Hezbollah on Sunday confirmed the death of high-ranking official Nabil Kaouk in an Israeli airstrike, a day after the Lebanese militant group acknowledged the killings of multiple commanders, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the militants’ recent attacks, and is continuing to carry out strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the number of people displaced by the conflict from southern Lebanon has more than doubled and now stands at more than 211,000, according to the United Nations.
Hezbollah and Israel have traded near-daily strikes since the Israel-Hamas war started after the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group stormed into Israel almost a year ago on Oct. 7, sparking fears of regional war.
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An apparent Israeli airstrike hit central Beirut early Monday, for the first time in nearly a year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, witnesses said.
The strike near the Cola intersection, a major transportation hub, hit a multi-story residential building, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene. Videos from the scene showed ambulances and a crowd gathered under the building, where the strike appeared to have targeted one apartment.
In the past week, Israel has frequently targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has a strong presence - including a major strike on Friday that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah - but had not hit locations near the city center. The area where the strike took place is a primary Sunni district with a busy thoroughfare lined with shops and residentials buildings.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials.
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President Joe Biden says he will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and believes an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided.
“It has to be,” Biden told reporters Sunday as he boarded Air Force One for Washington. “We really have to avoid it.”
Biden would not say when he planned to speak with the Israeli leader.
Biden’s remarks came after Iran’s president said Sunday that a “decisive response” was needed following a string of heavy blows in recent days against the Hezbollah militant group, including the killing of its overall leader, Hassan Nasrallah, by Israel.
The White House sees the death of Nasrallah as a major setback to Iran-backed Hezbollah. But the administration has sought to tread carefully in hopes of preventing an even broader regional conflict.
TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli army has eased restrictions in parts of the country’s north even as it continued on Sunday to strike targets in neighboring Lebanon.
The changes applied to parts of the Haifa Bay area and several adjacent towns. Schools will be allowed to operate if they have quickly-accessible shelters and restrictions on gatherings will ease.
The loosening of restrictions appears to reflect a determination that the threat of incoming rocket fire has slightly diminished, though restrictions in the north remain much stricter than other parts of the country.
Shortly after the announcement, sirens warned of incoming rockets throughout the Haifa area and Israel’s northern coast. Israeli police said fragments of interceptors fell in several sites but no injuries were reported.
Earlier, the army said some 35 rockets were launched from Lebanon at northern Israel and two drones that crossed from Lebanon into the territorial waters of Israel were intercepted.
Thousands of Israeli students have been kept home from schools for the past week across the country’s north as fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah escalated.
Israeli strikes on a Houthi-controlled city in Yemen on Sunday killed at least 4 people and wounded 33 others, Houthi-run media reported.
The dead include a worker at the port in the city of Hodeida and three engineers at the city's Hali power plant, al-Masirah TV reported. Rescue teams were still searching for missing people under the rubble at the plant.
The Houthis said the strikes hit the Hodeida and Rass Issa ports along with two power plants in Hodeida, which is a stronghold for the Iranian-backed rebels.
The strikes came a day after Houthis launched a missile attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion airport as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arriving.
TEHRAN — Iran’s president said Sunday that a “decisive response” was needed following Israel’s killing of numerous leaders of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in recent days.
President Masoud Pezeshkian characterized the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah as crimes.
“The Lebanese fighters should not be left alone in this battle,” Pezeshkian said during a Sunday cabinet meeting, his office reported.
Iran has armed and trained Hezbollah for decades and relied on it to put pressure on Israel, its chief regional rival.
Iran on Sunday also condemned Israeli airstrikes against power plants and port facilities in Yemen that targeted Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Pezeshkian called Israel a brutal regime and urged all Islamic countries not to be indifferent. And he criticized Western countries over a promised cease-fire in the region after Iran did not respond to the killing of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
“The claims by the United States and European countries’ leaders, who promised a ceasefire in exchange for Iran’s non-response to the assassination of martyr Haniyeh, were complete lies,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin on Sunday appointed a former rival, Gideon Saar, as a member of his Cabinet.
The move expands Netanyahu’s governing coalition and helps entrench the Israeli leader in office.
Under their agreement, Netanyahu said, Saar will be given a spot in the Security cabinet, the body that oversees the management of the ongoing war.
Saar had hoped to replace Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, another rival of Netanyahu’s. But a deal to become defense minister fell through several weeks ago after fighting intensified with Hezbollah.
BEIRUT – Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least 24 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes that hit two buildings in the country’s south.
The consecutive strikes Sunday on Ain el-Delb, east of Sidon, were caught on camera by neighbors in the area. The Health Ministry said the strikes also injured at least 29 people.
In video verified by The Associated Press, one strike caused a huge plume of smoke. The second one hit an adjacent building, causing to sway and then collapse.
Separately, the Health Ministry said Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and injured at least 47.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s military says dozens of aircraft have struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the militants’ recent attacks on Israel.
The military says it targeted power plants and sea port facilities in the city of Hodeida.
The Houthi media office said the Israeli strikes hit the Hodeida and Rass Issa ports along with two power plants in Hodeida city, which is a stronghold for the Iranian-backed rebels. Fire and plumes of smoke could be seen in the air over Hodeida after the strikes.
The group said it had taken precautionary measures and Israel’s strikes would not stop Houthi attacks on shipping routes and on Israel.
The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arriving on a flight from the United States.
DAMASCUS, Syria – The United Nations’ refugee agency says 70,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria to escape Israeli bombardment.
The total includes both Lebanese citizens and Syrians who had moved to Lebanon but are now returning.
Sarah Haj Hassan fled Shmustar near Lebanon’s eastern city of Baalbek, on Saturday after intense Israeli strikes.
She’s one of some 7,500 people who has registered in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb of Damascus.
“I lost my house, and my parents’ house was damaged,” she told The Associated Press. “At the end of the day, we need to care for our children.”
ROME -- Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto says he hopes the presence of Italian soldiers in Lebanon as part of peacekeeping missions will encourage de-escalation.
Crosetto said Sunday that “the presence of our military is an element of guarantee that we hope can induce the parties to de-escalation, creating the conditions to reopen the dialogue and start mediation.”
Italy has troops in Lebanon as part of the United Nations mission known as UNIFIL and a bilateral mission, MIBIL.
Crosetto said Italy has arrangements in place to evacuate Italian civilians from Lebanon if the situation deteriorates.
WASHINGTON -- A senior White House official says Israel has “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure with a barrage of airstrikes, but warned that the militant group will work to quickly rebuild.
National security spokesman John Kirby said “they will try to recover. We’re watching to see what they do to try to fill this leadership vacuum.”
Referring to the strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Kirby said, “I think people are safer without him walking around.” But, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” he sidestepped questions about whether the administration agreed with how the Israelis are going about targeting Hezbollah leaders. Lebanese officials say the strikes have killed many civilians.
The White House continues to call on Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day temporary cease-fire that was floated by the U.S., France and other countries last week, but rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
BEIRUT -- Hezbollah has confirmed the death of high-ranking official Nabil Kaouk in an Israeli airstrike, the seventh senior commander killed in just over a week.
The Israeli military had earlier said it killed Kaouk in a strike in a southern Beirut suburb on Saturday.
Kaouk was deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central Council. He also served as Hezbollah’s military commander in south Lebanon from 1995 until 2010.
He is the seventh senior leader of the Lebanese militant group to be killed since Sept. 20, including Hassan Nasrallah, who was Hezbollah’s top leader for more than three decades.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say an Israeli airstrike has killed at least four people in a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike Sunday on Hamas militants who were using the Umm al-Fahm school in the northern town of Beit Lahiya as a command-and-control center, without providing evidence.
The Civil Defense, first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, confirmed the toll and said several others were wounded. It did not say whether those killed and wounded were civilians or combatants.
Footage circulating online showed first responders racing into the damaged school. They could be seen treating a woman and a minor who had burns on his hand.
Israel has repeatedly struck schools-turned-shelters in Gaza, accusing militants of hiding out in them.
Some 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced by the nearly yearlong war, with hundreds of thousands living in shuttered schools or squalid tent camps.
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Vice-President Mohammad Javad Zarif says Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will decide on a response to Israel’s strikes in Lebanon “at the appropriate time.”
The semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying that “Iran’s reaction will be done at the appropriate time and according to Iran’s choice against the crimes of the Zionist regime, and decisions will be made at the leadership and high level of the government in this regard.”
Zarif made the comments when he attended Hezbollah’s office in Tehran to express condolences over the killing of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday.
BEIRUT – The U.S. military says it killed 37 militants linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in two strikes in Syria this month.
U.S. Central Command said it struck northwestern Syria on Tuesday targeting a senior militant in charge of military operations for the al-Qaida-linked Hurras al-Deen group and eight others.
It also said a large-scale airstrike on Sept. 16 targeted an IS training camp in a remote location in central Syria. That attack killed 28 militants including “at least four Syrian leaders,” the U.S. said.
There are some 900 U.S. forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory.
BEIRUT — Hezbollah has confirmed the death of a senior commander in charge of its southern front.
The Lebanese militant group says Ali Karaki was killed in an intense Israeli airstrike on Friday that also killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut.
It says Karaki was responsible for all of Hezbollah’s units in southern Lebanon in the ongoing conflict with Israel.
He is among a handful of senior officials in the militant group killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in recent days.
The Israeli military said Sunday that it killed another high-ranking Hezbollah official, Nabil Kaouk, in an airstrike on Saturday.
BEIRUT — The World Food Program says it has launched an emergency operation to provide food to up to 1 million people displaced by violence in Lebanon.
The U.N. agency said Sunday it distributes ready-to-eat food rations, bread, hot meals and food parcels to families in shelters across the country.
The agency says it needs $105 million to help it continue the work until the end of the year and has urged the international community to support the humanitarian response.
Corinne Fleischer, the agency’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, said: “Lebanon is at a breaking point and cannot endure another war.”
Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said the government estimates that about 250,000 people are in shelters while four times as many may be displaced outside the shelters.
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the “horrific” killing of General Abbas Nilforushan wouldn’t “go unanswered,” the foreign ministry’s website reported Sunday.
Nilforushan, a senior officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was killed in the same Israeli strike on Beirut Friday that targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Araghchi called the killing a “horrible and cowardly act” and vowed to use all political, diplomatic, legal, and international channels to pursue those behind it and their supporters.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has uncovered and dismantled a Hamas tunnel in central Gaza that was over a kilometer (0.6 miles) long.
It said Sunday that the tunnel ran near residential buildings, and that inside were several rooms and equipment used by militants for prolonged stays.
The military released footage showing the entrance to the tunnel, a long staircase leading down and what appeared to be an iron blast door.
Hamas is believed to have built hundreds of kilometers (miles) of tunnels across Gaza to evade Israeli airstrikes. The militants have also used the tunnels to hold hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war and to launch ambushes against Israeli forces.
CAIRO – Egypt’s president says its revenues from the Suez Canal have dropped by 60%, or more than $6 billion, in recent months as attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels disrupt Red Sea shipping.
The canal is a major source of foreign currency for Egypt’s battered economy.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi spoke during a graduation ceremony Sunday at the Police Academy in Cairo.
“The ongoing developments are very serious and could lead to expanding the conflict’s theater,” he said.
Attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis have led shipping firms to divert traffic around the Red Sea and, by extension, the Suez Canal linking it to the Mediterranean.
The Israeli military said it killed Nabil Kaouk, a high-ranking Hezbollah official, in a strike in a southern Beirut suburb on Saturday.
Sunday's announcement came a day after Hezbollah confirmed the killing of leader Hassan Nasrallah. There was no immediate comment from the Lebanese militant group.
Kaouk is the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central Council. He also served as Hezbollah’s military commander in south Lebanon from 1995 until 2010.
In 2020, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Kaouk and another member of Hezbollah’s council, Hassan al-Baghdadi.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes have killed at least four people in the Gaza Strip.
Two people were killed in separate strikes early Sunday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. That’s according to the nearby Awda Hospital, which received the bodies. It said another six people were wounded.
In northern Gaza, first responders recovered two bodies after a strike on a house early Sunday, according to the Civil Defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
The Gaza Health Ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, more than half of them women and children. It does not say how many of those killed were militants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Around 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
BAGHDAD — A number of Iran-backed militants were killed and wounded in eastern Syria early Sunday near a strategic border crossing with Iraq in apparent airstrikes, media and the militant groups said.
Two officials from Iran-backed Iraqi militias said the nine dead militiamen and 10 others wounded were all Syrian nationals in groups backed by Tehran.
The militants, who spoke on condition on anonymity in accordance with regulations, said the five airstrikes hit a military headquarters, a radar installation near the Deir el-Zour airport, and several sites near the strategic Boukamal crossing on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
Pan-Arab television network Al-Mayadeen said Israeli jets were behind the strikes, without saying how it had determined that.
--Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad
BEIRUT — Lebanon's Environment Minister Nasser Yassin says about 250,000 people have left their homes and taken refuge in government-run shelters and informal ones amid the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. But he told the Associated Press the total number displaced is about “four times as many."
The United Nations said that as of Friday, 211,319 people were forced to relocate, and that was before some intensive Israeli airstrikes over Beirut’s southern suburbs in recent days.
The Lebanese government has converted schools and other facilities into temporary shelters. Still, many are sleeping on the streets or in public squares, as the government and non-governmental organizations try to find them places to stay.
TEHRAN, Iran — Thousands of people have gathered across Iran to protest the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike.
State TV aired footage of protests in several major cities on Sunday. At Iran’s parliament, lawmakers chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Iran helped establish Hezbollah in the 1980s and has provided the Lebanese militant group with sophisticated weaponry and training.
The airstrike that killed Nasrallah on Friday also killed Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, a senior officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Guard officially confirmed Nilforushan’s death on its website Sunday, after it had been widely reported in state media the day before.
BEIRUT — In its first statement since the recent escalation with Israel and following the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon's military called for calm “at this dangerous and delicate stage."
Government officials fear that the country’s deep political divisions at a time of war could rekindle sectarian strife and violence in the small Mediterranean country.
“The Israeli enemy is working to implement its destructive plans and spread division among the Lebanese,” the military said.
Military vehicles have been deployed in different parts of the capital as thousands of displaced people continue moving from the south to Beirut.