Israel-Lebanon live: Houthis fire ballistic missile at Tel Aviv as Israeli airstrike kills entire family of 9

The American embassay in Beirut has issued a short statement on X to say it has no current plans to evacuate its citizens.

An Israeli security official said he expects a possible war against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza because the Israeli military’s goals are much narrower. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing guidelines, told The Associated Press that the goal in Lebanon is just to push Hezbollah away from the border with Israel, which is “not a high bar like Gaza.” The official said that no decision has been made on whether Israel will carry out a ground operation in southern Lebanon. But he stressed that the military is training for this possibility every day and is ready to implement it.

A British mother and her young family in Lebanon are “on edge” as they face a five-day wait for a flight back to the UK amid daily explosions.

Victoria Lupton, 37, who divides her time between Achrafieh in Beirut and Cambridge, arrived in the Lebanese capital on Tuesday September 17, on the same day a wave of blasts hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.

Ms Lupton told the PA news agency she was in her apartment with her British-Lebanese husband protecting their two-year-old daughter - whom she does not wish to name - after they heard blasts in their area on Monday as a result of the growing violence between Israel and Hezbollah.

“I was trying to protect my two-year-old from the noise of that,” she said.

“Since then, we regularly hear distant rumblings of explosions and all of us are really on edge - even when a door slams, we’re jumping up. Last weekend, there was a thunderstorm, and there were rumbles of thunder happening, and I was with a group of people, and everyone thought that that was either a sonic boom or a rocket. We were all very uneasy looking at each other.”

Ms Lupton who is founder and chief executive of Seenaryo, a non-profit which helps educate Middle Eastern women and children through theatre and play, said there is a "shared experience" among British nationals in Lebanon in "constantly discussing when to stay and when to go" from the country.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon.

The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.

The Houthi‘s military spokesperson said their operations won’t halt in the coming days until Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop.

“We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon,” Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech.

The Israeli army will continue to hit Lebanon “very hard”, defence minister Yoav Gallant has said.

He made the comments during a visit to Safed in northern Israel, saying the strikes would continue until security was returned to the north, The Times of Israel has reported.

These remarks are about the 60,000 people who have been evacuated from northern Israel because of near-daily attacks by Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

Mr Gallant said: “We are hitting Hezbollah very hard over the past year and in particular over the past few weeks. We will continue and increase this effort — we plan to bring security to the town in the north and to safely return home those who evacuated.”

The UK’s defence secretary has reaffirmed calls for Britons to leave Lebanon as he is “deeply worried” about the conflict.

Speaking with Sky News, John Healey said they fear the conflict could escalate into something “much wider and much more serious”.

He said: “Our first concern remains the safety of British nationals in Lebanon. The travel advice remains the same. Don’t go to Lebanon. If you are in Lebanon, then get out. And there are still commercial flights leaving, so people can do that.”

Lebanon‘s health minister says 25 people have been killed so far in Israeli strikes on Friday, according to Reuters.

The UK is providing £5 million to UNICEF in Lebanon to support humanitarian response efforts and enable UNICEF to distribute supplies to those in need.

The essential humanitarian support comes after further civilian casualties following this week’s air strikes. Thousands more have been displaced or forced to flee their homes.

The package includes essential medical supplies, hygiene kits and fuel for water stations, to help thousands of displaced civilians across Lebanon meet their basic needs.

It will also help emergency teams respond to urgent health and nutrition needs and provide a series of training sessions for key delivery partners and frontline workers to ensure an effective emergency response.

Chains of volunteers spoon rice and vegetables into meal containers while others stir huge pots of boiling rice, as a soup kitchen in Beirut struggles to keep up with demand from displaced people escaping Israeli strikes.

Josephine Abu Abdo, a chef and one of the founders of Nation Station, said the kitchen is serving 700 meals a day and is at maximum capacity, but she then hears 1,000 meals are needed.

“The challenge is that we can’t keep up. We feel like we are just a drop in the ocean,” Abu Abdo said, while a team of volunteers of different ages from all over Lebanon hurriedly packaged up food.

Nation Station was founded to help victims of the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion, growing from a team of five to a hundred over time. It serves some traditional Lebanese dishes, such as zucchini stuffed with rice and meat, bulgur and tomato, vegetable soup and cabbage salad.

When the Israeli strikes across Lebanon intensified on Monday, forcing around 40,000 into shelters within days, the volunteers cooked more food without any funding, distributing it as an emergency response to the centres housing the displaced.

“We worked from the small savings that we had for the first three days. Then, many people started donating,” Abu Abdo said.

“The donation that we receive will cover us for two or three days. We will see, one day at a time and we will make a decision,” she added.

More than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours, the UN refugee agency said on Friday, amid an escalating conflict between Israeli forces and the heavily armed Hezbollah that has left hundreds dead in Lebanon.