Israel-Lebanon live: Netanyahu tells UN Israel will fight for total victory over Hezbollah and Hamas

Hezbollah said it had fired rockets into Israel on Friday at Kiryat Ata near the city of Haifa, around 20 miles from the border, and the city of Tiberias.

The Israeli military said four drones came across the border on Friday and were all intercepted by the military’s defences, adding that several rockets were also intercepted.

As we’ve been reporting, nearly 700 people have died in Lebanon as a result of Israeli attacks this week, according to local officials.

Here are some pictures from inside the country:

An overnight Israeli airstrike on a military site near Kfar Yabous, close to the Lebanese border, killed five Syrian soldiers and wounded another, Syrian state news agency SANA reported Friday, citing an unnamed military official.

Israel’s military has not officially acknowledged the strike, although it regularly targets military positions in Syria, including facilities linked to Iran and Hezbollah. Israel rarely confirms these incidents.

The frequency of such strikes has increased in the past 11 months, coinciding with Hezbollah’s ongoing clashes with Israel’s military, against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

Since the beginning of the week, tens of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians have fled across the Lebanon-Syria border due to heavy Israeli bombardment.

Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the U.S. ceasefire proposals with Lebanon on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, adding that he appreciated the U.S. efforts.

“Our teams met (Thursday, Sept. 26) to discuss the U.S. initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days,” he said in a statement.

The comments came after Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli jets have been carrying out the heaviest bombardment against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in decades.

On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon.

Mr Netanyahu is giving his address to the UN at 2.30pm.

Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders.

Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, raising fears that Israel‘s actions in Gaza since Oct. 7 would be repeated in Lebanon.

The International Organization for Migration estimated Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war.

Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken warned Israel that further escalation of the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon would make it harder for civilians on both sides of the border to return home.

“The Secretary discussed the importance of reaching an agreement on the 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border,” the state department said in a statement referring to talks between Blinken and Israeli minister for strategic affairs Ron Dermer.

“He underscored that further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective (of civilian return) more difficult.”

Despite global calls for a ceasefire, including from the US and France, Israel has continued its military strikes in Lebanon, heightening fears of a wider regional war.

The White House has defended its ceasefire proposal, saying they believed Israel was open to considering it, especially for the Lebanon border.

Global calls for a 21-day ceasefire, led by US president Joe Biden and France’s Emmanuel Macron, have been dismissed by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters: “He and his cabinet and the Israeli people have every right to want to thwart that threat,” Mr Kirby said.

“We still believe an all-out war is not the best way to get people back in their homes. If that’s the goal, an all-out war, we don’t believe is the right way to do that.”

Tensions in the Middle East continue to escalate as Israel ramps up its assault on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Beginning with a major bombardment on 23 September, Lebanon has now experienced its deadliest attack since the end of the 1975 - 1990 Civil War, with over 90,000 civilians displaced from their homes.

Israel has called the bombardment a “new phase” of its war on Gaza, striking more than 1,000 targets in Lebanon which it says were Hezbollah strongholds or military facilities in homes.

Since the 7 October Hamas attack where over 240 Israeli hostages were taken, Hezbollah has been striking Israel from Lebanon on the country’s northern border in support of Hamas. Israeli forces have continued to respond with strikes on the paramilitary group which regularly fired missiles and rockets to intercept military technology like drones or tanks.

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The Israel Defence Forces said that sirens were sounding across central Israel late on Thursday. In a post on X, the IDF attributed the alarms to “a missile launched from Yemen”.

“The missile launched from Yemen was successfully intercepted by an ‘Arrow’ interceptor,” they said in a post on X.

“The alarms and explosions that were heard are the result of the interception process and the interception fragments.”

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said the “entire world is responsible” for events in Gaza and the West Bank.

He opened his speech at the UN general assembly in New York by telling the members: “We will not leave. We will not leave. We will not leave.”

“Palestine is our homeland. It is the land of our fathers, our grandfathers. It will remain ours. And if anyone were to leave, it would be occupying usurpers.”

Abbas added, according to The Guardian: “Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel. This madness cannot continue.”

He also called out the US for their failure to vote for a ceasefire in the UN security council and their veto of full Palestinian membership in the UN.

“This is the United States, the very country that was the only member in the security council that voted against granting the state of Palestine for membership in the UN,” Abbas said.

“We don’t deserve membership in the eyes of America, so they use a veto against it.”