Israel-Lebanon latest: ‘Dozens killed’ in Gaza school strike after Hezbollah commander assassinated in Beirut

A top United Nations official has urged all countries with influence over Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah “to leverage it now” to avoid an escalation of Middle East violence.

UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the Security Council after attacks in which Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. The attacks were believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.

“We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far,” DiCarlo told the 15-member council. “I also strongly urge member states with influence over the parties to leverage it now.”

This week saw a dizzying escalation in the 11-month-old conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

First came two days of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah — deadly attacks pinned on Israel that also maimed civilians around Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s leader vowed to retaliate, and on Friday the militant group launched dozens of rockets into northern Israel. Later in the day, Israel said it killed the commander of Hezbollah’s most elite unit with a strike in Beirut that left at least 14 dead.

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The UN’s human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territory has condemned footage showing what appeared to be bodies of Palestinians pushed by Israeli troops from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

Posting to X, they said the videos appeared to show soldiers kicking or throwing the deceased for bulldozers to clear them away.

“Unnecessary or disrespectful treatment of human remains is not consistent with the protection of the basic human dignity of the dead and could amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of the deceased men’s families,” they said.

Hezbollah has announced the death of a top military official in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

An official had previously confirmed that Ibrahim Akil was supposed to be in the building in the Dahiya district that was hit.

Akil has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the US for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the US Embassy in Beirut and the US Marine Corps barracks.

The Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital killed at least 14 people and wounded nearly 60 others, according to Lebanese health officials, and flattened two apartment buildings.

The Israeli military also claimed that its strike killed other “top operatives” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, without elaborating.

A Hezbollah official has confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building in the Dahiya district that was hit.

The strike marked the second time in less than two months that Israel has targeted a leading Hezbollah military commander in Beirut. In July, an Israeli airstrike killed Fuad Shukr, the group’s top military commander.

Ibrahim Aqil had a $7 million bounty on his head from the United States over his link to the deadly bombing of Marines in Lebanon in 1983, according to the U.S. State Department website.

The Israeli military said Aqil had been head of Hezbollah operations since 2004 and was responsible for a plan to launch a raid on northern Israel, similar to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that triggered the war in Gaza.

“The Hezbollah commanders we eliminated today had been planning their October 7th on the northern border for years,” Israeli army chief General Herzi Halevi said.

“We reached them, and we will reach anyone who threatens the security of Israel’s citizens.”

A senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Friday that further violence between Israel and Iran-aligned groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon risked igniting a far more damaging conflict.

“We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far,” UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the 15-member council, which met about attacks this week on Hezbollah.

“It is not too late to avoid such folly. There is still room for diplomacy,” she said. “I also strongly urge Member States with influence over the parties to leverage it now.”

Since August, senior US officials including secretary of state Antony Blinken have raised expectations for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. It has previously been said that a deal was 90 per cent agreed and they were working to iron out the few but challenging disagreements.

But shifting demands from both Israel and Hamas have repeatedly spiked efforts to reach a deal to end the nearly year-long bloodshed and have been a source of deep frustration for Biden administration officials.

The odds of a quick resolution appeared even smaller after an unprecedented attack on Hezbollah this week in which pagers and radios used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands.

On Friday, Israel killed a top commander with the Iran-aligned Lebanon-based armed group Hezbollah in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“We don’t appear to be particularly close at the moment,” a senior administration official said.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged intense rounds of rocket fire and airstrikes after the Lebanese militant group was targeted by an attack which caused their communication devices to explode.

In an unprecedented attack which killed at least 12 people and injured nearly 3,000 more, pagers used by the group were simultaneously detonated on Tuesday, sparking widespread panic in Beirut and southern Lebanon.

Founded in 1982 during Lebanon’s civil war, Hezbollah’s initial objective was ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. It achieved that in 2000.

Shiite Muslim Hezbollah is part of a collection of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the Axis of Resistance. It was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islamism.

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Lebanese residents are living in fear that their electronic devices could implode days after a suspected Israeli attack turned pagers and walkie-talkies into bombs.

Around 37 people were killed and thousands more wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday in the attacks which targeted Hezbollah militants but also led to deaths of children, doctors and civilians.

Residents are now terrified of their devices and fear there will be a third wave of attacks.

Ziad Tabbara, 61, who runs a boutique menswear shop told The Times: “Now we’re afraid of things that are not meant to scare us, like phones and laptops.”

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