Israel-Lebanon latest: Hamas fires rocket barrage at Tel Aviv on anniversary of October 7 attack

Hamas’ armed wing has attacked Israel‘s Tel Aviv with a missile salvo, the group has claimed in statement.

Earlier, we reported that the Israeli military said sirens were sounded in Tel Aviv and in central Israel.

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. 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. This marks the first time Israel has struck northern Lebanon since the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

Bel Trew reports from Jerusalem.

Families of the hostages marched to the Israeli Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem this morning, playing at 6.29am an air raid siren to mark exact moment Hamas’s 7 October attack started in the south of the country. There family members issued a heart felt plea to Benjamin Netanyahu to bring their loved ones home.

Of the 250 hostages believed to have been taken into Gaza, around 101 are thought to still remain inside - it is unknown how many are still alive.

Shir, 28 daughter of Keith Siegel, an American Israeli hostage in Gaza said she couldn’t have imagined “in her worst nightmares” that he would still be in Gaza one year on. Keith, 65 was seized by Hamas militants from Kfar Azar near the Gaza Border with his wife, who was released in the November hostage exchange deal. Keith, who is from North Carolina, remains inside.

“I couldn’t have imagined in my worst nightmares that a whole year would pass and my father would not be with us, I’m begging everyone to do more to bring him home safe,” she told The Independent in tears after the rally.

“He has been sitting in the tunnels in Gaza and no body has come to save him. I can’t imagine what is going on inside his head and how hard it is for him and how much he misses us. ”

Gil Dickmann’s cousin Carmel Gat, 41 was set to be released in the latest hostage exchange deal which fell through in the eleventh hour. Her family say she was shot dead in a tunnel in Gaza in August, as Israeli soldiers closed in.

He broke down into tears as he addressed the crowds urging Mr Netanyahu to “be the prime minister that choses life”.

“I still cannot believe that we will not have her back. For us it’s too late but it’s not too late for the other 101 hostages,” he said in tears.

The US has spent a record amount of at least £13.6bn on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report by the Brown University’s Costs of War project.

An additional £3.7bn has gone into stepped-up US military operations in the region since the 7 October attacks, researchers said.

That includes the costs of a Navy-led campaign to quell strikes on commercial shipping by Yemen’s Houthis, who are carrying them out in solidarity with the fellow Iranian-backed group Hamas.

The report – completed before Israel opened a second front against Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in late September – is one of the first tallies of estimated US costs as the Joe Biden administration backs Israel in its conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon and seeks to contain hostilities by Iran-allied armed groups in the region.

People in Israel are holding vigils and sombre ceremonies to mark a year since the October 7 Hamas attack which sparked the war in Gaza.

At 6.30am (local time) – the exact hour Hamas launched its attack – the families of those killed at the Nova music festival, joined by Israeli president Isaac Herzog, gathered at the site where almost 400 revelers were gunned down and several taken hostage.

After briefly playing the same trance music that was blared during the festival, hundreds of family members and friends of the victims stood for a moment of silence.

“When we are here, we are near our loved ones, this is the time they danced and fled,” said Sigal Bar-On, whose niece Yuval Bar-On, 25, and her fiancee Moshe Shuva, 34, were supposed to get married in December 2023.

“We are here to remind [the hostages] that we haven’t forgotten them,” said Shiri Albag, whose daughter Liri is among the captives, according to the Associated Press.

“We won’t let you (Netanyahu) rest until all of them are back, every last one of them,” she told the crowd, which hoisted the faces of the hostages.

Last year’s Hamas attacks killed 1,200 people and more than 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.

Palestinian militant group Hamas yesterday praised its 7 October attack on Israel as “glorious”.

The comments by Qatar-based Hamas member Khalil Al-Hayya came on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the massacre in southern Israel that sparked a bloody war in Gaza.

Israel intensified bombardments in Lebanon and Gaza on the eve of the 7 October attacks anniversary.

Israeli air strikes battered Beirut’s southern suburbs yesterday in the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Iran-backed group Hezbollah last month.

Watch live as a memorial ceremony takes place at the Nova Music Festival site for victims of 7 October attack one year on.

Thousands of Israelis are expected to visit the location of a rave party where Hamas killed 364 and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on October 7, to pay tribute and mourn the victims as Israel marks the first anniversary of Hamas attacks.