Israel-Lebanon latest: Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa as Israel on high alert for October 7 anniversary
Israel authorities said they were on the lookout for attacks timed to coincide with the October 7 anniversary
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Hezbollah rockets hit Israel’s third-largest city of Haifa on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack, in the first direct strike on the northern city that evaded the military’s usually reliable air defence systems.
Hezbollah said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with a salvo of “Fadi 1” missiles. Two rockets hit Haifa and five hit Tiberias, according to Israeli media.
Israel is on high alert today for possible attacks, military spokesperson Admiral Daniel Hagari said. “We are ready with increased forces in anticipation for this day,” he added.
Thousands of Israelis are holding vigils and somber ceremonies to mark a year since Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 250 others hostage. The attack triggered a war in Gaza, where Israel killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run Strip.
Israel intensified its airstrikes on Gaza and Lebanon on the eve of the anniversary, with fireballs and loud booms seen over the darkened skyline of Beirut.
Palestinian officials said a strike on a mosque in Gaza earlier in the day killed at least 19 people.
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Israel pounds south Beirut and launches new offensive in north Gaza as war anniversary looms
Four Gaza hostage families torn apart by 7 October: ‘I’m screaming for the world to help’
365 days of horror since 7 October: The Gaza war in numbers
One year on from the horrors of 7 October, Israel must work to secure a peaceful future
One year after the atrocities committed by Hamas, 7 October 2023 remains a date that will live in infamy. It is a moment to remember and commemorate all those innocents who lost their lives and suffered terrible injuries, who were taken hostage and orphaned, and who suffered other bereavements then and in the wars that have followed and continue still.
There are more than 40,000 dead in Gaza, and thousands more elsewhere as there seems no end to the slaughter. Gaza has been reduced to rubble, and everywhere there is disease and starvation. These are the facts of this war.
One year on from 7 October, Israel must work to secure a peaceful future
Editorial: A ceasefire now would help restore some measure of calm and trust across an incredibly volatile Middle East
Israel intensifies bombing of Gaza and Lebanon
Israel bombed targets in Lebanon and Gaza on the eve of the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked its war on the Strip.
Hezbollah rockets launched last night got past Israeli air defence systems and landed in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, causing damage to buildings, police said. Israeli media reported 10 people wounded in rocket strikes in Haifa and the city of Tiberias.
Israeli air strikes battered Beirut’s southern suburbs yesterday in the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Iran-backed group Hezbollah last month.
Large fireballs lit the darkened skyline and booms reverberated across Beirut.
PM says ‘we must stand with Jewish community’ as he marks October 7 anniversary
Sir Keir Starmer has said that “we must unequivocally stand with the Jewish community” and reiterated his calls for a ceasefire as he marked the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
Monday is one year since the Hamas attacks in Israel, which triggered Israel’s subsequent conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
Sir Keir described October 7 2023 as “the darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust” and said that “collective grief has not diminished” in the year since.
“Over a thousand people were brutally murdered. Men, women, children and babies killed, mutilated, and tortured by the terrorists of Hamas. Jewish people murdered whilst protecting their families, young people massacred at a music festival, people abducted from their homes,” the Prime Minister said.
“Agonising reports of rape, torture and brutality beyond comprehension which continued to emerge days and weeks later.
“As a father, a husband, a son, a brother – meeting the families of those who lost their loved ones last week was unimaginable. Their grief and pain are ours, and it is shared in homes across the land.
“A year on, that collective grief has not diminished or waned.”
More than 30 strikes on Beirut overnight - casualties unclear
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 30 strikes overnight into Sunday.
Israel’s military confirmed it was striking targets near Beirut and said about 130 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
“It was very difficult. All of us in Beirut could hear everything,” resident Haytham Al-Darazi said.
Another resident, Maxime Jawad, called it “a night of terror.”One strike killed three sisters and their aunt in the coastal village of Jiyyeh. “This is a civilian home, and the biggest evidence is those martyred are four women,” said a neighbour, Ali Al Hajj.
19 killed at mosque strike in Gaza
An Israeli airstrike hit a mosque in central Gaza and Palestinian officials said at least 19 people were killed early Sunday.
The strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. Another four people were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people near the town. The Israeli military said both strikes targeted militants, without providing evidence.
Ten injured in strikes on Haifa
Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, Israeli police said early on Monday, and Israeli media reported 10 people were injured in the country’s north.
Hezbollah said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with a salvo of “Fadi 1” missiles. Media reports said two rockets hit Haifa.
Police said that some buildings and properties were damaged, and that there were several reports of minor injuries.
Israel bombards southern Beirut
Beirut’s skyline lit up again late Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh since it escalated its air campaign on September 23.
It was not immediately clear if there were casualties.Israel confirmed the strikes and says it targets Hezbollah.
UK advises against all travel to Israel and Gaza
Britain advised citizens on Sunday against all travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) due to a heightened state of tension and violent clashes in the region.
“FCDO advises against all travel to the area close to the border with Gaza and all but essential travel to the rest of Israel and the OPTs,” it said.
It came as the fourth and final charter flight for Britons wanting to leave Lebanon has left Beirut.
Who is Esmail Qaani?
Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani has not been heard from since Israeli strikes on Beirut late last week. Qaani travelled to Lebanon after the killing last month of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike.
Here are some facts about Qaani:
- Tehran named Qaani the head of the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ overseas military-intelligence service after the United States assassinated his predecessor Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
- Part of Qaani’s task in that post has been to manage Tehran’s paramilitary allies across the Middle East, as well as in other regions around the world.
- According to people familiar with both Qaani and Soleimani, as well as Western military and political analysts, Qaani has never commanded the same respect as his predecessor Soleimani or maintained the same close relationships among Iran’s allies in the Arab world.
- While Soleimani held the reins of the Quds Force during a time when Iran’s proxies - from Lebanese Hezbollah to Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim militias to the Houthis of Yemen - grew their power in the Middle East, Qaani has presided over their battering at the hands of Israeli spies and warplanes.
- Qaani became deputy commander of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in 1997 when Soleimani became the Force’s chief commander.
- Qaani, 67, was born in Mashhad, a conservative Shi’ite Muslim religious city in northeastern Iran. He fought for the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
- Qaani has also had experience of overseas operations beyond Iran’s eastern borders, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. He does not speak Arabic, unlike Soleimani who spoke fluently with Iraqi militias and Hezbollah commanders.
Hezbollah official says Israel obstructing search for missing senior leader
Israel is not allowing a search for senior Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine to progress after it bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday, a Hezbollah official said on Sunday.
Safieddine’s fate remains unclear.
The group’s political official Mahmoud Qmati told Iraqi state television that picking a new Hezbollah head would take some time.
Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who travelled to Lebanon after the killing last month of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike, has not been heard from since strikes on Beirut late last week, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters.
One of the officials said Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, during a strike that was reported to
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