Israel-Hezbollah latest: Netanyahu says would-be Hezbollah leader Safieddine killed in airstrike
Israel has pushed into south-west Lebanon after days of fighting on the south eastern side of the country
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Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israeli forces have killed the would-be successor of the late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
In a pre-recorded video message, the Israeli prime minister said: “We’ve degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of the replacement.”
Earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hashem Safieddine, the man expected to replace the Nasrallah, had probably been “eliminated”.
Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official, has not been heard from publicly since an Israeli airstrike late last week. He has been a prime target for Israel, nurtured as an influential leader and potential heir.
The Israeli military also said on Tuesday that it had killed Suhail Husseini – who was responsible for overseeing Hezbollah logistics, budget and management – the night before.
The claims come as the Israeli military expanded its ground invasion of southern Lebanon by deploying another division of thousands of troops and Hezbollah launched barrages of rockets towards the northern Israeli port city of Haifa on Tuesday for the third consecutive day, injuring 12 people.
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US warns Israel not to attack Beirut airport
The US warned Israel not to attack the airport in Lebanon’s capital or the roads leading to it after Israel intensified its bombardment of southern Beirut around the one-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack.
“We think it’s very important that not only the airport be open, but that the roads to the airport be open,” state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said yesterday.
He added the airport and the road around it needed to be spared so that the American and other foreign citizens “who want to leave can get out” of Lebanon safely.
The Israeli air force yesterday struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, near the international airport, security sources told AFP.
Mr Miller said some 8,500 Americans have contacted the state department to inquire about departure conditions, but this does not mean they all wish to leave.
Trump says Israel has ‘to get smart’ and back him
One year on from the Hamas terrorist attack that sparked 12 months of intense conflict in the Middle East, Donald Trump has said that Israel needs to “get smart” and support him.
The former president appeared to complain that he was not being backed by Israel, claiming in typical fashion that he had done more for the nation and Jewish people “than anybody.”
Trump phoned into conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show, and was asked if he thought Israel would be able to fully recover after its war. The former president replied that Israel “would be good.”
“I think that Israel has to do one thing. They have to get smart about Trump, because they don’t back me,” he said.
Mike Bedigan reports.
Trump says Israel has ‘to get smart’ and back him and whines they don’t support him
During an interview on Monday the former president complained that he had done more for the nation and Jewish people ‘than anybody’ but wasn’t getting the credit he thought he deserved
Over 100 Palestinian journalists detained by Israel in a year
Israel has detained at least 108 Palestinian journalists from Gaza and the occupied West Bank since it launched its war on Gaza a year ago, a rights group has said.
About 58 journalists still remain in Israeli custody, including six women journalists and 22 from Gaza, said the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, also known as Addameer.
The group said at least 16 journalists were being held under administrative detention.
More than 9000 orders of administrative detention have been issued since 7 October last year, including orders against children and women, the group claimed.
Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 21, including five children
At least 21 people, including five children and two women, were killed in Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza last night, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
The strikes took place on the anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack in southern Israel.
Two strikes hit houses in the Bureij refugee camp as emergency responders said more people are thought to be under the rubble.
The Palestinian death toll in the war in Gaza is nearing 42,000, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Strip.
In pics: Israel continues to bomb Beirut
Full story: Keir Starmer takes aim at ‘malign’ Iran and vows never to ban all arms sales to Israel
Sir Keir Starmer used the first anniversary of Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack on Israel to urge the international community to turn its focus on the “malign” regime in Iran.
In a carefully crafted statement in the Commons to commemorate the 7 October atrocity, which sparked war in the Middle East, Sir Keir’s message to MPs was that the ayatollahs who rule Iran must be held to account and forced to take responsibility for the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region.
He said his government “will never stop selling weapons to Israel”, despite calls from French president Emmanuel Macron for a full arms embargo.
His words came as Sir Keir resisted calls to distance himself from Israel after its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened up a new front in the north against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon.
David Maddox reports:
Starmer takes aim at ‘malign’ Iran and vows never to ban all arms sales to Israel
Starmer tells MPs: ‘This was not a defensive action by Iran, it was an act of aggression’
NHS medics volunteering in Gaza warn of catastrophic collapse of healthcare system
NHS medics volunteering in Gaza have warned of the “catastrophic” collapse of the healthcare system one year into the war, as they described trying to treat the wounded and sick amid shortages of everything from paracetamol to surgical gauze.
Nurses and doctors working in field hospitals run by the British medical charity UK-Med have called for immediate delivery of supplies and for health workers and facilities to be protected, as the world marks the grim milestone of one year at war.
Bel Trew reports:
NHS medics volunteering in Gaza warn of catastrophic collapse of healthcare system
‘The situation is extremely desperate... humanitarian access and supplies remain severely restricted,’ the medics tell Bel Trew
Wife of journalist killed in Gaza wears husband’s press vest as she continues his work
The wife of a Palestinian journalist described how she feels close to her husband by wearing his press vest as she continues his work in Gazaunder Israeli bombardment.
Filmmaker Shrouq Aila spoke to BBC Panorama for the programme’s episode commemorating the first anniversary of the October 7 attack.
Her husband, journalist Roshdi Sarraj, was hit in the head by shrapnel after an Israeli strike hit his family home in Gaza City and died of his injuries.
Ms Aila decided to carry on her husband’s work documenting the strikes.
She told the BBC: “Every time I wear the vest I remember my husband.
“It crosses my mind lots of times that Dania might lose me the same way she lost her father.”
Wife of journalist killed in Gaza wears husband’s press vest as she continues work
The wife of a Palestinian journalist described how she feels close to her husband by wearing his press vest as she continues his work in Gaza under Israeli bombardment. Filmmaker Shrouq Aila spoke to BBC Panorama for the programme's episode commemorating the first anniversary of the October 7 attack. Her husband, journalist Roshdi Sarraj, was hit in the head by shrapnel after an Israeli strike hit his family home in Gaza City and died of his injuries. Ms Aila decided to carry on her husband's work documenting the strikes. She told the BBC: "Every time I wear the vest I remember my husband. "It crosses my mind lots of times that Dania might lose me the same way she lost her father."
Israel state ceremony performs dramatisation of moment October 7 attack begins
A dramatisation of the moment the October 7 attack began was performed at an official Israeli state memorial on the first anniversary.
Video played during the pre-recorded ceremony displayed the date as 7 October 2023 and the time as 6am.
Women in white dresses danced to heavy music before screaming was heard and gunfire sounds played.
Later in the sequence, the dancers fell to the floor.
On Monday, Israel marked one year since Hamas‘ attack, during which the group killed around 1,200 people and took 251 more hostage in Gaza, 101 of which remain in the enclave.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have since been killed by Israel’s retaliatory air and ground attack in Gaza, according to the local, Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel state ceremony performs dramatisation of moment October 7 attack begins
A dramatisation of the moment the October 7 attack began was performed at an official Israeli state memorial on the first anniversary. Video played during the pre-recorded ceremony displayed the date as 7 October 2023 and the time as 6am. Women in white dresses danced to heavy music before screaming was heard and gunfire sounds played. Later in the sequence, the dancers fell to the floor. On Monday, Israel marked one year since Hamas' attack, during which the group killed around 1,200 people and took 251 more hostage in Gaza, 101 of which remain in the enclave. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have since been killed by Israel’s retaliatory air and ground attack in Gaza, according to the local, Hamas-run health ministry.
Mother of sole British hostage in Gaza pleas for help and her safe return
The mother of the sole British hostage still in Gaza a year after she was taken by Hamas has pleaded for her safe return, saying: “I need her back with me now, alive, before it is too late for her.”
Mandy Damari’s plea for her daughter Emily, 28, and the other hostages, was made in a recorded message played on Monday at an evening of commemoration and reflection of the October 7 attacks on Israel.
To an audience which included Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis and former prime minister Rishi Sunak, she said that the recent news of six hostages being murdered in the tunnels beneath Gaza is a “horror beyond imaginable”.
She added: “We have clear photographic evidence of the conditions which Emily and the other hostages are likely living in.
“It is a desperate and living hell.
“I am a mother and it goes against every grain of my being to profess that I need help with the child that I know best, the child that I brought into this world, but I do so desperately need help and I ask you for it now.
“I have always believed in the power of prayer but more importantly, the power of collective prayer.”
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