Israel-Lebanon latest: Israeli soldier group warns Netanyahu ‘red line crossed’ and threatens to stop fighting

US president Joe Biden is set to speak with Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s plans to strike Iran in response to a massive missile barrage launched at Israel by Tehran last week.

Biden is said to want to “shape the limitations” of Israel’s retaliation to ensure targets hit across Iran are “significant” without being disproportionate, White House officials said.

Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to respond to Iran’s attack last Tuesday, which saw almost 200 ballistic missiles fired at Israel.

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.

"We've seen plot after plot here in the UK, at an unprecedented pace and scale," the MI5 director general said.

Tom Watling reports.

At least seven civilians, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike which targeted a residential building in the Mezuzah suburb west of the Syrian capital Damascus.

The airstrikes caused “grave” material damage on private properties in surrounding areas, Syrian state media reported.

Three missiles fired from the direction of the Golan Heights landed in Syria, according to the report.

“Israel targeted a building frequented by senior Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah operatives, as well as a car parked in front of the building,” said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the chief of the Observatory, told AFP that nine people were killed, five of them civilians including a child. The other two civilians were foreign nationals, he said.

The Iranian embassy in Syria confirmed that none of the dead were Iranians.

The Syrian foreign ministry condemned “in the strongest terms this brutal crime against defenceless civilians” calling for “immediate measures” to stop Israel. Message Adam Withnall

The Iraqi wing of the Islamic Resistance has claimed responsibility for a drone attack on southern Israel.

The group claimed the kamikaze drones were fired “in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon” as it pledged to continue targeting “the enemy’s strongholds”, in a reference to Israel.

The Israeli military last night said it intercepted a drone “launched from the east”, referring to Iraq.

The military said no air raid sirens were activated before the interception “in accordance with protocol”.

Hezbollah fired another barrage of rockets into Israel and the militant group’s acting leader vowed to keep up the pressure that has forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes near the Lebanese border.

Dozens of rockets fired by Hezbollah were aimed as far south as Haifa, and the Israeli government warned residents north of the coastal city to limit activities, prompting the closure of more schools.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah launched about 180 rockets across the border.

The Israeli military said it sent more ground troops into southern Lebanon and that a senior Hezbollah commander was killed in an airstrike.

The fate of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s successor was unknown, said an Israeli military spokesperson, contradicting prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement.

Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said Israel was still checking the status of Hashem Safieddine, the man expected to replace Nasrallah, and accused Hezbollah of trying to hide details of a recent strike in Beirut on a location where he was believed to have been.

“When we know, we will update the public,” he said late last night.

In a statement addressed to the people of Lebanon, Netanyahu called Hezbollah “weaker than it has been for many, many years.”

He added: “We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement”, without naming them.

US president Joe Biden will call Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu today to discuss any plans to strike Iran, according to a report.

“We want to use the call to try and shape the limitations of the Israeli retaliation,” a US official was quoted as saying by Axios.

The website cited three US officials as saying that Washington wants to make sure Israel attacks targets in Iran that are significant without being disproportionate.

Mr Netanyahu has promised that arch-foe Iran would pay for its missile attack, while Tehran has said any retaliation would be met with “vast destruction”, raising fears of a wider war in the oil-producing region which could draw in the US.