Israel-Hezbollah latest: Netanyahu says would-be Hezbollah leader Safieddine killed in airstrike

British intelligence is facing a “hell of a job” over rising threats from Iran and Russia, as well as the resurgence of Isis and Al-Qaeda, the head of MI5 has warned.

A day after Sir Keir Starmer called on the international community to focus on the “malign” regime in Iran, which supports proxies across the Middle East including Hamas and Hezbollah, Ken McCallum said British intelligence has thwarted 20 Tehran-backed plots that “presented potentially lethal threats to British citizens” since the start of 2022.

With fears growing of all-out war across the Middle East with Israel expanding a ground invasion in Lebanon against Hezbollah and a year-long war in Gaza against Hamas, after the 7 October terror attack, the director general of MI5 said British intelligence were “powerfully alive to the risk that events in the Middle East directly trigger terrorist action in the UK”.

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Hezbollah has signalled an interest in a ceasefire with Israel after the group’s leadership was wiped out and the Israeli military pusher further into southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said he supported attempts to secure a truce, and for the first time did not mention the end of war in Gaza as a pre-condition to halting combat on the Lebanon-Israel border.

Qassem said he supported attempts by Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri to seek a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

“We support the political activity being led by Berri under the title of a ceasefire,” Qassem said in his 30-minute televised address.

Relatives of hostages still held in Gaza marched to Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem at dawn, blaring an air raid siren to mark the exact time of the Hamas attack a year ago that altered so many lives forever, while warning they “won’t let [Netanyahu] rest until all of them are back”.

In the hopes of getting the Israeli prime minister’s attention, hundreds gathered outside his residence with a desperate plea for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

They sounded the haunting air raid siren for two minutes at 6.29am – the minute the act of terror by Hamas began, an attack which resulted in the killing of around 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251. An estimated 97 remain in Gaza, with the fate of most of them unknown.

Hezbollah has launched an “unprecedented” rocket attack on northern Israel as the Israeli military pushed further into southern Lebanon on Tuesday.

The Shia militia fired over 100 missiles across the area of Haifa, a port city just 26 miles from the border between Israel and Lebanon, the Israeli military said.

The mayor of Kiryat Motzkin, which is nearby Haifa, described the scale of the barrage - largely intercepted by Israel’s air defence - as unprecedented.

The Israeli military’s Golani Brigade has claimed to have taken control of a Hezbollah outpost overlooking northern Israel.

The compound, in the southern Lebanese village of Maroun El Ras, is just north of the Israel-Lebanon blue line.

“The Hezbollah combat compound included a residential building and an olive grove, where a launcher, loaded and ready to fire at communities in northern Israel, was found,” the Israeli military said.

It also claimed a stockpile of weapons including guns, camouflage nets, rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles were found at the outpost.

Around 20 Hezbollah rockets have been fired across northern Israel over the last hour, the Israeli military said.

A number of projectiles were intercepted. Fallen projectiles were identified in the area, the Israeli military added.

The situation in Lebanon is getting worse by the day, the European Union’s foreign chief Josep Borrell told the European Parliament on Tuesday, adding a ceasefire should be achieved.

According to figures, some 20 per cent of the Lebanese population had been forced to move amid the conflict, he said.

Up to 1.2million people have been displaced across Lebanon and more than 2,080 have been reported killed in total, and a further 9,869 wounded, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israel has claimed the invasion is necessary to destroy Hezbollah’s bases of operations and push the militia out of southern Lebanon, stopping the group’s near-daily rocket fire into northern Israel since 7 October.

Head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command Major General Ori Gordin wants to clear Hezbollah from the border to create a “buffer zone,” which would allow the evacuated Israelis to return home.

Since the Israeli offensive of Lebanon began last month 2,080 people have been killed and a further 9,869 wounded, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Around 1.2million Lebanese people have been displaced across Lebanon since last October - 90 per cent of which have been over the last few weeks, according to the UN.

NHS medics volunteering in Gaza have warned of the “catastrophic” collapse of the healthcare system one year into the war, as they described trying to treat the wounded and sick amid shortages of everything from paracetamol to surgical gauze.

Nurses and doctors working in field hospitals run by the British medical charity UK-Med have called for immediate delivery of supplies and for health workers and facilities to be protected, as the world marks the grim milestone of one year at war.

UK-Med, which runs two facilities in the centre of Gaza, has treated 200,000 people and sees around 1,400 patients a day, but is struggling with overwhelming demand and a punishing lack of supplies.