Middle East crisis live: Israeli airstrike reported in south Beirut; Gaza is ‘dying’, aid group chief tells Paris conference

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This blog has now closed. You can read our full coverage of the continuing conflict in the region here.

The international community should work to end the conflict in the Middle East and address the “huge” humanitarian crisis that has engulfed countries in the region, the head of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department says.

In updated economic estimates, the IMF slightly downgraded its outlook for economic growth in the Middle East and north Africa to 2.1 percent this year, while maintaining its 4.0 percent growth outlook for 2025.

However, these estimates do not take into account the economic impact of the recent escalation of conflict in southern Lebanon, where Israel has invaded to fight Hezbollah.

Jihad Azour, a former Lebanese finance minister, noted that the most severely affected places, including Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, were facing a “huge humanitarian problem” which has devastated their economies.

“You have massive loss in output, you have a massive destruction in infrastructure, and you have a huge set of needs for additional spending, for shelter, for health and so on,” he told AFP.

“We expect that growth will be negative in those cases, and we expect that the recovery would take longer to materialize,” he added.

The IMF has suspended its forecasts for the Lebanese economy, citing an “unusually high degree of uncertainty.” But a recent UN Development report estimated that the country’s GDP would be 9.2% smaller as a “direct consequence” of the conflict.

“You have massive destruction of infrastructure in a large region, which is the south, and mass destruction of livelihood, because this is an agricultural region that was severely affected,” Azour said, adding that almost 20% of Lebanon’s population had been displaced.

Iran preparing multiple military plans in response to potential Israeli attack – report

As it braces for an expected retaliatory strike from Israel, Iran has ordered the armed forces to be prepared for war but also to try to avoid it, having witnessed the decimation of its allies in Lebanon and Gaza, the New York Times is reporting.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered the military to devise multiple military plans for responding to an Israeli attack, the report says, citing four unnamed Iranian officials. The scope of any Iranian retaliation, they said, will largely depend on the severity of Israel’s attacks.

If Israeli strikes – a response to a barrage of missiles from Iran earlier this month – inflict widespread damage and high casualties, they said, Iran will retaliate. But if Israel limits its attack to a few military bases and warehouses storing missiles and drones, Iran might well do nothing.

The officials said Mr. Khamenei had directed that a response would be certain if Israel strikes oil and energy infrastructure or nuclear facilities, or if it assassinates senior officials.

For the country – and the region – the stakes could not be higher. An all-out war between Iran and Israel would deepen the chaos, likely doom any prospects for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and possibly lead the US into military action in support of Israel.

Israel says it killed Hamas commander who doubled as UN aid worker

Israel’s military said it had killed a Hamas commander who took part in the 7 October 2023 assault on southern Israel and worked for the UN aid agency in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.

The agency, Unrwa, has been accused by Israel of having many employees who double as members of Hamas and other armed groups. The UN, after an investigation, said in August that nine Unrwa staff had possibly been involved in the 7 October attacks, and fired them.

The Israeli military said Mohammad Abu Itiwi had been killed on Wednesday. It said he was a Hamas commander and had been involved in the murder and abduction of Israeli civilians. It also said he had been employed by Unrwa since July 2022 and that his name appeared on a list of the agency’s employees. Juliette Touma, Unrwa’s director of communications, said:

Unrwa confirmed Itiwi was a staff member and was killed on Wednesday. It said Itiwi’s name was included in a letter Unrwa received from Israel in July that included a list of 100 staff members who were also allegedly members of armed groups, including Hamas.

The Unrwa commissioner general responded to that letter immediately stating that any allegation is taken seriously. He urged (the government of Israel) to cooperate with the agency by providing more information so he could take action. To date, Unrwa has not received any response to that letter.

Unrwa provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It has long had tense relations with Israel but relations have deteriorated sharply since the start of the war in Gaza and Israel has called repeatedly for Unrwa to be disbanded.

“Israel has requested urgent clarifications from senior UN officials and an urgent investigation into the involvement of Unrwa employees in the 7 October massacre,” said Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari.

Philippe Lazzarini, the Unrwa commissioner-general, said last month that the Israeli government was seeking to drive the agency out of existence, having failed to persuade western donors to stop funding it on the grounds of allegations about links between Unrwa staff and Hamas.

He said his agency had responded promptly and seriously to the initial Israeli allegations that 12 staff members had taken part in the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. He said 10 staff had been sacked immediately and two investigations completed, including one by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna.

“There is a deliberate attempt to eliminate and dismantle the agency and the reason behind that has nothing to do with neutrality issues, but there is a political purpose behind it,” Lazzarini said at the time.

UN secretary-general António Guterres told Brics leaders including Russian president Vladimir Putin on Thursday that the world needed peace in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine and Sudan, Reuters reports.

“Across the board, we need peace,” Guterres said at the Brics summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

“We need peace in Ukraine. A just peace in line with the UN charter, international law and UN general assembly resolutions.”

Guterres’s office later issued a statement saying he had met Putin on the sidelines of the Brics meeting, and restating his call for peace in line with his address.

The statement said Guterres reiterated his position that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was “in violation of the UN Charter and international law”.

Guterres, the statement said, also said freedom of navigation in the Black Sea was “of paramount importance” for Russia, Ukraine and overall food and energy security.

The two men also discussed the “absolute need for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as the need to avoid a further regional escalation”.

Summary of the day so far

It’s 1am in Gaza, Beirut and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Israeli warplanes launched a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday, just minutes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued evacuation warnings. Footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the area. The IDF issued additional evacuation warnings for south Beirut later on Thursday night.

• An Israeli airstrike reportedly struck the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Thursday night, resulting in many fatalities and many residential buildings destroyed. Gaza’s civil defence agency estimated that 150 people – including women and children – were killed or wounded, the Palestinian news agency reported. At least a dozen residential buildings were blown up during the Israeli attack, Al Jazeera reported.

• At least 17 people, nearly all women and children, have been killed in Israeli bombing of a school turned shelter in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, medics in the territory have said. Another 42 people were wounded in the strike in the overcrowded camp, according to nearby al-Awda hospital. Among the dead were 13 children under the age of 18 and three women, it said. The strike marked the latest Israeli bombing of a school sheltering displaced people across Gaza. Israel’s military said the school was being used as a Hamas command and control centre. Jordan’s foreign ministry called the strike “a heinous crime that is added to the war crimes committed by Israel.”

• Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Thursday that more than 770 Palestinians have been killed in the north of the territory since Israel launched a new offensive in northern Gaza on 6 October. The agency also said it had been forced to suspend operations in northern Gaza after what it called threats from the Israeli military to “bomb and kill” rescue crews working in Jabalia camp. Gaza’s health ministry said on Thursday that 42,847 Palestinians have been killed and 100,544 wounded since Israel launched its military offensive last year.

• Israeli and US negotiators are scheduled to meet in Doha this weekend to try to restart talks toward a deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said the US, Qatar and Egypt continue their efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, “welcomes Egypt’s readiness” to advance a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza, according to his office.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, landed in London on Thursday night ahead of meetings with Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, and his Jordanian and Emirati counterparts. Earlier on Thursday, Blinken said the US was open to “different options” to ending the Gaza war after months of pushing a US-led ceasefire plan. He also announced another $135m in US aid for Palestinians.

• A senior Hamas official said the group told Egyptian officials on Thursday it was ready to stop fighting in Gaza if Israel committed to a ceasefire deal. According to Egyptian state media reports, a delegation of Hamas leaders met with an Egyptian security delegation in Cairo as part of efforts to resume the Gaza ceasefire negotiations. According to the Hamas official, the group “expressed readiness to stop the fighting, but Israel must commit to a ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, allow the return of displaced people, agree to a serious prisoner exchange deal and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.”

• France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, warned Benjamin Netanyahu that “civilisation is not best defended by sowing barbarism ourselves”. Macron also vowed to help train 6,000 extra Lebanese official forces, and called for a ceasefire and an end to Israeli attacks on UN peacekeepers, as a conference in Paris raised $200m (£154m) for Lebanon’s official military and $800m in humanitarian aid for the country.

• Russia’s president Vladimir Putin met with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, at the Brics summit in Russia on Thursday. At a news conference at the summit, Putin said Russia is “not interested” in escalating conflict in the Middle East, adding to Abbas that he is “strongly for a quick end to the bloodshed” in Gaza.

• Turkey launched airstrikes against suspected Kurdish militant targets in Syria and Iraq after blaming the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) for a deadly attack on the headquarters of the Turkish national aerospace company on Wednesday that killed five people. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Thursday that Turkish airstrikes killed 12 civilians in north-east Syria. Funerals were held on Thursday for the victims of the deadly attack at the Tusaş headquarters.

• PEN International said it is “outraged” by “threats” made by the Israeli military against six Palestinian journalists working at Al Jazeera. On Wednesday, the IDF published documents it said it had found in Gaza that proved that six Al Jazeera journalists had a military affiliation with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Committee to Protect Journalists said the allegations amounted to the smearing of Palestinian journalists “with unsubstantiated terrorist labels”. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said the country was proud of Al Jazeera’s news network, and said it carried out its work to the “highest international standards.”

An Israeli soldier and former Palestinian detainees have said that the Israeli military has used civilians as human shields in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have forced Palestinians to enter potentially booby-trapped houses and tunnels in Gaza to avoid putting its troops in harms way, the IDF soldier and former Palestinian detainees told CNN.

The IDF soldier said his unit held two Palestinian prisoners for the explicit purpose of using them as human shields to probe dangerous places, adding that the practice was prevalent among Israeli units in Gaza. He told the outlet:

We told them to enter the building before us. If there are any booby traps, they will explode and not us.

Blinken to meet with key Middle East leaders in London

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected to meet with Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, in London on Friday, AFP reported, citing a US official.

Blinken will also meet separately with the foreign minister of Jordan, Ayman Safadi, and that of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Friday, a US state department official said.

The US has stopped short of calling on Israel to end attacks immediately in Lebanon. Blinken, at a news conference earlier on Thursday, said Israel was working to remove the “threat” of Hezbollah but there must ultimately be a diplomatic solution.

Antony Blinken arrives in London on 24 October 2024. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

The Israeli military has issued additional evacuation warnings for south Beirut before expected airstrikes on the Lebanese capital.

As we reported earlier, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Avichay Adraee published maps showing specific buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb and warning people to evacuate the area immediately.

Adraee has now shared about three additional buildings in south Beirut and warned residents to evacuate them and stay away at a distance of more than 500 metres (1,640ft).

Here’s more on the reports of a massive Israeli assault on al-Hawaja Street in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

At least a dozen residential buildings were blown up during the Israeli attack on Thursday, Al Jazeera is reporting.

Gaza’s civil defence agency estimated that 150 people – including women and children – were killed or wounded as a result of the airstrike, the Palestinian news agency reported.

There are reports of an Israeli airstrike in western Jabalia in Gaza.

Al Jazeera is reporting that residential buildings have been blown up and there are many fatalities.

Israeli airstrike reported in south Beirut

Lebanese state media reported that an Israeli strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday, just minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for two buildings.

“Israeli warplanes launched a new strike a short while ago on the Choueifat” area, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.

AFP reported footage showing a plume of smoke rising from the targeted site.