Israel launches strikes on southern Lebanon overnight
The IDF has said it launched a fresh wave of strikes on Lebanon overnight, targeting positions from which rockets were fired towards Israel.
In an update online, IDF officials said that “warplanes targeted dozens of sites” in several areas in southern Lebanon.
The statement said that secondary explosions were observed during the strikes “indicating the presence of weapons stored in the buildings.” The Guardian was unable to verify this.
Monday saw some of the heaviest cross-border fire exchange in almost a year. Israel says it has started shifting its focus north to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas.
Key events
Israeli army radio reports that another wave of Israeli airstrikes against Lebanon has begun.
More details soon …
Care International UK, an NGO which has been working in Lebanon for almost 20 years, has launched a humanitarian response to the crisis unfolding in Lebanon, with the local regional director, Hazem Fahmy, saying “It is shocking to witness once again in this region the total disregard for international law.”
Describing scenes of panic in the country has people sought to move away from araes being targeted by Israel’s airstrikes, country director Michael Adams said:
The situation is very tense here in Lebanon. All the roads leading to Beirut from the south and the Beqaa Valley are now flooded with people attempting to flee the bombardment, leaving everything behind. Civilians are paying the highest price, and women and girls are disproportionately affected. The people of Lebanon need help to cope with this new crisis, and quickly. Humanitarian agencies like Care and our partners cannot reach people under bombing. Humanitarians must also be protected.
Many flights into and out of Beirut have been cancelled already today. Flights affected include those to Egypt, Germany, Iraq, Jordan, Switzerland, Turkey, the UAE. “Ongoing regional developments” has been cited by Etihad Airways as their reason.
While attention is focused on Israel’s airstrikes on Lebanon, which have killed nearly 500 people in the last 24 hours, Israel also continues to carry out strikes on the Gaza Strip, which it has been bombarding for over 11 months.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that “paramedics recovered the bodies of five slain people and a number of wounded, following an Israeli raid that targeted a house” in Khan Younis, while another two people were killed and five injured by a separate Israeli bombing in the area. The Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City has also again been a target, Wafa reports. The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s air force has confirmed that there was damage caused to buildings in the Upper Galilee area by the latest barrage of rockets from the direction of Lebanon, and that “Israeli fire and rescue services are currently operating to extinguish fires caused by the strikes in the area”. It reported no casualties.
בהמשך להתרעות שהופעלו בשעה 09:36 במרחב העמקים, זוהו כחמישה שיגורים שחצו משטח לבנון, חלקם יורטו והשאר נפלו בשטחים פתוחים.
זוהו נפילות של רסיסי יירוטים במרחב, אין נפגעים.בהמשך להתרעות שהופעלו במרחב הגליל העליון בין השעות 09:42-09:44, זוהו כ-50 שיגורים שחצו משטח לבנון.
מרבית…— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) September 24, 2024
Israeli and Lebanese media are reporting continued strikes on either side of the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon. Haaretz reports that about 50 rockets have been fired into northern Israel, with at least one fire breaking out as a result. Lebanese outlets report airstrikes in the Beqaa Valley and north of the city of Baalbek.
Charbel Massaad, an independent Maronite MP in Lebanon, has described Israel’s airstrikes as “an attack not only on geography, but also on dignity, on rights and on the future of our generations.”
In a message to the Lebanese people carried by the state National News Agency, Massaad said:
In these difficult times that our beloved country Lebanon is going through, and with the continued brutal Israeli aggression on our land, I find myself compelled to address you. The Israeli aggression that brutally targets our people, our homes, our villages and our cities is an attack not only on geography, but also on dignity, on rights and on the future of our generations.
But we, as a people accustomed to steadfastness and we will steadfastly face all challenges. This critical moment requires all of us, regardless of any political or sectarian affiliation, to stand as one. Our unity is our strength. Israel seeks to sow fear and division among us, but we know very well how to confront such conspiracies. Just as we were victorious in the past, we will be victorious today, because we are right, and right always triumphs, and the will to live among the Lebanese is stronger than any aggression or conspiracy.
The IDF has reported that warning sirens are sounding again in northern Israel.
Nimo Omer
For the Guardian’s First Edition newsletter today my colleagues Nimo Omer and senior international reporter Peter Beaumont spoke about the potential fallout of the intensification of this conflict. Here is a snippet:
Hezbollah is one of the most heavily armed non-state militia groups in the world. Its army is tens of thousands strong and it is backed by Iran, so even though the attacks from Israel have put Hezbollah on the back-foot, it has not deterred them. “In militias like this the number two in command is always ready to step into the number one position,” Peter says. Destabilising an organisation that is inherently fluid in that way is not straightforward. And when all that is needed to keep parts of Israel uninhabitable are a few rockets fired over the border, it is hard to see how Israel can achieve its goal through force alone.
“The pager attack was significant in its ambition and most clearly signifies that Israel has moved on from the somewhat agreed upon red lines,” Peter says. Both sides have acknowledged that their conflict of attrition, limited in its geography and scope, has entered a far more critical phase.
As their airstrikes intensify, the Israeli military have flown jets low above Beirut to create thundering sonic booms that shook the capital, with critics decrying the tactic as a form of psychological warfare against civilian populations. “It’s not just Hezbollah, Lebanese society is feeling under attack,” Peter says.
Read more here: Tuesday briefing – How to make sense of the new wave of violence in the Middle East
Israel’s Magen David Adom reports that overnight one of its ambulances was damaged in a blast in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel.
Following the Red Alert sirens in the north of Israel last night, the damage was caused to a MDA ambulance in the Jezreel Valley, as a result of the blast, the ambulance’s windshields were shattered and damage was caused by shrapnel that penetrated. There were no casualties! pic.twitter.com/4dsMVLLpC8
— Magen David Adom (@Mdais) September 24, 2024
Zeina Khodr, reporting for Al Jazeera from Beirut, says that people in Lebanon are scared of what might happen next. She writes for the news network:
Tens of thousands of people fled their homes and they really didn’t have much time before they had to evacuate … We were in southern Lebanon and we saw people pack whatever they could to make their way further north … Whole families. People were scared. They were afraid and they were concerned about what would happen next.
Some of the families we spoke to said that they had to escape while there was bombardment around them. There were nonstop airstrikes almost everywhere you looked. You didn’t know which road was safe, even along the main highway linking south Lebanon to Beirut, we saw airstrikes along that highway.
This is an impoverished society, a country where the economy has all but collapsed. And it’s also a state which is nearly bankrupt. So there is a lot of concern among these people about how long they are going to be displaced because already in 11 months of fighting, 110,000 people have been displaced from border villages.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel, and at the weekend raided and closed the news network’s offices in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Turkey has condemned Israel’s attacks on Lebanon as “efforts to drag the region into chaos” and called for a halt to support for Israel.
In a statement late on Monday, the Turkish foreign ministry said countries that “unconditionally support Israel” were helping Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “shed blood for his political interests”.
“It is imperative that all institutions responsible for maintaining international peace and security, especially the UN security council, as well as the international community, take the necessary measures without delay,” it said.
Nato member Turkey has condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which began in retaliation for Hamas’ cross-border attack on 7 October. Ankara also halted all trade with Israel and applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the world court.
Tens of thousands have reportedly fled for safety in southern Lebanon, after Israel on Monday warned people to evacuate areas where it claimed Hezbollah was storing weapons.
Families loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people, sometimes multiple generations in one vehicle. Children crammed on to parents’ laps and suitcases were tied to car roofs.
US sends additional forces to Middle East
The US is sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East due to escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, the Pentagon said on Monday, declining to specify the precise number or mission of the deployed forces.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” air force Maj Gen Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told reporters.
“We have more capability in the region today than we did on April 14th when Iran conducted its drone and missile attack against Israel,” Ryder said, referring to Iran’s attack by more than 300 missiles and drones, which caused only modest damage inside Israel thanks to air defence interceptions from the United States, Britain and other allies in the region.
“So all of those forces combined provide us with the options to be able to protect our forces should they be attacked.”
The US capabilities in the region include the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group, fighter aircraft and air defences.
Israel launches strikes on southern Lebanon overnight
The IDF has said it launched a fresh wave of strikes on Lebanon overnight, targeting positions from which rockets were fired towards Israel.
In an update online, IDF officials said that “warplanes targeted dozens of sites” in several areas in southern Lebanon.
The statement said that secondary explosions were observed during the strikes “indicating the presence of weapons stored in the buildings.” The Guardian was unable to verify this.
Monday saw some of the heaviest cross-border fire exchange in almost a year. Israel says it has started shifting its focus north to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Israel has said it launched a fresh wave of strikes on Hezbollah overnight, targeting positions that had fired rockets into Israel. The IDF said it had attacked “dozens of targets” in several areas in southern Lebanon.
The announcement comes a day after 492 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes. Almost 1,650 people were injured as well, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the military was changing the “security balance” along its northern border.
Tens of thousands of people fled from south Lebanese towns and villages along the main road towards the capital, Beirut, in Israel’s most intense barrage in nearly a year of cross-border clashes, as sirens were also heard in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. The Lebanese health ministry said 35 children and 58 women were among those killed.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.
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Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon on Monday destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets. The Israeli military is preparing for the next stage of its operation in Lebanon after launching a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets on Monday morning, the military chief of the general staff Herzi Halevi said. There is rising tension on the ground in Lebanon and a collective bracing to see whether Israel intends a ground invasion of its neighbour.
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Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been activated, with capacity for more than 26,000 people. Families from south Lebanon loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people, sometimes multiple generations in one vehicle. As bombs rained down, children crammed on to parents’ laps and suitcases were tied to car roofs. Highways north were gridlocked.
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The United States does not think Israeli escalation to force Hezbollah to reduce tensions will yield the desired outcome of de-escalation, a senior State Dept official said on Monday, effectively disagreeing with Israel’s strategy. The conflict is a key focus for secretary of state Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the UN general assembly this week, where Washington had concrete ideas to prevent a broader war and would seek an “off ramp” to the tensions, the official told reporters in New York.
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The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (Unifil) issued a statement on Monday afternoon expressing “grave concern” for the safety of civilians in southern Lebanon amid the most intense Israeli bombing campaign since last October and urging the need for de-escalation from both Hezbollah and Israel.
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Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, has called Israel’s wave of airstrikes “a genocide in every sense of the word”. Mikati made the comments at the start of a cabinet meeting in Beirut on Monday in which he said that Israel’s airstrikes aim to destroy Lebanon’s towns and villages, according to an update from the Associated Press news agency. Mikati said that the Lebanese government was calling on the United Nations, the UN security council and world nations to “deter the aggression”.
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France has requested an emergency UN security council meeting to discuss Lebanon. “I have requested that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be held on Lebanon this week,” French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the UN general assembly on Monday, calling on all sides to “avoid a regional conflagration that would be devastating for everyone.”.