Israel-Lebanon latest: Israel on high alert as Hezbollah confirms leader Hassan Nasrallah killed in Beirut strike

Israel has maintained a heavy barrage of airstrikes against Hezbollah this morning and Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets toward Israel – as the country’s military claimed to have killed the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.

And the Israeli military said it was mobilising three additional battalions of reserve soldiers, after earlier sending two brigades to northern Israel earlier in the week to train for a possible ground invasion.

Israel's military claims to have killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike in Beirut today.

The military said that it carried out a precise airstrike while Hezbollah leadership met at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.

Ali Karki, the Commander of Hezbollah's Southern Front, and additional Hezbollah commanders, were also killed in the attack, the Israeli military said.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said that six people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes – which levelled six apartment buildings.

The Israeli army today claimed it eliminated the head of the Palestinian Hamas’s network in southern Syria, whom it referred to as Ahmad Muhammad Fahd.

The military said Fahd was responsible for directing attacks on troops through mostly rockets fired on Golan Heights. “Fahad was eliminated while he was planning to carry out another terror attack in the immediate time frame,” Israel said.

An Israeli strike hit the Lebanese mountain town of Bhamdoun, southeast of Beirut, early this morning, a Lebanese lawmaker for the area Mark Daou said.

He told Reuters that the extent of damage was not immediately clear.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has led the Lebanese militant group for the past three decades and transformed it into one of the most powerful paramilitary groups in the Middle East.

Israeli airstrikes yesterday knocked out six buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb of Harek Hreik, the largest strike in the Lebanese capital in nearly a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said the strike, which killed and wounded dozens of people, hit the headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut. Three major Israeli TV channels said Nasrallah was the target of the strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which has not been officially confirmed by Israel. Hezbollah officials did not comment.

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The Israeli military launched a fresh wave of pre-dawn attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon today.

Israel Defence Force warned residents living near “Hezbollah interests” in the Dahiyeh district of southern Beirut to evacuate immediately by at least 500m.

The military claims it attacked Hezbollah “in the Bekaa, deep in Lebanon”. It also bombed Burj el-Barajneh, al-Kafaat, Hadath, Laylaki, Choueifat, and Ghobeiry areas in southern Beirut, as well as targets near Beirut airport, Al Jazeera reported.

Police in Norway are searching for an Indian-origin Norwegian man in connection with the sale of pagers to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that exploded last week.

At least 39 people, including children, were killed and 3,000 injured after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon in what is widely suspected to have been an Israeli attack.

Authorities have issued an international search warrant for Rinson Jose, the 39-year-old founder of a Bulgarian company that is alleged to be part of the pager supply chain.

Mr Jose’s company claimed he had been missing since traveling to Boston last week for a conference. “I can confirm that we have an employee who went to a conference in Boston whom we have been unable to contact since Wednesday last week,” Amund Djuve, chief executive of DN Media group, told Onmanorama.

The UK has joined the US and France and several other allies in calling for a 21-day ceasefire in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

At least 720 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon this week, as Israel carried out an extensive bombing campaign days after a pair of attacks caused pagers and walkie-talkies to explode.

The UK, US, France, have been joined by nine other countries – Australia, Canada, European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar – in calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon.

In a joint statement, they described the situation in Lebanon as “intolerable” and in “nobody’s interest”.

“It is time to conclude a diplomatic settlement that enables civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes in safety,” the statement said.

Alex Croft has more.

At least 720 people, including dozens of women and children, have been killed in Israel’s week-long airstrike on Lebanon, the country’s health ministry said.

The Israeli military has struck Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut in a series of massive explosions that targeted the leader of the militant group and leveled multiple high-rise apartment buildings.

The biggest blast to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year appeared likely to push the escalating conflict closer to full-fledged war, and at least six people were killed and 91 were wounded, according to Lebanon officials.

The toll is likely to rise significantly as teams are still combing through the rubble of six buildings.