An Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Tuesday as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a full-fledged war in the Middle East.
Israel was open to ideas for de-escalating the conflict in Lebanon, Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said on Tuesday, a day after the US said it was exploring some “concrete ideas” with allies and partners.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday that the values of the United Nations system and the Western world were dying in Gaza as the conflict continued there, calling for an “alliance of humanity” to stop Israel.
Israel kills Hezbollah commander in airstrike on Beirut
An Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Tuesday as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a full-fledged war in the Middle East.
Israel’s military said the airstrike on the Lebanese capital killed Ibrahim Qubaisi, who it said was the commander of Hezbollah’s missiles and rocket force. Two security sources in Lebanon described him as a leading figure in the Iran-backed group’s rocket division.
The attack dealt another blow to Hezbollah after a series of setbacks at the hands of Israel over the past week, and Israel later said it was carrying out “extensive strikes” on Hezbollah targets.
The pressure on Hezbollah has increased fears that nearly a year of conflict will explode and destabilise the oil-producing Middle East, where a war between Hamas and Israel is already raging in Gaza.
Israel is shifting its focus from Gaza to the northern frontier, where Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue to pound Hezbollah targets and urged Lebanese citizens to escape the grip of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“Anyone who has a missile in their living room and a rocket in their garage will not have a home,” Netanyahu said at an army base at an undisclosed location after the military said it had found ammunition in people’s homes.
“Our war is not with you, our war is with Hezbollah. Nasrallah is leading you to the brink of the abyss… Rid yourself from Nasrallah’s grip, for your own good.”
Israel has accused Hezbollah of hiding its weapons in homes and villages in Lebanon, allegations the Lebanese group denies.
Israel struck the Hezbollah-controlled area of Beirut for a second consecutive day after mounting a new wave of airstrikes on targets in Lebanon. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets into northern Israel earlier on Tuesday.
The Lebanese health ministry said at least six people were killed and 15 wounded in Tuesday’s strike on a building in the Ghobeiry neighbourhood of Beirut.
The Israeli government has made securing the northern border and returning residents there a war priority, setting the stage for a long conflict, while Hezbollah has vowed that it will not back down until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
Lebanese authorities said 558 people had been killed in airstrikes on Monday, including 50 children and 94 women. A further 1,835 were wounded, they said, and tens of thousands more have fled for safety.
“We felt as if we were in a war, a very difficult war,” said Rima Ali Chahine (50), speaking at a makeshift shelter for displaced people at a Beirut college.
“Maybe it didn't take us long on the road, but families are now arriving who have been stuck on the roads since yesterday — 15 or 16 hours on the roads.”
The casualty tolls and the intensity of the attacks by the most powerful and advanced military in the Middle East have spread panic in Lebanon, but also defiance among people who recall the devastating Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.
“We are waiting for victory, God willing, because as long as we have a neighbour like Israel, we can’t sleep safely,” said Beirut resident Hassan Omar.
Calls for diplomacy are growing as the conflict worsens, with UN human rights chief Volker Turk urging all states and actors with influence to avert further escalation in Lebanon.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told MSNBC that he believed “a path forward” could still be found to de-escalation and a diplomatic solution.
Urging restraint, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for “all parties to step back from the brink”.
The fighting has raised fears that the US, Israel’s close ally, and regional power Iran, which has proxies across the Middle East — Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq — will be sucked into a wider war.
Hezbollah last week suffered heavy losses when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in the worst security breach in its history.
The operation was widely attributed to Israel, which has a long history of sophisticated attacks on foreign soil. It has not confirmed or denied responsibility.
Israel’s intelligence and technological prowess have given it a strong edge in both Lebanon and Gaza. It has tracked down and assassinated top Hezbollah commanders and Hamas leaders.
But Hezbollah has proved resilient during decades of hostilities with Israel. The group, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to counter an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, is considered a more formidable enemy than Hamas.
Hezbollah used a new rocket, Fadi 3, in an attack on an Israeli army base, the group announced in a message posted on Telegram on Tuesday.
Its media office said Israel was dropping leaflets with a “very dangerous” barcode on them on to Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, warning that scanning it by phone would “withdraw all information” from any device.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Pan-Arab television station Al-Mayadeen said a journalist working with the station’s website, Hadi al-Sayyed, had been killed in an Israeli strike on his hometown on Monday.
It brought the toll of journalists killed in Lebanon since October to four, including two other Al-Mayadeen journalists killed last November and Reuters visuals journalist Issam Abdallah, who was killed by Israeli tank fire last October.
Israel ‘open to ideas to de-escalate in Lebanon’
Israel was open to ideas for de-escalating the conflict in Lebanon, Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said on Tuesday, a day after the US said it was exploring some “concrete ideas” with allies and partners.
“As we speak, there are important forces trying to come up with ideas and we are open-minded for that,” he told reporters. “We are not eager to start any ground invasion anywhere. We prefer a diplomatic solution.”
Fierce fighting this week between Israel and Hezbollah has increased fears that nearly a year of conflict will explode and destabilise the Middle East, where a war between Hamas and Israel is already raging in Gaza.
Israel has said it is shifting its focus from Gaza to the northern frontier, where Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
The Israeli government has made a war priority of securing its northern border and allowing the return there of some 70,000 residents displaced by the conflict, while Hezbollah has vowed not to back down until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
On Monday, a senior State Department official said the US was discussing with allies and partners some “concrete ideas” to find an off-ramp that would prevent further escalation in the fighting and reduce tensions.
Danon said Israel was taking the ideas seriously.
“We still think it’s not too late for the Lebanese government, for the Lebanese people, to put pressure on Hezbollah to stop their aggression. If they will not fire rockets into Israel, then we will be able to bring back our residents, back to their communities, that’s it,” he said.
Asked by reporters what they were actively discussing at present, Danon said: “I cannot get into that.”
Erdoğan says UN, Western values dying in Gaza
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday that the values of the United Nations system and the Western world were dying in Gaza as the conflict continued there, calling for an “alliance of humanity” to stop Israel.
In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Erdoğan reiterated his harsh criticism of Israel over its military campaign in the Gaza Strip and of the Western countries for their support of Israel.
“Along with children in Gaza, the United Nations system is also dying, the truth is dying, the values that the West claims to defend are dying, the hopes of humanity to live in a fairer world are dying one by one,” said Erdoğan.
Nato member Turkey has condemned Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which came in retaliation for Palestinian group Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October. Turkey halted all trade with Israel and applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court.
Israel has repeatedly dismissed the genocide case as baseless, arguing in the court that its operations in Gaza are self-defence and target Gaza’s ruling Hamas group.
“Those who are supposedly working for a ceasefire continue to send weapons and ammunition to Israel behind the stage so that it can continue its massacres. This is inconsistency and insincerity,” said Erdoğan.
Erdoğan also said that Turkey stood with the people of Lebanon as Israel targets Hezbollah fighters with airstrikes there.
In final UN address, Biden seeks to calm Middle East tension
US President Joe Biden addressed world leaders at the United Nations for the final time on Tuesday, declaring that Russia’s war in Ukraine had failed and that a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah was still possible.
With four months left in office, Biden stepped up to the green-marbled lectern at the UN General Assembly with wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and Sudan still raging and likely to outlast his presidency, which ends in January.
He sought to calm tensions as the nearly year-long war between Israel and Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip threatened to engulf Lebanon.
"Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest; even if the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” he told the 193-member UN General Assembly.
To a round of applause, Biden called on Israel and Hamas to finalise the terms of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal put forward by the US, Qatar and Egypt.
Biden said that progress toward peace in the Middle East would put the world in a stronger position to deal “with the ongoing threat posed by Iran. Together we must deny oxygen to its terrorist proxies ... and ensure that Iran will never, ever obtain a nuclear weapon.”
UN chief condemns ‘get out of jail free’ card on wars
UN Secretary-General António Guterres denounced on Tuesday a growing number of governments and other groups who feel they are “entitled to a get out of jail free card”, citing wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and Sudan.
“They can trample international law. They can violate the United Nations Charter,” Guterres told world leaders at the UN General Assembly. “They can invade another country, lay waste to whole societies, or utterly disregard the welfare of their own people. And nothing will happen.
“The level of impunity in the world is politically indefensible and morally intolerable,” he said.
“Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.”
Over 20 killed in Gaza as Israel fights on two fronts
Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 22 Palestinians on Tuesday, said medics, as Israeli forces battled Hamas-led fighters in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
The violence in Gaza came as fighting intensified between Israel and the Iran-backed forces of Hezbollah across Israel’s border with Lebanon.
Israeli tanks advanced in the northern and western areas of Rafah, battling fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, according to residents and a statement published by the two Palestinian groups. Residents said the Israeli army blew up several homes in eastern and central areas of the city.
The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked the invading forces with anti-tank rockets, mortar fire and detonated already planted bombs.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced by nearly a year of warfare as Israeli air and artillery strikes have reduced much of the Palestinian enclave to rubble. More than 41,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The war, the deadliest bout in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was triggered on 7 October when Hamas operatives attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. DM
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