Israel-Lebanon latest: Sirens heard as Israel intercepts ‘projectiles’ on anniversary 7 October attacks
Relatives march in Jerusalem to urge Israeli PM to bring hostages home
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Sirens have sounded in central Israel after five projectiles were launched from Lebanon on the anniversary of the 7 October attacks.
The Israeli military said some of the projectiles, which were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory, were intercepted, while the rest fell in open areas.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah later issued a statement saying it launched a missile operation targeting a military intelligence unit near Tel Aviv.
Earlier, the Israeli military said it would launch operations on Lebanon’s southern coast as it told residents on a 60-kilometre stretch along the Mediterranean to stay off the beaches.
More than 2,080 have been reported killed in total, and a further 9,869 wounded, since Israel began its bombing operations in Lebanon last month.
On Monday, Israeli citizens marked the anniversary of Hamas’s deadly 7 October attacks, during which 1,205 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. Of those, 101 remain in Gaza. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have since been killed by Israel’s retaliatory air and ground attacks, according to the local, Hamas-run health ministry.
Families of the hostages marched to Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Monday to demand the Israeli prime minister make a deal to bring them home.
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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
Fourth flight leaves Beirut
The fourth charter flight for Britons wanting to leave Lebanon has left Beirut, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said.
In a post on X on Sunday evening, the FCDO said that in the last week the UK has “helped over 430 people to leave Lebanon”.
“Our fourth UK charter flight has now left Beirut. Due to reduced demand, no further flights are scheduled, but we will continue to monitor the situation closely,” the post said.
Hamas claims Israel still blocking ceasefire agreement nearly year on from October 7
A year since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel is still blocking a ceasefire agreement despite Hamas’s flexibility, Hamas chief negotiator and deputy Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya said in a televised speech shown on Hamas Aqsa television on Sunday.
He urged countries to stop what he called their “double-standards” over Gaza and Lebanon.
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