Israel-Lebanon - latest: Six dead in strike on Beirut that Israeli military says killed Hezbollah commander
The Israeli strike hit Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh district, after 558 people including 50 children in Lebanon were killed since Monday
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A Hezbollah commander has been killed in an airstrike on Beirut, Israel has claimed.
The commander was named by the Israeli military as Ibrahim Qubaisi, a leading figure in Hezbollah’s rocket division.
Lebanese security sources also said Qubaisi was killed in a strike on Beirut, according to Reuters news agency
Six people were killed and 15 injured in the strike, according to the Lebanese health ministry. It hit the typically-busy southern Dahiyeh district of the capital.
Israeli forces confirmed that a Hezbollah commander had been a target of the strike, but have not said whether their target was killed.
It is the second consecutive day that Israel has struck the Hezbollah-controlled area of the capital, as it turns its focus north.
It comes after Lebanese authorities said the death toll has reached 558 including 50 children since Israel launched fresh strikes on Monday, according to the country’s health minister.
A fresh wave of strikes began on Tuesday, after Monday saw the deadliest day of strikes in Lebanon in nearly two decades of the conflict.
Thousands of residents were pictured fleeing southern Lebanon in loaded cars, vans and trucks. Highways north were gridlocked.
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Pictured: Medics and authorities gather after Beirut strike
Israel carrying out ‘extensive’ strikes
The Israeli military has said it is carrying out “extensive strikes” on Hezbollah targets around Lebanon.
At least 564 people have been killed, including 50 children and 94 women, since Israel began a heavy round of strikes in southern Lebanon on Monday.
The military did not provide further detail on the strikes currently being conducted.
Israel-Hezbollah conflict timeline: Everything that’s happened since 7 October
Fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah are growing, with the Israeli military launching fresh strikes on Lebanon after the deadliest day for the country since at least 2006.
A rapid escalation has taken place following a series of exploding device attacks last week, in which pagers and walkie talkies blew up around Lebanon. Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the attack. Israel has not commented.
Fifty children are among the 558 dead so far this week following Israeli strikes on Lebanon.
The Independent takes a look at the recent timeline of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and an ally of Hamas in Gaza:
Israel-Hezbollah conflict timeline: Everything that’s happened since 7 October
Strikes between Hezbollah and Israel are ramping up, fuelling fears of an all-out war
Two UN staff killed in strikes on Lebanon
Two UN refugee agency workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon on Monday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.
Dina Darwiche, who lived with her family and had worked with the agency for 12 years, was killed alongside her son, AP reported. Their bodies were recovered from the rubble today.
The strike, in Lebanon’s Bekaa region, also seriously injured her husband and another child.
Ali Basma who worked for the UNHCR as a cleaner in UNHCR’s Tyre office for seven years, was killed in a separate strike.
Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said: “Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon are now relentlessly claiming hundreds of civilian lives. And I am very saddened to confirm that two UNHCR colleagues were also killed yesterday.
“On behalf of all us at UNHCR, heartfelt condolences to their families, friends and colleagues.”
The UNHCR said it was “outraged and deeply saddened by the killing of two beloved members of the UNHCR family in Lebanon”.
Strikes in Lebanon will continue, Netanyahu says
In an update posted on X, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the military will continue striking Hezbollah targets.
"Our war is not with you, our war is with Hezbollah,” he told Lebanese citizens.
Hezbollah is “leading you to the brink of the abyss... Rid yourself from Nasrallah’s grip, for your own good,” he added.
Netanyahu added that "anyone who has a missile in their living room and a rocket in their garage will not have a home".
Biden says diplomatic solution is “possible” in final UN address
Speaking at his final UN summit, President Joe Biden said full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah is “not in anyone’s interest”.
Biden says the US has been working to bring “peace and stability” to the region, calling for a ceasefire agreement to be signed between Israel and Hamas as it nears one year since Israel invaded Gaza following the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
He added that the US is determined to prevent a wider war across the Middle East.
“Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest … A diplomatic solution is still possible. In fact, it remains the only path to lasting security,” Biden told the summit.
Israel says it has killed senior Hezbollah commander
The Israeli military has echoed reports that Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Qubaisi was killed in a strike on Beirut.
The news was first reported by two Lebanese security sources via Reuters news agency.
According to the Times of IsraeI’s military correspondent, Israeli forces said Qubaisi was killed in an airstrike by two fighter jets in the southern Dahiyeh suburb.
It added that other senior officers in Hezbollah’s rocket division were in the apartment when Qubaisi was killed.
Six people were killed and 15 people injured, Reuters reported.
Mapped: Where have Israel’s missiles hit Lebanon as nearly 500 die in one day
Israel says Hezbollah has launched some 9,000 rockets and drones into Israel since last October, and has increased its capacity to 150,000 rockets in total.
Below, we look at where the strikes have hit over the past few days.
The Independent’s Tom Watling reports:
Mapped: Where have Israel’s missiles hit Lebanon as nearly 500 die in one day
Israel claims Hezbollah hides rockets and weaponry in residential areas; Lebanon’s health ministry accuses Israel of hitting hospitals and homes
UN Chief: “We can’t go on like this”
António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, said we “can’t go on like this” as the General Assembly’s annual debate between world leaders began.
A growing number of countries believe they should have a “get out of jail free” card, Guterres said according to Reuters.
Guterres did not specify which countries he was referring to, but said: “They can trample international law. They can violate the United Nations Charter.
“They can invade another country, lay waste to whole societies, or utterly disregard the welfare of their own people.
“And nothing will happen. The level of impunity in the world is politically indefensible and morally intolerable.”
Guterres also spoke on Lebanon specifically, stating that Lebanese and Israelis “cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.”
Many children ‘missing under rubble’, UNICEF says
After the deadliest day of airstrikes in Lebanon since 2006, UNICEF warns that many children remain “missing under rubble” and stuck “on dangerous roads”.
More children were killed in Lebanon on Monday than in the entire year leading up to it, UNICEF Deputy Representative for Lebanon Ettie Higgins told a UN briefing, according to CNN.
The UN’s children’s agency said it had received reports of Lebanese children sleeping in cars and on the sides of roads after being displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon.
“We’re also getting reports that hundreds of children are caught en route across dangerous roads across the country.
“If we return to a conflict like those dark days of 2006, we really fear as UNICEF that this time, it could be even worse for the children of Lebanon,” Higgins stressed.
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