Israel-Lebanon latest: Iran preparing ‘imminent’ missile attack on Israel, warns US, as strikes hit Beirut

At least 95 people have been killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and Beirut in the last 24 hours, Lebanon’s health ministry said early on Tuesday.

Israel’s ground invasion into Lebanon follows its deadly detonation of booby-trapped Hezbollah pagers, two weeks of airstrikes, and its killing on Friday of Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, which dealt the group one of the heaviest blows in decades.

The intensive air strikes have eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 civilians and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Overnight, strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source said. A Reuters reporter witnessed a flash of light and a series of loud blasts about an hour after the Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas near buildings it said contained Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Lebanese capital.

Three civilians were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the capital Damascus, Syrian state media said on Tuesday citing a military source. Israel’s military said it does not comment on foreign media reports.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up raids since the Hamas attack on Israel’s southern territory on 7 October 2023.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage in its assault on Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Israel in response launched a massive assault on Hamas in Gaza, reducing most of the Palestinian territory to rubble, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and killing more than 41,300 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

An Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, according to two Palestinian security officials.

His fate was unknown.

The strike hit a building in the crowded Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon, the sources said. It marked the first strike on the camp, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian camp, since cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel broke out nearly a year ago.

Israel’s widely expected ground invasion of Lebanon appeared to be getting underway early on Tuesday as its military said troops had begun “limited” raids against Hezbollah targets in the border area.

The military said in a statement that it had begun “limited, localised, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon villages close to the border that posed “an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel”.

It said the air force and artillery were supporting the ground forces with “precise strikes”.

Local residents in the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab reported heavy shelling and the sound of helicopters and drones overhead. Flares were repeatedly launched over the Lebanese border town of Rmeish, lighting up the night sky.

On Monday, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant had told local council heads in northern Israel that the next phase of the war along Lebanon’s southern border would begin soon, and would support the aim of bringing home Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rockets during nearly a year of border warfare.

The ground invasion represents an escalating conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iran-backed militants, sparked by an assault on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas on 7 October 2023, that now threatens to suck in the US and Iran.

US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant on Monday, the Department of Defence said.

“They agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border to ensure that Lebanese Hezbollah cannot conduct October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern communities,” the department said in a statement.

Mr Austin reaffirmed that a diplomatic resolution is required to ensure that civilians can return safely to their homes on both sides of the border, according to the department.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said that the top Hamas commander killed in Lebanon Monday was one of its employees but had no function as he was placed on administrative leave since March.

Fatah Sharif’s connection to Hamas appeared set to ratchet up pressure on UNRWA, already facing a $80 million funding shortfall this year. Critics have repeatedly blasted the agency, saying it wasn’t doing enough to root out Hamas militants from its ranks.

The U.N.’s internal watchdog has been investigating UNRWA since Israel in January accused 12 of its staffers of being involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which armed militants killed 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. The allegations led more than a dozen donor countries to suspend their funding, causing an initial cash crunch of about $450 million dollars. Since then, all donor countries except for the United States have decided to resume funding the agency.

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A well known Syrian televsion anchor, Safaa Ahmed, and two other individuals were killed overnight after an Israeli airstrike on Damascus, according to Syrian news organization SANA.

Syria defense ministry said the IDF launched an attack using drones and planes around 2am local time.

“The General Authority for Radio and Television announces the death of the anchor Safaa Ahmed as a martyr following the treacherous Israeli aggression on the capital, Damascus,” SANA reported.

From the editorial:

The Iranian regime has been in trouble for many months, and at risk of revolt enacted by a people exhausted by the ayatollah’s aggression as well as their country’s isolation and international sanctions. Plainly, they do not want war with Israel – but what of Mr Netanyahu?

Suddenly energised by bold military initiatives, Israel seems to possess an unlimited appetite for audacious operations. It has already launched some further pre-emptive air assaults on the notorious Houthi rebels in Yemen (another of Iran’s cadet forces).

Few would bet against it, given the momentum that has powered Israel forward in recent days – and Israel’s unprecedented defiance, even towards its most important partner, the United States.

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Watch live from Beirut on Monday, 30 September, as an apartment building lies in ruins following an Israeli strike in the city centre for the first time since 2006.

This feed shows a residential building that was hit by an airstrike in the Kola district.

According to Lebanon’s health ministry, the attack brings the death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon to more than 1,000 people and the number of those injured to more than 6,000 over the last two weeks.

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