsters, a worrying sight in a country that has been hit by past rubbish crises and a five-year economic collapse that has left many living in poverty. The sheer number of vehicles lining the roads has made work harder for rubbish collectors, he told AFP, with trucks unable to access narrower streets.

Nadim Farajalla, chief sustainability officer at the Lebanese American University, said Beirut’s water network is “under extreme stress”. “Demand for water is extremely high,” but “groundwater tables are very low” due to the lack of rain over the summer, he said.

Updated

Gulf leaders including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gathered with EU heads of state and government in Brussels today for a summit aimed at averting a “general conflagration” in the Middle East, AFP reports.

The European Union is seeking to work more closely with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – which brings together Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – in addressing conflicts in both the Middle East and Ukraine.

Confirmed at the last minute, the presence of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler among the six Gulf leaders in attendance heightened expectations.

The first-ever gathering of its kind, the EU-GCC summit comes on the eve of an EU leaders’ meeting in the Belgian capital.

“We are partners with aligned interests,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told journalists on arrival at the talks, adding he hoped the discussions would help bring about a ceasefire and de-escalation in the Middle East.

According to one EU official, “the Saudis appear to be re-engaging on the issue of Lebanon, which is absolutely vital to resolving the situation.”

France has banned Israeli firms from exhibiting at a naval arms trade show next month, Reuters reports, citing the organisers.

It is the latest incident in a row fuelled by the Macron government’s unease over Israel’s conduct in the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. It is the second time this year that France has banned Israel firms from a major defence show.

In May, France said the conditions were not right for them to take part in the Eurosatory military trade show when president Emmanuel Macron was calling for Israel to cease operations in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

Euronaval, organiser of the event set to take place in Paris from 4-7 November, said in a statement that the French government had informed it that Israeli delegations were not allowed to exhibit stands or show equipment, but could attend the trade show.

Summary of the day so far

It is coming up to 5pm in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut. Here are the key developments so far today:

  • Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati has accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a meeting of the municipal council convened to discuss city services and relief, after Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed the mayor of the city along with at least four other people. Israel said the strike targeted what it said were Hezbollah militant sites embedded among civilians, without providing evidence. A Lebanese official said Israel had carried out 11 airstrikes on Nabatiyeh and surrounding areas on Wednesday.

  • The UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has said that civilian suffering has reached an unprecedented level. Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement: “Today, Israeli airstrikes hit the town of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon, yet again.” She added that “civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times”.

  • The EU countries contributing to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, dubbed as Unifil, say it is “essential and fundamental” and only the UN can decide whether to end it, Spanish defence minister Margarita Robles has said after a video call with 15 of her counterparts.

  • Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in Jabalia in northern Gaza by a major Israeli offensive against Hamas militants, who have returned to the neighbourhood in recent months. Israel has ordered people to evacuate to what are supposedly safer areas in the south, fuelling fears among Palestinians that it aims to remove them from northern Gaza permanently as part of a plan to control the territory. Many refused to comply, or were unable to move.

  • Aid has arrived in northern Gaza for the first time in two weeks, according to an update by Cogat, the Israeli body that oversees the Palestinian territories and coordinates with aid groups. In a social media post shared on Wednesday morning, Cogat said that 145 humanitarian aid trucks, containing food, hygiene products, baby formula, and shelter equipment, had entered Gaza via the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings.

  • Iran’s top diplomat warned the UN secretary general, António Guterres, it is ready for a “decisive and regretful” response if Israel attacks the country in retaliation for a barrage of missiles. “Iran, while making all-out efforts to protect the peace and security of the region, is fully prepared for a decisive and regretful response to any adventures” by Israel, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, quoted by his office on Wednesday.

  • Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli army tank near a border village with a guided missile on Wednesday. Hezbollah fighters “targeted a Merkava tank near the village of Ramia … with a guided missile”, the group said in a statement.

  • Israeli navy forces struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, in cooperation with troops on the ground, Israel’s military said on Wednesday.

  • Palestinian health officials called on Wednesday for a humanitarian corridor to three hospitals in northern Gaza that have come close to collapse as Israeli troops have cut off the area during almost two weeks of heavy fighting against Hamas. Doctors at the Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda and the Indonesian hospitals have refused to leave their patients despite evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military at the start of a major push into the Jabalia area of northern Gaza 12 days ago.

  • The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) warned on Wednesday of the risk of famine in Gaza, a day after the US said Israel had been warned to improve aid deliveries to the territory. Unrwa commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, painted a dire picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying it had “become a kind of wasteland, which I would say is almost unliveable”.

  • Lazzarini also warned that Unrwa is close to a possible breaking point for its operations in the Gaza Strip due to increasingly complicated conditions. He told journalists at a news conference in Berlin: “I will not hide the fact that we might reach a point that we won’t be able any more to operate.”

  • Britain and France have called an urgent meeting at the UN security council to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza and Britain is considering sanctioning two Israeli ministers, said prime minister Keir Starmer.

  • Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday called for more pressure on Israel’s backers to end killings in Gaza and Lebanon. “The president … demanded more pressure on the supporters of the Zionist regime (Israel) to stop the killings” in Gaza and Lebanon, Pezeshkian said during a phone call with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, according to a presidency statement.

  • Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday said they “will not hesitate to support” regional allies in the conflict against Israel. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps … will not hesitate to support the Islamic resistance decisively … in bravely standing up against this fake regime (Israel),” the IRGC said in a statement published by their official Sepah news agency.

  • A specialised surgical team experienced in war injuries has been deployed to a hospital in southern Beirut to help relieve exhausted medical staff and offer care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) shared on Wednesday. According to its statement, the surgical team from the ICRC, including an emergency doctor, a surgeon and an anaesthetist, are all “experienced in the unique and destructive injuries caused by weapons of war”.

  • The probability of an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites remains low but any potential damage would be “quickly compensated”, state atomic energy agency spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Wednesday. “We have planned in a way that if they commit any stupidity, the damages would be minimal,” Kamalvandi said.

  • At least 42,409 Palestinians have been killed and 99,153 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday. The health ministry does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Updated

Civilians trapped in northern Gaza amid airstrikes and reports of close-quarters combat

Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in Jabalia in northern Gaza by a major Israeli offensive against Hamas militants, who have returned to the neighbourhood in recent months.

The Israeli military says it has killed more than 50 fighters over the past days in airstrikes and close-quarters combat as troops try to destroy Hamas forces.

Israel has ordered people to evacuate to what are supposedly safer areas in the south, fuelling fears among Palestinians that it aims to remove them from northern Gaza permanently as part of a plan to control the territory. Many refused to comply, or were unable to move.

Israel has denied the evacuation orders are part of a systematic clearance plan, saying they have been issued to ensure people’s safety and separate them from militants. It accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge Hamas denies.

Hospitals have received about 350 bodies since the offensive in Jabalia began on 6 October, according to Dr Munir al-Boursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry. He said more than half of the dead were women and children, and many bodies remained in the streets and under the rubble, with rescue teams unable to reach them because of Israeli strikes. “Entire families have disappeared,” he said.

Palestinian health officials called for a humanitarian corridor to the Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals in northern Gaza, where doctors have refused to leave their patients, despite Israel’s evacuation orders. “We are calling on the international community, the Red Cross and the World Health Organization to play their humanitarian role by opening up a corridor towards our healthcare system and allow the entry of fuel, medical, delegations, supplies and food,” said Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital.

“We are talking about more than 300 medical staff working at Kamal Adwan hospital, and we can’t provide even a single meal for them to be able to offer medical services safely,” he said.

You can read the full piece by the Guardian’s international security correspondent, Jason Burke, here:

Updated

Israeli delegations taking part in the major Euronaval defence show in France next month will not be permitted to set up any stand or exhibit hardware after a decision by the French government, organisers said on Wednesday.

“The French government informed Euronaval of its decision to approve the participation of Israeli delegations at Euronaval 2024, without any stand or exhibition of equipment,” said the organisers of the show which is due to start on 4 November in Paris, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A specialised surgical team experienced in war injuries has been deployed to a hospital in southern Beirut to help relieve exhausted medical staff and offer care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) shared on Wednesday.

The ICRC said that the medical reinforcement came “amid escalating hostilities, a rising number of wounded people and a healthcare system struggling with an influx of people in desperate need”.

According to its statement, the surgical team from the ICRC, including an emergency doctor, a surgeon and an anaesthetist, are all “experienced in the unique and destructive injuries caused by weapons of war”.

The team will operate with ICRC’s existing 22-person team out of Rafik Hariri university hospital, said the humanitarian organisation, in a deployment closely coordinated with Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

A shipment of medical supplies sent by the ICRC to Rafik Hariri university hospital earlier this month has helped equip and supply the facility’s trauma unit, it added in the statement. The ICRC said that the shipment will also help a similar unit at Zahle – Elias Hrawi government hospital in the Bekaa, where 10 additional ICRC hospital specialists, including nurses and doctors, will soon be deployed.

“This critical assistance provides much necessary relief, but the needs continue to grow significantly,” said Simone Casabianca-Aeschlimann, the head of the ICRC delegation in Lebanon. “While our surgical team and medical supplies will help ease the burden on healthcare providers, sustained and safe humanitarian aid is urgently needed. The humanitarian crisis deepens by the hour.”

The ICRC said it “continues to remind all parties to the conflict that constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians, and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations.”

“Additionally, under international humanitarian law, medical personnel, units, and transport exclusively assigned to medical duties and purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances.”

The US law professor who told a pro-Palestine rally on 7 October that the first anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel marked “considerable celebration” for its role in elevating “global literacy” on Palestine has had his visa cancelled.

An Australian government source confirmed Khaled Beydoun, an associate professor in law at Arizona State University, had left the country last week after being informed his visa status was under consideration by the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, after the remarks.

The visa was then cancelled after Beydoun had flown out of Australia.

Beydoun made the remarks at a rally planned by Stand 4 Palestine on the steps of Lakemba mosque earlier this month, sparking backlash from Coalition frontbenchers.

According to a recording of the speech aired on the ABC, he said:

In many respects, today is also a day that marks considerable celebration, considerable progress, and in some respects, considerable privilege. The level of global literacy around what’s taking place in Palestine has exponentially risen.”

The speech was on the first anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel when about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage – about 100 of whom remain unaccounted for.

More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military response to the 7 October attacks, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Responding to initial media reports, Burke said he had asked the home affairs department to conduct a check on his visa status.

“At 8.30pm they confirmed this man is traveling on a visa. I immediately asked them to prepare a brief so I can consider his visa status,” he said in a statement.

The opposition home affairs spokesperson, James Paterson, said Beydoun’s visa should never have been approved in the first place.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) warned on Wednesday of the risk of famine in Gaza, a day after the US said Israel had been warned to improve aid deliveries to the territory, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Unrwa commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, told a press conference in Berlin that “there is a real risk today … that we enter a situation where famine or acute malnutrition is unfortunately again a likelihood,” pointing to the upcoming winter and the weakened immune systems of Gaza’s population.

Lazzarini painted a dire picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying it had “become a kind of wasteland, which I would say is almost unliveable”.

In relation to aid deliveries to Gaza he said that “over the last two to three weeks there was no convoy entering into the north except yesterday”.

“We have a huge drop of convoys in the south with only an average of fifty to sixty for two million people, while we estimate the number needed much, much higher,” Lazzarini said.

AFP reports that he pointed out that the convoys which had managed to enter had been subject to looting “because of the total breakdown of law and order”.

However, he stressed that with appropriate action a hunger crisis in Gaza “can be avoided” if convoys and food are allowed to enter.

“We have shown that we can have a polio campaign, so why can we not bring food?” he asked.

On Tuesday, the US state department said secretary of state Antony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin had sent a joint letter making “clear to the government of Israel that there are changes that they need to make again to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today”.

Cogat, the Israeli military body supervising civilian affairs in Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday that “50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid – including food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment provided by Jordan – were transferred today to northern Gaza”.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday said they “will not hesitate to support” regional allies in the conflict against Israel, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps … will not hesitate to support the Islamic resistance decisively … in bravely standing up against this fake regime (Israel),” the IRGC said in a statement published by their official Sepah news agency.

Updated

Britain and France call urgent meeting at UN security council to discuss humanitarian situation in Gaza

Britain and France have called an urgent meeting at the UN security council to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza and Britain is considering sanctioning two Israeli ministers, said prime minister Keir Starmer.

Reuters reports that when asked about the situation, Starmer said:

We are constantly making representations on this with our partners.

There is an urgent need, and has been now for a very long time, for more aid to get into Gaza.

British foreign secretary David Lammy said in a statement Israel must ensure civilians were protected and routes were open to allow life-saving aid through, and that the United Nations meeting would address these issues. He said Algeria had also joined the call for the urgent meeting.

Starmer also said that Britain was looking at sanctioning Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over comments they had made about the conflict.

Previous foreign secretary David Cameron was also reportedly looking at sanctioning the pair before the then-governing Conservative party lost an election in June.

Asked if his government would sanction Smotrich over comments that starving civilians in Gaza might be justified and Ben-Gvir for saying perpetrators of settler violence in the West Bank were heroes, Starmer said:

We are looking at that because they’re obviously abhorrent comments.

Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes and provide the UN humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively.

Along with France, the UK will convene an urgent meeting of the UN security council to address this.

Updated

Lebanese officials say an Israeli airstrike on Nabatiyeh hit a building during a meeting coordinating relief efforts.

Associated Press reports:

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a meeting of the municipal council convened to discuss city services and relief.

The strike killed the mayor of the city along with four other people and destroyed a municipal building.

Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in a separate statement that the building was targeted during a meeting held to coordinate relief work and aid distribution for people who have remained in southern Lebanon. He said a civil defence member was killed and others injured in the strike.

Mikati accused the international community of being “deliberately silent” about Israeli strikes that have killed civilians and attacks on UN peacekeepers.

“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he said in a statement.

Israel said the strike targeted what it said were Hezbollah militant sites embedded among civilians, without providing evidence.

Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank are facing “the most dangerous olive season ever”, experts said on Wednesday, urging Israeli settlers and forces not to interfere with the harvest.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the experts also recommended a “foreign presence” to act as a buffer between the two sides.

According to AFP, a dozen experts said farmers were facing intimidation, restriction of access to lands, severe harassment and attacks by armed Israeli settlers and Israeli security forces.

“In 2023, the harvest was marred by a sharp increase in movement restrictions and violence by Israeli forces and settlers,” the independent experts said in a statement.

Last year, they said:“Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, faced the highest level of Israeli settler violence.”

Settlers had assaulted Palestinians, set fire to or damaged their crops, stolen sheep and blocked them from getting to their land, water and grazing areas, the statement added.

“Last year, Israel also seized more Palestinian land than in any year in the past 30 years,” they said, adding that the situation was “expected to worsen”.

Olive harvests are central to Palestinian life and culture, said the independent experts, who are mandated by the Human Rights Council but do not speak for the UN.

“Restricting olive harvests, destroying orchards and banning access to water sources is an attempt by Israel to expand its illegal settlements,” they argued.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, was among the signatories, reports AFP.

The experts, also including those on the right to food, to safe drinking water and sanitation and to adequate housing, said Palestinian farmers were facing “enormous challenges, threats and harassment” in accessing their olive trees.

In 2023, more than 9,600 hectares (24,000 acres) of olive-cultivated land across the occupied West Bank was not harvested due to Israeli-imposed restrictions, they said.

That had meant the loss of 1,200 metric tonnes of olive oil, worth $10m, they added.

“This situation is expected to worsen,” they warned, as the Israeli authorities had revoked or failed to issue permits allowing farmers to access their lands.

They urged Israeli forces to refrain from interfering with this year’s olive harvest, and “concentrate their efforts on withdrawing the occupation and dismantling the colonies”.

The experts said they would “continue to call for protection, including through a foreign presence acting as a buffer between the Palestinians and their aggressors, and to protect Palestinian farmers and their families”.

Updated

The UN Palestinian refugee agency is close to a possible breaking point for its operations in the Gaza Strip due to increasingly complicated conditions, its head said.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told journalists at a news conference in Berlin:


I will not hide the fact that we might reach a point that we won’t be able anymore to operate.

We are very near to a possible breaking point. When will it be? I don’t know. But we are very near of that.

He said the agency was facing a combination of a financial and political threats to its existence, in addition to difficulties in day-to-day operations, as aid is even more desperately needed against the threat of disease and famine.

He said there was a real risk, heading into winter, with people’s immune systems weakened, that famine or acute malnutrition could become a likelihood.

Civilian suffering in Lebanon has reached 'unprecedented level', says UN special coordinator for Lebanon

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has said that civilian suffering has reached an unprecedented level.

Her comments follow an Israeli strike in the south which killed at least six people and hurt 43, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

She also urged the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure after deadly Israeli strikes hit municipality buildings in the southern city of Nabatiyeh on Wednesday.

Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement:

Today, Israeli airstrikes hit the town of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon, yet again.

She added that “civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times”.

Updated

EU countries say UNIFIL is 'essential and fundamental'

The EU countries contributing to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, dubbed as UNIFIL, say it is “essential and fundamental” and only the UN can decide whether to end it, Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles has said after a video call with 15 of her counterparts.

She said in a video statement sent to reporters:

All the countries that are part of it are firmly supporting the UNIFIL mission, our soldiers, our people who are there.

EU countries, led by Italy, France and Spain, have thousands of troops in the 10,000-strong peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, which has said it has repeatedly come under attack from Israeli forces in recent days. Israel has called on the United Nations to move the troops out of the combat zone.

Updated

Palestinian health officials called on Wednesday for a humanitarian corridor to three hospitals in northern Gaza that have come close to collapse as Israeli troops have cut off the area during almost two weeks of heavy fighting against Hamas.

Reuters reports:

Doctors at the Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda and the Indonesian hospitals have refused to leave their patients despite evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military at the start of a major push into the Jabalia area of northern Gaza 12 days ago.

Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said:

We are calling on the international community, the Red Cross and the World Health Organisation, to play their humanitarian role by opening up a corridor towards our healthcare system and allow the entry of fuel, medical, delegations, supplies and food.

We are talking about more than 300 medical staff working at Kamal Adwan Hospital, and we can’t provide even a single meal for them to be able to offer medical services safely.

Updated

The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has been heckled by pro-Palestine advocates as she gave a speech warning that “disregard for international humanitarian law is increasing”.

Addressing the University of Tasmania on Tuesday night, Wong released Australia’s new humanitarian policy and repeated the government’s call for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.

But the speech was interrupted by pro-Palestine advocates who called on the government to take firm action against the Israeli government rather than express concerns.

Wong initially responded to the hecklers by saying that she recognised that “everyone’s voice matters” in a democracy and that “this is a very distressing [time]”. She added: “I don’t actually believe, and I’ve never believed, that we gain anything by shouting each other down.”

In a clip broadcast by the ABC, a person in the audience can be heard shouting: “What we need right now is leaders that have the backbone – that are willing to do something that isn’t just talk.”

Another person can be heard interjecting: “You’ve had chances at a national and international level to change what is happening in Lebanon, in Palestine … there’s blood on your hands.”

The clip shows Wong walking away from the podium temporarily while the interjections continued. A moderator said he was “asking both of you please to leave the venue”.

In an interview with ABC Radio Tasmania on Wednesday morning, Wong said it was “probably the 10th interruption” when she became “a bit frustrated I couldn’t finish a sentence”.

“Some of the things that were being said and shouted were not true,” she said. “One example is being told to stop bombing Lebanon. We are calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon.”

You can read the full piece by Guardian Australia’s foreign affairs and defence correspondent, Daniel Hurst, here:

As Israel fights Hezbollah in Lebanon, UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have complained that Israel has been firing on their positions and the UN has said more than 15 of its soldiers have been injured.

Israel has said it is not attacking the peacekeepers but called on them to leave the area, insisting they have failed in their mandate to disarm Hezbollah along the so-called blue line. But the UN says it will not pull out.

In the latest episode of the Today in Focus podcast, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, explains that this row has decade-long roots and that Israel and the UN have had a bitter relationship almost from the start.

Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday called for more pressure on Israel’s backers to end killings in Gaza and Lebanon, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“The president … demanded more pressure on the supporters of the Zionist regime (Israel) to stop the killings” in Gaza and Lebanon, Pezeshkian said during a phone call with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, according to a presidency statement.

Hezbollah says it launched guided missile at Israeli tank near Lebanon border

Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli army tank near a border village with a guided missile on Wednesday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP), as attacks escalated after Israel intensified bombing of the country last month.

Hezbollah fighters “targeted a Merkava tank near the village of Ramia … with a guided missile”, the Iran-backed group said in a statement, adding the attack was “in defence of Lebanon and its people”.

The Israeli army on Wednesday said its forces hit dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“The IDF army struck dozens of Hezbollah terrorist targets in the Nabatiyeh area and dismantled underground infrastructure used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a statement.

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati condemned the deadly Israeli strikes on Wednesday saying the Israeli army intentionally targeted a municipality meeting (see 11.03am BST). Lebanon’s health ministry said five people were killed in the strike.

Lebanese official media reported on Wednesday that Israeli jets caused two sonic booms over Beirut and the surrounding area, with Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists in the capital hearing loud bangs.

“Enemy aircraft violently broke the sound barrier twice in the airspace of (Beirut’s) southern suburbs” and surroundings areas, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Lebanon PM condemns 'deliberate' Israeli strike on Nabatiyeh

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati condemned deadly Israeli strikes on Wednesday on the southern city of Nabatiyeh, saying they intentionally targeted a municipality meeting.

Mikati “condemned the new Israeli aggression against civilians in the city of Nabatiyeh, which deliberately targeted a meeting of the municipal council that was discussing the city’s services and relief situation,” he said in a statement, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A local official said the city mayor, Ahmad Kahil, was among the dead.

The probability of an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites remains low but any potential damage would be “quickly compensated”, state atomic energy agency spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Wednesday, reports Reuters citing the semi-official Nournews.

After Iran’s missile attack on Israel on 1 October, there has been speculation that Israel could strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, as it has long threatened to do. “We have always taken these threats seriously,” Kamalvandi said.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel would listen to the US but would decide its actions according to its own national interest.

The statement was attached to a Washington Post article which said Netanyahu had told US president Joe Biden’s administration that Israel would strike Iranian military targets, not nuclear or oil targets, reports Reuters.

Biden has said he would not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites and oil markets have been on edge over the prospect of an Israeli strike against Iranian oilfields.

Kamalvandi told Nournews that any attack on Iran’s nuclear sites remained improbable and that if this happened, the damage was likely to be minimal and quickly repaired by Iran.

“We have planned in a way that if they commit any stupidity, the damages would be minimal,” Kamalvandi said.

According to Reuters, the Iranian spokesperson added that the UN nuclear watchdog and the international community should condemn any threat or attack on nuclear sites.

Lebanon’s prime minister has condemned the ‘deliberate’ Israeli strike on a Nabatiyeh municipality meeting, reports Agence France-Presse.

We will update with more details soon …

At least 42,409 Palestinians killed in Israeli offensive on Gaza since 7 October 2023, says health ministry

At least 42,409 Palestinians have been killed and 99,153 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday.

The health ministry does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni will meet King Abdullah of Jordan in Aqaba, then the Lebanese prime minister in Beirut on Friday, reports Reuters.

The prime minister’s office said in a note that Meloni will see King Abdullah at 10am GMT (11am BST), than the Lebanese premier, Najib Mikati, at 2.30pm GMT (3.30pm BST).

Here are some recent images of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, where an Israeli airstrike is reported to have killed five people today.

Updated

Further to the news that several people, including a mayor, were reported killed (see 9.30am BST) on Wednesday in an Israeli strike on a municipality building in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, some more information has been shared on the news wires.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Lebanon’s health ministry said five people were killed in the strike.

“The Israeli enemy raid … on two buildings, that of the Nabatiyeh municipality and the union of municipalities, killed five people in a preliminary toll,” the ministry said in a statement, adding rescuers were searching for survivors under the rubble.

Israeli navy forces have struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, in cooperation with troops on the ground, Israel’s military said on Wednesday, reports Reuters.

Mayor of Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh among dead in Israeli strike on municipality, say officials

The mayor of Nabatiyeh was among those killed on Wednesday in Israeli strikes on the municipality of the southern Lebanese city, where Hezbollah and its ally Amal hold sway, authorities said.

“The mayor of Nabatiyeh, among others … was martyred. It’s a massacre,” Nabatiyeh governor Howaida Turk told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding he had been in the municipality building.

Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers also told AFP that several people were killed in the strike on the municipality building including mayor Ahmad Kahil.

Wizz Air said on Wednesday that it was suspending flights to and from Tel Aviv until 14 January due to the situation in the region.

A Lebanese official said Israel carried out 11 airstrikes on Nabatiyeh and surrounding areas on Wednesday, days after strikes destroyed the southern city’s marketplace, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“For now, 11 strikes have mainly hit Nabatiyeh but also its surroundings,” Nabatiyeh governor Howaida Turk told AFP when asked about Israeli strikes, adding that the intense raids “formed a kind of belt of fire” in the area. She reported casualties but could not provide a precise toll.

The Biden administration’s call warning Israel to take immediate action to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza at risk of possible punishment, including the potential stopping of US weapons transfers, is “long overdue” the Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) has said.

The organisation, formed by the late Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, said the letter from the US administration is an “important” and “unprecedented” signal, while urging for further action “beyond warnings”.

“We now need the Biden administration to show action, not just words, in enforcing US laws, which prohibit aid to Israel given not only its relentless obstruction of humanitarian relief but deliberate starvation and incessant bombardment of Gaza’s civilians,” said Dawn’s executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson.

A four-page letter, written by US secretary of state Antony Blinken and the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, dated 13 October, calls on Israel’s government to ease humanitarian suffering in Gaza, by lifing restrictions on the entry of assistance within 30 days or face unspecified policy “impliciations”. The letter was sent to Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant and strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer.

“While the letter demands Israel rescind evacuation orders, it is time for the US to enforce these demands immediately rather than issuing vague deadlines. The US must move beyond warnings and act decisively to end its complicity in these atrocities,” added Raed Jarrar, Dawn’s advocacy director.

Aid arrives in northern Gaza for first time in two weeks

Aid has arrived in northern Gaza for the first time in two weeks, according to an update by Cogat, the Israeli body that oversees the Palestinian territories and coordinates with aid groups.

In a social media post shared on Wednesday morning, Cogat said that 145 humanitarian aid trucks, containing food, hygiene products, baby formula, and shelter equipment, had entered Gaza via the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings.

Nine tankers of fuel and six tankers of cooking gas designated for the operation of essential infrastructure were transferred into Gaza, it added.

In its update, Cogat wrote:

A convoy of 28 trucks entered Gaza directly through Gate 96. The rotation coordination of humanitarian personnel has been successfully completed. 12 bakeries are operational in Gaza, 4 bakeries in northern Gaza, and 8 bakeries southern Gaza.”

Updated

Delta Air Lines has postponed all flights between New York’s John F Kennedy airport and Tel Aviv until at least 31 March because of the conflict in the Middle East, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Delta is continuously monitoring the evolving security environment and assessing our operations based on security guidance and intelligence reports and will communicate any updates as needed,” the airline said.

“As always, the safety of customers and crew remains paramount. Customers should be prepared for possible adjustments to Delta’s TLV flight schedule, including additional cancellations on a rolling basis.”

The company is providing a travel waiver for all fliers who purchased travel to and from Tel Aviv before 31 March 2025.

Delta’s decision is in keeping with other major airlines’ service changes. United Airlines has paused flights to Tel Aviv for “the foreseeable future”. Virgin Atlantic is postponing all flights to the Israeli city until the end of March, according to Reuters.

Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:

EU countries that contribute to UN peacekeeping force Unifil in Lebanon have no intention of pulling back from the south of the country despite Israeli calls to do so, Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg has said, reports Reuters.

Since an Israeli ground operation against Hezbollah militants began on 1 October, Unifil positions have come under fire and two Israeli tanks burst through the gates of one of its bases, the UN says. Five peacekeepers have been injured.

Sixteen EU countries, including Austria, contribute to Unifil and the recent incidents have sparked widespread alarm among European governments.

On Sunday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the UN to withdraw Unifil “from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones”.

But Schallenberg, summarising a discussion among EU foreign ministers on Monday, said European nations were not minded to pull troops back or out.

Schallenberg, whose country has about 160 soldiers in Unifil told Reuters in an interview in Brussels:

There was no debate about pulling back or whatever.

They are there to stay but the security and the safety of our troops is paramount and has to be ensured by everybody.”

European nations contribute about 3,600 troops to the 10,000-strong force.

EU contributors plan to hold a video call on Wednesday on their current posture and the longer-term role of the mission when it comes to troop levels, equipment and rules of engagement, according to European officials.

Israeli officials have said their forces are not deliberately targeting Unifil. It says Hezbollah has used peacekeepers’ positions as cover for attacks and Israel has a right to respond.

Schallenberg said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah but even unintentional attacks on peacekeeping positions were a breach of international law.

“There’s a clear demand on Israel to be very cautious on this,” he said in the interview, which took place late on Tuesday afternoon.

Iran tells UN secretary general it is ready for 'decisive' response to Israel attack

Iran’s top diplomat warned the UN secretary general, António Guterres, it is ready for a “decisive and regretful” response if Israel attacks the country in retaliation for a barrage of missiles, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Iran, while making all-out efforts to protect the peace and security of the region, is fully prepared for a decisive and regretful response to any adventures” by Israel, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, quoted by his office on Wednesday.

Israeli strikes came just hours after US voiced opposition to scope of attacks on Beirut

The Israeli strikes came just hours after the US said it opposed the scope of Israeli attacks in the Lebanese capital amid a rising death toll and fears of wider regional escalation, Reuters reports.

On Tuesday, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US had expressed its concerns to Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration on the recent strikes.

“When it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut over 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,” he told reporters, adopting a harsher tone than Washington has taken so far.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati had said on Tuesday his contacts with US officials had produced a “kind of guarantee” that Israel would tamp down strikes on Beirut and its southern suburbs.

The last time Beirut was hit was on 10 October, when two strikes near the city centre killed 22 people and brought down entire buildings in a densely populated neighbourhood. Lebanese security sources said at the time that Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa was the target but that he had survived. There was no comment from Israel.

Israeli military evacuation alerts were also affecting more than a quarter of Lebanon, according to the UN refugee agency, two weeks after Israel began incursions into the south of the country that it says are aimed at pushing back Hezbollah.

Updated

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi is visiting Jordan, Egypt and Turkey as part of Tehran’s diplomatic outreach to countries in the region “to end genocide, atrocity and aggression”, the Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesperson said on Wednesday in a post on X, Reuters reports.

Israeli army says it struck Hezbollah underground weapons storage facility in southern Beirut

The IDF says it has hit an underground Hezbollah strategic weapons storage depot in the Dahiyeh area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in a statement posted on X.

Updated

Strikes reportedly hit south Beirut after Israeli military evacuation warning

Strikes reportedly hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Wednesday morning, the first time in days the area has been targeted.

Reuters witnesses reported hearing a blast and seeing a plume of smoke. Black smoke billowed from between buildings in Haret Hreik after the strike, AFP reported, before witnessing a second strike moments later.

The strikes came after the IDF urged residents to immediately evacuate a specific building in the southern suburbs of Beirut early on Wednesday, warning in a statement on social media website X that it will hit Hezbollah targets there soon.

“You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, which the IDF will work against in the near future” the statement in Arabic said, addressing Haret Hreik residents.

The Israeli military has repeatedly bombarded south Beirut in recent weeks, as well as carrying out deadly strikes elsewhere in the capital and across Lebanon.

At least 1,356 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel escalated its bombing last month, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.

Updated

Opening summary

A strike hit south Beirut early on Wednesday, Reuters and Agence-France Presse reported, after the Israeli army issued an evacuation warning for a specific building in Beirut’s southern suburbs, indicating it will hit Hezbollah targets there soon.

Reuters witnesses reported hearing a blast and seeing a plume of smoke. Black smoke billowed from between buildings in Haret Hreik after the strike, AFP reported.

Separately, Israel says it plans to address US concerns after the Biden administration warned Israel it risks losing access to US weapons funding if it does not improve the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza within the next 30 days.

The warning came in the form of a four-page letter dated 13 October written jointly by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, to their Israeli counterparts.

An Israeli official in Washington told Reuters that Israel was reviewing the letter.

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

The letter, which restates US policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza and an Israeli airstrike on a hospital tent site in central Gaza that killed at least four people and burned others. It came to light after being posted on social media by Barak Ravid, an Israeli journalist who works for Axios, after apparently being leaked.

In other developments:

  • Hezbollah’s acting leader said the Lebanese militant group is focused on “hurting the enemy” by targeting Haifa and other parts of Israel, including Tel Aviv. Sheikh Naim Kassem, Hezbollah’s deputy chief, vowed in a televised speech to “defeat our enemies and drive them out of our lands.” It was his third appearance since Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a southern suburb of Beiruts.

  • Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel will decide alone on the form of any retaliation to Iran’s missile attack earlier this month, although it would listen to advice from Washington. The comments came after reports that the Israeli prime minister had given an assurance to the US president, Joe Biden, that Israel would not attack sites associated with Iran’s nuclear programme or oilfields before the US presidential election. A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday denied any such commitment.

  • Israel continued to press its offensive in Gaza, with airstrikes killing a further 50 Palestinians on Tuesday. Palestinian health officials said at least 17 people were killed by Israeli fire near Al-Falouja in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, while 10 others were killed in Bani Suhaila in eastern Khan Younis in the south when an Israeli missile struck a house. Later on Tuesday, the Gaza health ministry said one doctor was killed when he tried to help the people wounded by Israeli strikes in Al-Falouja in Jabalia. It said Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 42,344 Palestinians and wounded 99,013 since 7 October 2023.

  • The Israeli military said about 50 projectiles were fired from Lebanon at the country’s north early Wednesday, without any reports of casualties. “Some of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified in the area,” a military statement said, while Hezbollah said it launched “a large salvo of missiles” at the town of Safed.

  • The UN human rights office said on Tuesday the Israeli military appeared to be “cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip.” Tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped in the densely populated northern Gaza neighbourhood of Jabaliya by a new Israeli military operation there. Most are suffering appalling conditions and mounting casualties from Israeli shelling, bombs and missiles. The director of Kamal Adwan hospital, one of the three hospitals in northern Gaza, said they were facing serious shortages of food, medication and fuel.

  • In Lebanon, Israel’s military launched several strikes in eastern areas on Tuesday, a day after Netanyahu vowed to “mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut”. The Lebanese health ministry said 41 people were killed and 124 were injured by Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Monday, meaning a total of 2,350 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began between Hezbollah and Israel last October and the number of wounded has risen to 10,906. A US state department spokesperson said Washington has “made clear to Israel that we oppose the bombing campaign that they have been launching in recent weeks in Beirut.”

  • The UN rights office said an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people needs to be independently investigated. It said it had received reports that most of the victims of the Israeli airstrike on the northern Lebanon village of Aitou were women and children. “We have real concerns with respect to … the laws of war,” a UNHCR spokesperson said.

  • More than a quarter of Lebanon is now affected by Israeli evacuation orders, according to the UN’s refugee agency. “People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they’re fleeing with almost nothing,” Middle East director Rema Jamous Imseis told journalists on Tuesday. More than 1.2 million people in Lebanon have been displaced over the past year. More than 400,000 children in Lebanon have been displaced in the past three weeks, a top official with the UN children’s agency said Monday, warning of a “lost generation”.

  • Israeli troops cleared landmines and established new barriers on the frontier between the occupied Golan Heights and a demilitarised strip bordering Syria, according to a report, in a sign Israel may expand its ground operations against Hezbollah while bolstering its own defences. The move suggests Israel may seek to strike Hezbollah for the first time from farther east along Lebanon’s border, at the same time creating a secure area from which it can freely reconnoitre the armed group and prevent infiltration, security sources told Reuters.

  • 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, authorities said.

  • Netanyahu told Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in a phone call on Tuesday that he was opposed to agreeing to a “unilateral ceasefire” in Lebanon, his office said. The call came as Macron increased pressure on Israel to abide by UN decisions, telling his cabinet that the Israeli leader “must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN”, according to a report.

  • Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said she will visit Lebanon on Friday as she demanded security guarantees from Israel for her country’s troops there just days after UN peacekeeper bases came under attack. Italy’s government has been a strong supporter of Israel in the year since Hamas’s 7 October attacks but has sharply criticised attacks on Unifil and Israeli calls for the peacekeepers to withdraw.

  • The UK Foreign Office announced sanctions against seven organisations that support illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but held back from penalising two extremist members of the Israeli government, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and the national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Updated

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