Middle East crisis live: Overnight barrage of Hezbollah rockets launched into Israel, IDF says

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Overnight barrage of Hezbollah rockets launched into Israel, IDF says

Welcome to our live coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza and the wider Middle East crisis.

In posts on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Lebanon launched two waves of attacks – the first about 85 rockets where some of them were intercepted, including crashes detected in the areas of ​​Kiryat Bialik, Tzur Shalom and Moroshet. The second attack included 20 rockets after alerts were issued in the in the Jezreel Valley area, according to the IDF.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated four people for shrapnel wounds, including a 76-year-old man who suffered minor injuries in Kiryat Bialik, a community near Haifa where buildings were damaged and cars set on fire. It was not immediately clear if the damage was caused by a rocket or an Israeli interceptor.

Earlier, the Israeli military said it launched airstrikes on hundreds of targets in southern Lebanon in the wake of the deepest rocket attacks by Hezbollah into Israel since the start of the war in Gaza last October. The IDF said on Saturday night it launched two wave of attacks – one attacking about 290 targets, and a second targeting 110 sites.

Earlier, Hezbollah posted on its Telegram channel that it had targeted the Israeli Ramat David airbase near Haifa on Saturday night with dozens of missiles in response to what it described as “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon”.

The airbase is the furthest target the Lebanese group has hit in Israel since October, about 50km from the Lebanon-Israel border.

Here is a recap of the latest developments:

• Hospitals in northern Israel have been instructed to transfer their operations to facilities with extra protection from rocket and missile fire, the health ministry said on Sunday. Rambam hospital in Haifa will transfer patients to its underground, secure facility, the ministry said. Meanwhile, the military’s Home Front Command said schools and other educational institutions and activities would not be permitted in the north until at least Monday at 6pm local time.

• The death toll from an Israeli airstrike that targeted Hezbollah military commanders in Beirut’s southern suburbs has risen to 45, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Sunday, updating an earlier toll of 37 from the Friday attack.

• News broadcaster Al Jazeera said on Sunday morning that Israeli forces raided its bureau in the West Bank’s Ramallah city with a military order to close it for 45 days. The Qatar-based channel aired live footage of the Israeli troops entered the channel’s office and handed over a closure order to one of the Al Jazeera TV staff. Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, reported that Israeli troops brought a truck to confiscate documents, devices and office property. In a statement, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate condemned the raid, saying “this arbitrary military decision is considered a new violation against journalistic and media works”.

• The US state department has urged Americans in Lebanon to leave the country while commercial options remain available. “At this time, commercial flights are available, but at reduced capacity. If the security situation worsens, commercial options to depart may become unavailable,” it added.

• The death toll from an Israeli strike on Saturday on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza city included “13 children and six women”, one of whom was pregnant, said civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal. The Gaza health ministry said at least 22 had died as a result of the strike.

Firefighting plane drops water after a rocket attack from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in northern Israel, on Saturday. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters

• US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he was worried about escalation between Israel and Lebanon. Sullivan, speaking with reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, said yesterday that he still sees a path to a ceasefire in Gaza but that the US is “not at a point right now where we’re prepared to put something on the table”.

• Attacks on Lebanon this week showed that the Israeli government planned to spread the war to the region, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, calling on western countries to take “deterrent steps” against Israel’s actions. Erdoğan told a press conference that Israel’s war in Gaza will top the agenda of his speech at the UN general assembly on Tuesday. “It is time for all countries with the mission of protecting world peace to come up with solutions that will stop Israel,” Erdoğan said.

• Iran unveiled its “jihad” single-stage liquid-fuel ballistic missile with a high-explosive detachable warhead and a range of 1,000km, according to state TV. The missiles were displayed on Saturday, along with other military hardware, during a parade marking the anniversary of the start of the 1980-88 war with Iraq.

• At least 41,391 Palestinians have been killed and 95,760 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday. Gaza’s ministry of health does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count.

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, postponed his trip to the US by a day due to the security situation in the country’s north. Netanyahu was due to travel to New York on 24 September, during which he is expected to address the annual UN general assembly. He issued a short statement after the Beirut airstrike, saying: “Our goals are clear, and our actions speak for themselves.”