Israel has targeted the new leader of Hezbollah in massive air strike on Beirut, according to reports.
The IDF pounded the Lebanese capital with a bombing raid in the early hours of Friday morning.
According to Axios, sources said the attack was aimed at Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Dahiyeh last week.
Witnesses said Friday’s strikes were similar to the explosions that killed Nasrallah, with reports of a rolling sequence of blasts.
Israel reportedly used dozens of 2,000lb “bunker-buster” bombs in its strike on Nasrallah.
Hezbollah has not commented on Friday’s raid but a source confirmed to AFP that Israel “struck the southern suburbs 11 consecutive times”.
Biden: I don’t believe there will be ‘all-out war’
Joe Biden said on Thursday he does not believe there is going to be an “all-out war” in the Middle East.
The US president said that such a war can be avoided but more needed to be done to ensure that.
Asked how confident he was that such a war can be averted, Mr Biden paused and told reporters: “How confident are you it’s not going to rain? Look, I don’t believe there is going to be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it.”
He added: “But there is a lot to do yet, a lot to do yet.”
When asked if he would send American troops to help Israel, he responded: “We have already helped Israel. We are going to protect Israel.”
Today’s top stories
- Joe Biden has said he is discussing possible Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil production, sending crude prices spiking just a month before the US presidential election
- Satellite pictures showed that Iranian missiles hit a hangar and caused craters at Israel’s Nevatim air base
- A Yazidi woman who was kidnapped by Islamic State as a child before being sent to Hamas in Gaza has been rescued after more than a decade in captivity
- Video footage shows the moment Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched an explosive-laden drone boat into a British oil tanker in the Red Sea
- Rachel Reeves warned that escalating tensions in the Middle East posed “a very real risk both to the UK and to the global economy”