Iran vows to carry on fighting as Israel targets Hezbollah successor in Beirut – live

“Vital” humanitarian aid is on its way to Lebanon, the UK government has announced, with £10m in funds being sent to support the growing number of people displaced in the country.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, according to authorities in the country, while nearly 2,000 are reported to have been killed over the past year – most in the past two weeks.

The announcement comes as the UK continues to urge all British nationals to leave Lebanon, with another plane landing in Birmingham carrying more than 150 people from Beirut yesterday.

Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah has been buried in a secret location amid fears Israel would target a public funeral, sources said.

Nasrallah was killed on September 27 in Israeli airstrikes which targeted the Hezbollah headquarters in south Beirut.

“Hassan Nasrallah has been temporarily buried, until the circumstances allow for a public funeral,” the source said.

The source said a public funeral had been impossible to hold “for fear of Israeli threats they would target mourners and the place of his burial”.

Israeli strikes sealed off Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria early on Friday, hours after an intense Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs that is thought to have targeted the heir apparent to Hezbollah’s slain secretary general.

The strikes added to fears inside Lebanon that Israel’s targeting of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militants will bring an all-out conflict, with Israel also poised to respond to Tuesday’s Iranian missile barrage on its territory.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Tehran and its regional proxies will not back down from Israel.

It came just hours after an Israeli attack on Beirut that is thought to have targeted the successor apparent to Iran-backed Hezbollah’s slain secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.

“The brilliant action of our armed forces a couple of nights ago was completely legal and legitimate”, Khamenei said.

Iran’s “axis of resistance” comprises a group of violent proxies across Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Palestine, coordinated by Iran’s Quds Force, the foreign arm of the IRGC.

The Quds Force’s aim is to export Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution abroad. The US assassinated the former head of the Quds Force, Qassem Solemaini, in January 2020.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Hamas’s 7 October attack which killed 1,200 Israelis was legitimate.

Khamenei said the barbaric attack was the “minimum punishment” for Israel against their “astonishing crimes” on Friday.

He also called Israel a “vampire” regime, and its chief ally, the United States, a “rabid dog”.

Israeli strikes sealed off Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria early on Friday, hours after an intense Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs that is thought to have targeted the heir apparent to Hezbollah’s slain secretary general.

The strikes added to fears inside Lebanon that Israel’s targeting of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militants will bring an all-out conflict, with Israel also poised to respond to Tuesday’s Iranian missile barrage on its territory.

Since Israel activated the Iron Dome in 2011, the cutting-edge rocket-defense system has intercepted thousands of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, including on Tuesday night when Iran launched a large scale missile attack.

The system has given residents a sense of security, and Israelis can often be seen watching the projectiles flying through the skies and destroying their targets overhead.

But the current war with Hamas, which has led to direct confrontations with Iran, might be its stiffest challenge yet.

Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei will deliver a public sermon during today’s prayers, which could shed light on the country’s plans after firing 200 missiles at Israel.

Today’s sermon would be the Ayatollah’s first in almost five years and comes three days before the one-year anniversary of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Khamenei will lead the prayer at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran, which will follow “a commemoration ceremony” at 10.30am (local time) for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.