Middle East crisis live: five killed in Israeli strike on medical centre in central Beirut, Lebanon officials say

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The Israeli military says it has intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” off the coast of Tel Aviv.

The death toll in the Israeli attack on a medical centre in the Bashoura neighbourhood of central Beirut has risen to five, AFP reports citing Lebanese health officials.

BBC correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard is reporting a further two Israeli airstrikes on the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.

A US resident from Dearborn, Michigan, has been killed in Lebanon, the American government has said according to Reuters, with the man’s friend and neighbours saying he died in an Israeli airstrike.

“We are deeply saddened by the death of Kamel Ahmad Jawad and our hearts go out to his family and friends. His death is a tragedy, as are the deaths of many civilians in Lebanon,” a White House spokesperson said.

The US has supported Israel in its attacks on Lebanon, even as it calls for diplomacy and even as civilians including children are killed.

Jawad was in Lebanon taking care of his elderly mother, according to the Detroit News. His friend Hamzah Raza and local Dearborn groups said on social media that Jawad was killed in an Israeli air strike and called him “one of the kindest and most generous humans.”

Reuters was unable to confirm the circumstances of Jawad’s death.

Earlier in the day, a state department spokesperson, when asked about reports of an American’s death in Lebanon, said: “It’s our understanding that it was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen [who got killed in Lebanon] but we obviously offer our sincerest condolences to the family.”

Israel’s recent military campaign in Lebanon has killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million. Israel claims it is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

Here are some of the latest pictures coming to us of the devastation in Beirut caused by Israeli attacks:

Black smokes and flames rise over the Dahiyeh area in southern Beirut after an Israeli strike in the early hours of Thursday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

People gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an apartment building in Beirut’s Bashura neighbourhood in the early hours of Thursday. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images

People gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an apartment building in Beirut’s Bashura neighbourhood in the early hours of Thursday. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images

The IDF’s Arabic language spokesperson has issued another warning to residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, warning people in the vicinity of a particular building in the suburb of Hadath to flee and posting a map. They have also issued warnings to people in the neighbourhoods of Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh.

William Christou

More on that Israeli strike on the medical centre in central Beirut: two people were killed and 11 wounded, according to an initial report by the Lebanese ministry of health.

William Christou

An apparent Israeli airstrike hit a medical centre belonging to the Hezbollah-linked “Islamic Health Organisation” in central Beirut, in the early hours of Thursday morning. The strike was the second airstrike on central Beirut this week, with most attacks previously having been confined to suburbs south of the city.

Most of the paramedics killed by Israeli bombing since the beginning of the war were affiliated with Islamic health services, whether Hezbollah or other parties.

International human rights groups have stressed that the killing of any healthcare workers is unlawful, regardless of political affiliation, as long as they are not taking part in combat or facilitating it.

Summary of the day so far

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Israel launched more airstrikes on Beirut, including in the centre of the Lebanese capital, early on Thursday. Multiple explosions were heard in Dahieh, a suburb in southern Beirut, and one huge blast near the downtown. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “conducted a precise strike in Beirut”. An apparent Israeli airstrike started a fire in an apartment in the residential Bashoura district, AP reported, not far from the UN headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. There was no warning issued ahead of the strike.

• Lebanon’s health ministry said 46 people were killed and 85 were wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in the past 24 hours. Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, many of them women and children, according to the ministry.

• Israel will respond to Iran’s missile attack and its forces can strike anywhere in the Middle East, its military chief said. “We have the capability to reach and strike every location in the Middle East and those of our enemies who have not yet understood this, will understand this soon,” Herzi Halevi, chief of the general staff, said in a video on Wednesday. “Iran made a big mistake tonight – and it will pay for it.” Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz threatened Israeli retaliation for Iran’s “brutal” missile attack.

• Iran braced itself for likely Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites as the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged the west to leave the Middle East. The unprecedented Iranian salvo of more than 180 ballistic missiles came less than 24 hours after the Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the largest ground incursion into southern Lebanon in a generation.

• Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saied Iravani, said Tuesday’s missile attacks against Israel were “necessary to restore balance and deterrence”, adding that they were a “proportionate response to Israel’s continued terrorist aggressive acts over the past two months”. “Experience has proven that Israel only understands the language of force,” he told the council as he defend Tehran’s actions in line with the UN Charter. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, earlier made a round of diplomatic calls, insisting that Iran was not seeking escalation. Part of the purpose of Araghchi’s calls was to convey the limits of the Iranian operation, and to urge the US and Europe to insist in turn that Israel show restraint in its response.

• Joe Biden, the US president, said he would not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites, as the US sought to temper Israel’s response to Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday and contain a rapidly escalating regional conflict. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, convened a meeting of his top security officials at the Israeli defence headquarters, the Kirya in Tel Aviv, on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the country’s options after a round of conversations with Washington.

• Biden and G7 leaders “unequivocally” condemned the Iranian missile attack on Israel during a call on Wednesday, the White House said. In a readout of the call, the White House said Biden joined the call with the G7 to discuss the Iranian attack and “to coordinate on a response to this attack, including new sanctions”.

• More than 70 people have been killed in a series of intensive ground operations and airstrikes by the Israel Defense Forces in southern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said on Wednesday. The health ministry in Gaza said at least 51 people were killed and 82 wounded in the operation in Khan Younis that began early on Wednesday. Records at the European hospital show that seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed. Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.

• At least 41,689 Palestinians have been killed and 96,625 others injured in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday. Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza nearly a year after Hamas’s 7 October attack triggered the war in the territory, and even as attention has shifted to Lebanon and Iran.

• The son-in-law of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Hassan Jaafar Qasir was among three people killed by the attack, which flattened a building in the Mazzeh district, an area favoured by Hezbollah militants and officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

• Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, claimed responsibility for a shooting and knife attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that killed at least seven people. Across the country, there was a sense of apprehension on Wednesday as Israel vowed to retaliate against Iran for the missile strike.

• Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed and a number of others wounded in three exchanges with Hezbollah in heavy fighting inside Lebanon, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The deaths appeared to signify the first substantial clashes between IDF soldiers and Hezbollah since Israel said it had initiated a limited ground incursion into Lebanon to target Hezbollah’s infrastructure along the border.

• Hezbollah said it inflicted casualties on a group of Israeli soldiers attempting to assault the Lebanese village of Odaisseh, not far from the border. The Iran-backed group also said its fighters wounded and killed a group of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon after detonating an explosive device. It also claimed it had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with guided rockets in the Lebanese border town of Maroun el-Ras.

• The IDF claimed to have destroyed “over 150 terror infrastructures”, which it said included “Hezbollah headquarters, weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers” inside Lebanon. Israel’s military also reported a continued barrage of projectiles fired into the country from Lebanon.

• António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, on Wednesday condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel, telling the security council the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop”. “Time is running out,” he told the council. Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said he was barring Guterres from entering the country because he had not “unequivocally” condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel. The UN has decried the Israeli government’s decision to ban Guterres from entering the country as a “political statement” and “one more attack on the United Nations staff that we’ve seen from the government of Israel”.

• A charter flight to evacuate Britons from Lebanon landed in Birmingham late on Wednesday. The Dan Air plane landed at Birmingham international airport just before 8.40pm, having stopped off in Bucharest en route. Beirut’s international airport remains open but ministers and officials are preparing contingency plans for sea and air rescues via Cyprus should the security situation in Lebanon deteriorate to the point at which commercial flights are stopped.

• Thousands of foreign nationals have left Lebanon since Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah just over a fortnight ago. Slovakia is preparing to evacuate its nationals from Lebanon, and has received permission from the Lebanese government to use a military plane for the purpose. China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua reported that over 200 Chinese nationals have been evacuated from Lebanon. The US state department said it organised a flight from Beirut to Istanbul on Wednesday to allow Americans to leave Lebanon. French nationals in Iran have been recommended to leave temporarily once international air traffic resumes. Germany’s foreign ministry also urged its citizens to leave Iran.

• Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike last week, according to a report. In the immediate aftermath of the attack that targeted pagers used by Hezbollah members on 17 September, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech Nasrallah to leave Lebanon for Iran, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.

Israeli strike hits central Beirut – reports

An Israeli strike hit within Beirut’s city limits, not far from downtown, a security source told Reuters.

A Lebanese security source told the BBC that a cruise missile was fired from the sea at a “health centre” belonging to Hezbollah in Salim Slam street close to downtown Beirut.

The BBC said Israeli media reported that Israeli warships in the Mediterranean sea are targeting the Lebanese capital.

Another explosion reported in Beirut

A massive blast was heard across Beirut just now, according to multiple reports.

From Timour Azhari of Reuters:

And the BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard:

Charter flight carrying Britons out of Lebanon lands in UK

A charter plane carrying British nationals from Lebanon has landed in Birmingham.

The plane touched down at Birmingham international airport shortly before 8.40pm local time, PA News reported.

It departed from Beirut early on Wednesday and stopped off in Bucharest. A separate scheduled Middle East Airlines service also brought Britons back to the UK.

Further flights are planned for Thursday and over the coming days, according to the UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy.

Israeli strikes kill 46 people in Lebanon, says health ministry

Lebanon’s health ministry said 46 people were killed and 85 were wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in the past 24 hours.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, many of them women and children, according to the ministry.

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