Middle East latest: Israel warns Iran it could end up like Gaza as it considers response to missile attack

Israel continued airstrikes in Lebanon yesterday as explosions rocked suburbs in southern Beirut for hours.

“We must continue exerting pressure on Hezbollah and creating additional and lasting damage to the enemy. Without relief and without allowing a respite for the organisation,” IDF chief of staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi said.

Dozens of people were killed in the airstrikes which Lebanon’s National News Agency described as “very violent”.

An Israeli strike on a refugee camp in north Lebanon has killed Hamas official Saeed Atallah Ali and his family, the militant group said Saturday. Hamas later said another military wing member was killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley.

Israel began a ground incursion Tuesday into Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group.

The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest conflict, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Marjayoun hospital director Mounes Kalakesh said that even before Friday’s attack, ambulance crews in the area were so reluctant to operate that the facility had not received anyone wounded for days.

“We have not been able to work. There was fear and panic among the staff,” he said.

Kalakesh said the government hospital didn’t receive any warning from Israeli forces before the attack, even though nearby villages have received such warnings to evacuate.

About 40,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through central London while thousands also gathered in Paris, Rome, Manila, Cape Town and New York City.

Demonstrations were also held near the White House in Washington, protesting U.S. support for its ally Israel in military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.

Protesters at Times Square in New York City wore the black-and-white keffiyeh scarf and chanted slogans like: “Gaza, Lebanon you will rise, the people are by your side.”

They held banners demanding an arms embargo against Israel.

The latest bloodshed in the decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel has expanded its intense bombing campaign in Lebanon, pounding a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country and unleashing dozens of strikes on the suburbs of Beirut.

Israeli warplanes hit areas as far north as the Beddawi camp, outside the city of Tripoli, on Saturday. The strikes killed a member of Hamas’s military wing in Lebanon, along with his wife and two daughters, according to the Palestinian militant group.

Israel said he served Hamas’ executive authority in Lebanon and had been directing attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Bel Trew reports:

At least eight strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Saturday including close to the country’s main airport, according to Reuters witnesses, after the Israeli military issued warnings to residents of certain buildings in the area.

Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.

Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.

A series of strong explosions were reported near midnight after Israel’s military called on residents to evacuate areas in Beirut’s Haret Hreik and Choueifat neighborhoods.

“As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilised countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office.

“Yet, President Macron and other Western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said shipments of arms used in the conflict in Gaza should be stopped as part of a broader effort to find a political solution.

“I think the priority today is to get back to a political solution (and) that arms used to fight in Gaza are halted. France doesn’t ship any,” Macron told France Inter radio.

Israel will retaliate against Iran for the missile attack launched by Tehran when the time is right, a military spokesman said on Saturday.

“The way in which we respond to this disgraceful attack will be in the manner, at the location and the timing which we decide, according to the political leadership’s instructions,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a broadcast statement.