Israel Hezbollah latest: UK joins calls for ceasefire as Lebanon faces fresh strikes

The mother of a British teacher in Beirut has shared her “relief” at her son’s escape from Lebanon.

Charlie Peters, 24, from Highgate in north London, worked in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon’s capital and has fled the country after the UK government urged British citizens to leave.

His mother, Nicola, said: “I’ve spent three days with the jitters and the jumps and not wanting really to look at the news, but also having to look at the news, and that’s really tricky.

“All those stages of, ‘are you at the airport? Have you got your boarding pass? Are you at gate?’ Because you’re waiting for that sort of news to come through the airport is shot.

“What Charlie was really keen to do is that he did not want to be evacuated

“He was like, ‘we’re edging towards emergency evacuation here. I don’t want to be somebody who’s left it to the point where that’s my only option.”

Nicola said that her son had to wrestle with the decision to leave Lebanon.

“What you have to understand for these people who work in these sort of refugee camp systems is you’re leaving people behind who have no choice,” she said.

Charlie hopes to arrive at London Heathrow this afternoon.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, says Israel has “crossed all red lines” and called for the UN Security Council to “intervene to restore peace and security”.

Mr Araghchi said the region was on the brink of a “full-scale catastrophe” and that Israel’s “attacks on Lebanon must stop”.

He also said that Iran supported Hezbollah in its “just cause” to defend Lebanon against Israeli “atrocities” and “occupation”.

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati has expressed hope that a ceasefire could be reached soon to end fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that has shaken his country and raised fears of a ground invasion.

The US, France and several allies called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border while also expressing support for a ceasefire in Gaza following intense discussions at the United Nations on Wednesday.

Mikati welcomed the call for a truce but said the key to its implementation is whether Israel, which has been moving troops closer to Lebanon, is committed to enforcing international resolutions.

Asked if a ceasefire could be secured soon, Mikati told Reuters: “Hopefully, yes.”

Scotland’s First Minister has said the situation in the Middle East is cause for the “deepest concern” as he called for a binding ceasefire in the region.

UK citizens are being urged to leave Lebanon after Israel launched an intense series of air strikes earlier this week.

The UK has joined the US, France and other allies in calling for an immediate temporary ceasefire in Lebanon, warning the escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah is “intolerable”.

Writing on X, John Swinney said: “The worsening situation in the Middle East is a cause of the deepest concern.

“It is essential that there is a binding ceasefire now to end the suffering in Gaza and to act to avoid escalating conflict in Lebanon.”

Israel is preparing for a potential ground invasion of Lebanon, army chiefs said on Wednesday, as US president Joe Biden admitted “all-out war” is possible and Sir Keir Starmer urged British nationals to leave the area immediately.

Airstrikes in Lebanon are laying the groundwork for a possible operation to push Hezbollah back and “safely return” displaced Israeli citizens, said Israeli army general Lt Gen Herzi Halevi.

He told troops on Israel’s northern border the military is “preparing the process of a manoeuvre, which means your military boots, your manoeuvring boots, will enter enemy territory, enter villages that Hezbollah has prepared as large military outposts”.

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We’re hearing more on the ground on the impact of the overnight strikes by Israel on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon this morning.

News agency Reuters has spoken to a mayor in the town of Younine, who says at least 23 people, all of them Syrian, have been killed in a strike on a three-storey building.

Mayor Ali Qusas added that eight others had been wounded.

As Israel’s military announces it hit 75 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, pictures have emerged showing smoke rising into the sky from impacted areas.

Just following our reporting on the US , UK and other allies calling for a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has this morning claimed to have hit 75 targets in Lebanon overnight.

On X, the Israel Defense Forces account released a statement on Thursday morning.

It read: “Approx. 75 Hezbollah terrorist targets in the area of Beqaa and in southern Lebanon were precisely struck by the IDF overnight. These targets included weapons storage facilities, ready-to-fire launchers, terrorists, and terrorist infrastructure.”

A senior Western diplomat has said a peace deal being sought by the US on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting would include an Israeli announcement of an end to major hostilities in Gaza, followed by a push for a ceasefire in Lebanon and then a political deal involving a demarcation of the contentious Israeli-Lebanese land border.

The diplomat said that could provide an “off-ramp” for Hezbollah to avoid a full-scale war with Israel.

The senior Lebanese official and the source familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking said Hezbollah was open to any settlement that included both Gaza and Lebanon.

A second Lebanese official said it would be impossible to stop the conflicts without a package that covered both.

Discussions have focused on what would initially be a “pause” in Israel-Hezbollah hostilities and a restart of stalled indirect Israel-Hamas negotiations, according to a US source in Washington.