Middle East crisis live: Israel claims to have killed Hezbollah commander inside Lebanon | Israel-Gaza war
Israel says it has killed a Hezbollah commander inside Lebanon
In a message on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed to have killed a Hezbollah commander who it names as Abu Ali Rida. It said he commanded the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon.
The IDF described him as being “responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF troops.”
In the operational update, Israel said:
IDF troops continue to conduct limited, localised, targeted raids in southern Lebanon, dismantling terrorist infrastructure, locating weapons, and eliminating terrorists.
Huge swathes of Lebanon’s population have been displaced from their homes by Israel’s military action against Hezbollah. According to Lebanese authorities, more than 2,800 people have been killed inside Lebanon by Israeli attacks. Tens of thousands of Israelis in the north of the country have also been displaced from their homes by near constant rocket frie from Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces inside Lebanon.
Key events
Israel’s military has issued further details of the interceptions carried out this morning. It says that “four UAVs fired from both Lebanon and the east were intercepted by the IAF,” stating that two were intercepted outside of Israel.
Here are some of the latest images sent over the news wires from Gaza, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli media reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet today with opposition leader Yair Lapid for a security briefing.
Palestinian Authority foreign ministry condemns reported torching of cars in occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning the reported burning of cars by Israeli settlers in Al-Bireh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In a statement, the ministry said it condemned the “brutal attack” in “the strongest terms”, saying that “it considers it an extension of the crimes of settler gangs throughout the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and a copy of the manifestations of the genocide and displacement of our people in the Gaza Strip.”
It continued:
The ministry affirms that the Jewish terrorist elements who stormed Al-Bireh would not have committed this heinous crime had they not felt protected, supported and immune from the political level in the occupying state, especially the ministers of the extreme Israeli right who openly incite against Palestinian citizens, their land and their property in full view.
Senior members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government have repeated stated their intention to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and their desire to encourage further illegal settlements inside the West Bank.
Al-Bireh is to the north-east of Ramallah.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that caretaker minister of the interior Bassam Mawlawi will convene a central internal security council meeting at noon to, it says, “follow up on security developments in light of the continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon.”
The caretaker minister is expected to make public remarks after the meeting.
Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that one person has been injured after Israeli security forces opened fire near Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and also reports that Israel has detained one man in Beitunia, west of Ramallah.
Israel formally notifies UN it is to ban Unrwa from operating in Israel
Israel’s foreign ministry has said in a statement, reported by AFP, that it has formally notified the UN that the country will ban the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, from operating inside Israel.
Unrwa operates 96 schools in the Israeli-occupied West Bank serving 45,000 students, as well as 43 health centres, food distribution services for refugee families, and psychological support services, according to the agency’s website. It has played a crucial logistical role in facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as providing shelters for displaced Palestinians.
“On the instruction of foreign minister Israel Katz, the ministry of foreign affairs notified the UN of the cancellation of the agreement between the state of Israel and Unrwa,” the foreign ministry said.
Israel has alleged that 12 Unrwa employees took part in the Hamas attack inside southern Israel on 7 October 2023. The agency fired several staff members as a result of an independent inquiry, but says that Israel’s wider accusations of staff in Gaza supporting Hamas are unfounded.
In Monday’s statement, Katz said “Unrwa, the organisation whose employees participated in the 7 October massacre and many of whose employees are Hamas operatives, is part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution.”
Unrwa’s mandate is to provide life-giving services to anyone who has “lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict”, a mission widened after the 1967 war, when the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories began.
Foreign minister Katz disputed that cutting off Unrwa would damage the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which has been besieged by Israeli forces and subjected to aerial bombardment for over a year. Nearly all of the territory’s 2.4 million people have been displaced from their homes at least once.
“Even now, the vast majority of humanitarian aid to Gaza is delivered through other organisations, and only 13 percent of it is delivered through Uurwa,” Katz said.
“The state of Israel is committed to international law and will continue to facilitate the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in a manner that does not harm the security of the citizens of Israel.”
Israel is yet to provide any proposal for how the functions of Unrwa would be replaced. Israel has been repeatedly accused of breaching international humanitarian law in its response to the 7 October attack.
During a recent visit to the region, US secretary of state Antony Blinken cautioned Israel that the US was watching “very carefully” for progress being made on stepping up the amount of aid being delivered to Gaza.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said “the state of Israel will continue to cooperate with humanitarian organisations but not with organisations that promote terrorism against us.”
Palestinian media sources are reporting that between 15 and 20 cars were set alight in Al-Bireh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, is quoted by news agency Wafa described the incident as a crime by “terrorist settler militias.”
The Times of Israel reports that Israel’s police force has said it has opened an investigation.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that overnight Israel has continued its assault on Gaza, stating that “local sources reported hearing successive explosions north of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, while the occupation’s warplanes targeted the city of Rafah in the south.”
It said there were dead and wounded after the attacks.
Wafa reports that one child was injured according to medical sources from the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. They told the news agency “artillery shelling targeted the hospital wards, the nursery, the hospital yard and the water tanks.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel claims to have intercepted 'suspicious aerial targets' from the east
In a message on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed that on Monday morning it had intercepted what it termed “a suspicious aerial target” that crossed into Israeli-controlled territory “from the east”.
There were no reports of any casualties. In the same message the IDF said it had also intercepted “a suspicious aerial target in the Upper Galilee area” that had crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
Emanuel Fabian, who reports for the Times of Israel, posted to suggest that two drones had headed towards Israeli-controlled territory from Iraq.
Israel says it has killed a Hezbollah commander inside Lebanon
In a message on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed to have killed a Hezbollah commander who it names as Abu Ali Rida. It said he commanded the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon.
The IDF described him as being “responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF troops.”
In the operational update, Israel said:
IDF troops continue to conduct limited, localised, targeted raids in southern Lebanon, dismantling terrorist infrastructure, locating weapons, and eliminating terrorists.
Huge swathes of Lebanon’s population have been displaced from their homes by Israel’s military action against Hezbollah. According to Lebanese authorities, more than 2,800 people have been killed inside Lebanon by Israeli attacks. Tens of thousands of Israelis in the north of the country have also been displaced from their homes by near constant rocket frie from Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces inside Lebanon.
Welcome to the Guardian’s continued coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. Here are the latest headlines …
In a strike inside Lebanon, Israel has claimed to kill a Hezbollah commander responsible, the IDF said, for “planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF troops”
Israel’s military said that on Monday morning it had intercepted what it called “a suspicious aerial target” heading towards Israeli-controlled territory from the east
A polio vaccination centre and the car of a UN aid official involved in this weekend’s vaccination campaign came under fire despite a promised “humanitarian pause” in Israeli bombardment, the UN has said
At least 43,341 Palestinian people have been killed and 102,105 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is at the centre of a new political storm related to a hostage deal in the Gaza war after the arrest of several people in connection with an alleged leak of classified documents from his office