Middle East crisis live: Israel steps up attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon amid rising fears of wider war

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The Syrian foreign ministry has issued a statement following the Israeli attacks on Beirut that many officials fear could lead to a wider regional conflict.

The ministry was quoted as saying in a statement:

The Syrian Arab republic strongly condemns all these continuous crimes, and renews its affirmation that the Israeli terrorist entity’s insistence on shedding blood and committing all kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity that are blasphemy, will lead the region to a dangerous acceleration that is impossible to predict its consequences.

Zeina Khodr of Al Jazeera has also put up a video on X with footage of downtown Beirut and cited a “massive displacement crisis” as Lebanese left southern neighbourhoods amid Israeli strikes.

She quotes a woman telling her: “The 2006 war was nothing compared to what we witnessed last night.”

Television journalist Ali Hashem has posted a short video on X of southern Beirut filmed from above, saying it is “shrouded in a thick grey cloud”.

IDF claims killing of Hamas leader in Syria

The Israeli military says it killed the leader of Hamas in southern Syria on Friday night, naming him as Ahmed Muhammad Fahd.

Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted on X in Arabic saying (in a translation to English) that “the so-called Ahmed Fahd was responsible for carrying out numerous terrorist operations against IDF forces and the state of Israel from the southern Syrian area, including launching rockets towards the Golan Heights area”.

Adraee said Israeli air force warplanes carried out the attack under the guidance of the intelligence service and the northern command.

Fahd was liquidated when he planned to carry out another terrorist plot in the immediate future.

Israeli fighter jets’ bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday sent panicked families fleeing the area.

After heavy shelling sounded across the city on Friday, Israel issued fresh warnings for people to leave part of the densely populated Dahiyeh suburbs before dawn on Saturday.

Agence France-Presse reports hundreds of families spent the night on the streets, seeking shelter in downtown Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square or along the seaside boardwalk area.

Lebanese who fled from the southern suburbs stay in their cars at Martyrs’ Square in Beirut on Saturday. Photograph: Wael Hamzeh/EPA

Syrian refugee and father of six Radwan Msallam said they had “nowhere to go”, telling AFP:

We were at home when there was the call to evacuate. We took our identity papers, some belongings and we left.

Israel said it was attacking Hezbollah’s headquarters and weapons facilities, while US and Israeli media reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was the target, although a source close to the group said he was “fine”, Agence France-Presse reports.

The explosions that shook southern Beirut were the fiercest to hit Hezbollah’s stronghold since Israel and Hezbollah last went to war in 2006.

The Israel Defence Forces says it has intercepted more projectiles fired from Lebanon.

The IDF posted on X that it occurred after warning were activated a short time ago in several areas in the north of the country, “in the Samaria area and in the Menasha area”.

Five launches were detected that crossed the territory of Lebanon, most of the launches were intercepted.

Our full report with the latest on Israel’s fresh series of attacks in Beirut and Lebanon has gone live – see it here:

Lebanon’s health ministry has said hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs will be evacuated after the heavy Israeli strikes in the area, urging hospitals in unaffected areas to stop admitting non-urgent cases.

A ministry statement on Saturday called on hospitals unaffected by Israeli strikes to “stop receiving non-emergency cases until the end of next week in order to make space to receive patients from hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs which will be evacuated due to the developments in the aggression”, Agence France-Presse reported.

The health ministry has yet to provide an updated toll for strikes.

Opening summary

Welcome to our continuing live coverage of Israel’s strikes in Lebanon and the wider Middle East crisis – it’s just gone 8.20am in Beirut and Tel Aviv.

A wave of air raids hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Saturday as Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah, after a massive strike on the Iran-backed movement’s command centre that apparently targeted leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Reuters witnesses heard more than 20 airstrikes before dawn on Saturday. Thousands of Lebanese fled their homes in the southern suburbs and congregated in squares, parks and sidewalks in central Beirut and seaside areas.

Israel’s military said early on Saturday that about 10 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory and that “some” had been intercepted. They were detected after sirens sounded in the Upper Galilee area, a military statement said.

An unprecedented five hours of continuous strikes early on Saturday followed Friday’s attack, by far the most powerful by Israel on Beirut during nearly a year of war with Hezbollah and making a sharp escalation of the conflict, Reuters reported.

Smoke rises in the southern suburbs of Beirut after an Israeli airstrike on Saturday. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

The latest escalation has sharply increased fears the conflict could spiral out of control, potentially drawing in Iran, Hezbollah’s principal backer, as well as the United States.

There was no immediate confirmation of Nasrallah’s fate after Friday’s heavy strikes, but a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters he was not reachable. The militant group has not made a statement.

In other developments:

• The Lebanese health ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured in Friday’s attack. The toll appeared likely to rise much higher as rescue workers cleared the rubble. Several apartment blocks in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood were reduced to rubble, and footage from the scene showed huge slabs of concrete topped by piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, into one of which a car had fallen.

• Israel’s military earlier ordered southern Beirut residents to evacuate and warned it was planning to strike three specific buildings in the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”.

• Hezbollah responded to Israel’s Friday attack on Beirut by bombing Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. The Iran-backed group announced more attacks at Karmiel and Sa’ar. Israel braced for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran, urging residents of Golan Heights, Safed and Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas.

• The Israeli military claimed to have killed the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail, in fighter-jet attacks. The IDF also said on X that “with them other commanders and terrorists of Hezbollah were eliminated”.

• Hundreds of families crammed into vehicles and fled Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday after Israel’s strikes and warnings to evacuate. Bottlenecks formed in the middle of the night on normally deserted streets of the capital, many of them in darkness due to power cuts.

• Joe Biden has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after Friday’s attacks. The US president said earlier on Friday the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the strike. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel.

• The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, voiced regret that no power, including the US, could “stop” Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli prime minister appeared determined to crush militants in Gaza and Lebanon.

• Tens of thousands of people protested in Iranian cities and in the Yemeni capital to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Agence France-Presse journalists and state media reported.

• The strikes came shortly after a bellicose speech by Netanyahu in the UN general assembly. The Israeli prime minister shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza and instead denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted that Israel was “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, reiterated his call for a Middle East ceasefire, saying: “Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it.”