Middle East crisis live: Israel issues new evacuation orders for Beirut suburbs; Israeli strike on West Bank kills number of people | Lebanon

G7 leaders have released a joint statement where they expressed “deep concern over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East” and called on regional players to “act responsibility and with restraint”.

In the statement, G7 leaders said they condemned “in the strongest terms” Iran’s military attack against Israel earlier this week, which they said “constitutes a serious threat to regional stability.”

“We unequivocally reiterate our commitment to the security of Israel,” G7 leaders said, adding that Iran’s “seriously destabilising” actions in the region “must stop.” The statement said:

A dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks fuelling uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East, which is in no one’s interest.

At least 14 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Thursday.

A video posted to social media appeared to show the aftermath of the Israeli strike:

As we reported earlier, the Israeli military has confirmed it conducted a strike in Tulkarm, without elaborating.

At least five people have been killed in an Israeli military strike on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm on Thursday, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Several others were injured after an Israeli airstrike on a popular cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reported.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that it carried out an airstrike with a fighter jet in Tulkarm.

The IDF said the strike came amid a joint operation in the area with Shin Bet, and that further details will be provided later.

The Israeli military has ordered Lebanese civilians near two buildings in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, to evacuate immediately ahead of airstrikes.

Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee published maps alongside the announcement, warning civilians to distance themsevles at least 500 metres from the sites.

The Israeli army has said it does possess smoke shells that contain white phosphorus but did not say if it used phosphorus bombs in the recent attack in Beirut that killed nine people.

The Israeli strikes in the early hours of Thursday were the closest yet to downtown Beirut. In the hours after the attack, residents reported a sulfur-like smell, AP reported.

Lebanon’s state-run national news agency accused Israel of using phosphorus bombs, which can cause severe burns and could violate international law.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said:

The primary smoke shells used by the IDF do not contain white phosphorus. Like many Western militaries, the IDF also possesses smoke shells that include white phosphorus, which are lawful under international law.

Human rights groups have previously accused Israel of using white phosphorus incendiary shells on towns and villages in southern Lebanon.

Israel has also been accused of using white phosphorus munitions in their military operations in Gaza.

The airstrikes started just before noon. The injured and the dead quickly followed. As the ground in the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun began to shake from the relentless approach of Israeli bombs, Shoshan Mazraani let her muscle memory take over.

As the emergency room director of its public hospital, she was well versed in the grim logistics of the triage procedures that follow a bombing. Then after five hours of gruelling work, the din of the emergency room was interrupted by a long whistle.

Doctors turned their heads, a reflex after nearly a year of war. Then a blast, the doors of the hospital blown open, the windows shattering and cracks spreading across the hospital walls. Mazraani said:

When I heard the rocket, I thought it was coming to hit us. Then there was a tremendous pressure in the hospital, the doors buckled from it. I really thought the rocket had impacted us.

Two airstrikes had landed just metres from the hospital on Monday last week, damaging its interior and forcing medical workers to stop their work until they could figure out if they were under attack.

The airstrikes took Mazraani by surprise. Marjayoun, colloquially referred to as the beginning of the “Christian corridor” by UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon, had remained relatively untouched by fighting. As late as July, residents of the town could be seen going on scenic jogs, UN armoured personnel carriers passing them by and plumes of smoke rising from the hills just a few miles away.

Marjayoun’s hospital, in particular, was thought to be safe. But on 23 September, when Israel began a punishing aerial offensive on Lebanon that has so far killed 700 and wounded more than 2,000, healthcare workers suddenly found themselves at risk.

Read the full story here: Lebanese healthcare workers fearful as growing numbers killed in strikes

Dr Nadine Jawad, the daughter of the Lebanese American killed in his hometown of Nabatieh, Lebanon, yesterday, Dr Kamel Ahmad Jawad, said as part of a statement that was sent to the Guardian:

“In his last days, he chose to…help the elderly, disabled, injured, and those who simply couldn’t financially afford to flee. He served as their guardian, provided them with food, mattresses, and other comforts, and anonymously paid off their debts. I would often ask him if he was scared, and he repeatedly told me that we should not be scared because he is doing what he loves the most: helping others live in the land he loved the most.”

Nadine emphasized that her father was dedicated to helping the oppressed around the world and, despite being surrounded by Israeli missiles, he remained calm and dedicated to supporting people in need.

Her father was in Lebanon taking care of his elderly mother, according to the Detroit News. His friend Hamzah Raza and local Dearborn groups called him “one of the kindest and most generous humans,” Reuters reported.

Joanna Walters

Relatives of the Lebanese-American father and doctor from Dearborn, Michigan, Kamel Ahmad Jawad, have issued a statement about their loved one, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon yesterday.

Jawad’s daughter, Dr Nadine Jawad, shared in a statement that her father decided to stay near the main hospital in his hometown of Nabatieh to help his community when he was struck.

Joanna Walters

A year of conflict between Israel and Hamas has resulted in a “devastating impact on the economy” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, the International Monetary Fund said today, including a nearly 90% drop in Gaza’s Gross Domestic Product.

Preliminary official estimates indicate an 86% decline in GDP in the first half of 2024” in Gaza, said International Monetary Fund communications chief Julie Kozack, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

Kozack added that Gaza’s:

“Civilian population faces dire socioeconomic conditions, a humanitarian crisis and insufficient aid delivery [and in the West Bank] already grim prospects have further deteriorated, and preliminary official data indicate a 25% decline in GDP in the first half of 2024.”

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Israel’s military ordered residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday, signaling that it may widen a ground operation launched earlier this week against Hezbollah. Israel has told people to leave Nabatieh, a provincial capital, and other communities north of the Litani River, which formed the northern edge of the UN-declared buffer zone. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said “Hezbollah’s activities force the IDF to act against it forcefully” and that anybody moving southward would be in danger. Israel has previously ordered 52 other villages inside Lebanon to evacuate.

• Multiple airstrikes were heard in Beirut on Thursday afternoon, with one of them reportedly hitting the office of Hezbollah’s media department in Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut. An official from the media office said they were safe, despite the blast. Israel said it had targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence operation. The Lebanese Red Cross said its convoy accompanied by the Lebanese Army was struck while evacuating wounded from Taybeh, a border-village in southern Lebanon.

• Israeli strikes on a central Beirut medical centre killed at least nine people in the early hours on Thursday. The Israeli strike hit a medical centre belonging to the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Organisation in the early hours of Thursday. The attack was the second airstrike on central Beirut this week, with most strikes having previously been confined to suburbs in the southern suburbs. At least seven people are known to have died in the strike on Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Organisation in the early hours of Thursday. The attack was the second Israeli airstrike on central Beirut this week. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, described the Israeli strike as a “violation of international humanitarian law”.

• Nearly 2,000 people have been killed, including 127 children, and 9,384 injured since the start of Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, the country’s health ministry said on Thursday. More than 1.2 million Lebanese people have been displaced by Israeli attacks. Lebanon’s health minister said more than 40 rescuers and firefighters have been killed by Israeli attacks over the last three days. The World Health Organization will not be able to deliver a large planned shipment of trauma and medical supplies to Lebanon on Friday due to flight restrictions, its chief said on Thursday.

• Hezbollah also carried out new strikes, targeting what it called Israel’s “Sakhnin base” for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets. At least eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

• The Lebanese army said that it returned fire at Israeli forces after one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli strike, marking the first time that the Lebanese army participated in the fighting against Israel. The soldier was killed when a Lebanese Red Cross convoy accompanied by the Lebanese Army was struck while evacuating wounded from Taybeh, a border-village in southern Lebanon.

• Joe Biden, the US president, said he was “discussing” possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil sites in response to Tehran’s missile attack on Tuesday. His comments quickly sent oil prices soaring. Asked if he would “allow” Israel to retaliate against Iran, Biden said on Thursday that “we don’t ’allow’ Israel, we advise Israel. And there is nothing going to happen today.” On Wednesday, Biden said he would not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

• Iran has warned Washington that any country that aids an Israeli attack will be deemed an Iranian target. In a statement issued by Iran’s mission at the UN in New York, Iran warned that a large Israeli strike will lead to attacks on Israeli infrastructure and that “should any country render assistance to the aggressor, it shall likewise be deemed an accomplice and a legitimate target.” The warnings came as the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, sought assurances from Gulf States in Doha that they would remain neutral in the event of any joint Israeli-US attack in Iran.

• The head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said three of the UN body’s schools were hit in Gaza in the past two days alone, killing at least 21 people. Israeli forces stepped up their attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday, killing at least 70 people in strikes on a school and an orphanage sheltering displaced people, according to Palestinian media and officials. “Schools used to be a safe haven for learning, they have now turned into hell for far too many,” Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Thursday.

• The death toll in Gaza has risen to 41,788 reported fatalities with 96,794 people wounded, according to the latest figures by territory’s health ministry on Thursday. At least 90 Palestinians were killed and 169 others injured in eight attacks by Israel over the last 24 hours, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

• The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah commander who was responsible for a rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers on a football field in July. The IDF said Khader Shahabiya was killed in an airstrike on Wednesday. The attack on Majdal Shams village, a predominantly Druze village, killed 12 children between the ages of 10 and 16 as they were playing football and wounded dozens more.

• Israel’s military also announced that in a strike “approximately three months ago” it believes it killed three senior Hamas figures. It named them as “Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip; Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio on Hamas’ political bureau and Hamas’ labor committee; and Sami Oudeh, commander of Hamas’ general security mechanism.”

• The Lebanese ambassador to the UK, Rami Mortada, claimed that Hezbollah’s leadership had agreed to a proposed 21 day ceasefire shortly before “hotheads” of Israel blew up the diplomatic path to peace by assassinating leader Hassan Nasrallah. Mortada’s comments on Thursday support a previous assertion made by Lebanese foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib.

• The Israeli army said its forces rescued an Iraqi Yazidi woman who was kidnapped by Islamic State (IS) militants and held captive in Gaza. Fawzia Amin Sido, 21, was freed in a months-long secret operation that involved Israel, the US and Iraq, officials said. More than 6,000 Yazidis were captured by IS militants from Sinjar region in Iraq in 2014, and some 2,600 are still missing.

• Among the favourites for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), the international court of justice (ICJ), and the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, according to a report.

Patrick Wintour

Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, was in Doha, Qatar for a wider conference, but his foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, held talks both with foreign ministers from the six state Gulf Cooperation Council and with the Saudi foreign minister on the sidelines of the summit.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said:

We intend to close the book on disagreements with Iran forever and develop relations between us like two friends.

His remarks underline recent Saudi assurances that there will be no Saudi-Israel normalisation deal without Israel’s agreement to a Palestinian state.

But the Gulf states will be concerned by reports, apparently confirmed by Joe Biden, that Israel is in discussions with the US whether it may target Iran oil installations, a move that could have a knock on effect on oil exports throughout the region.

In a joint press conference with Pezeshkian, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, said the crisis in the Middle East is a “collective genocide” and that his country has always warned of Israel’s “impunity.”

It has become crystal clear that what is happening is genocide, in addition to turning the Gaza Strip into an area unfit for human habitation, in preparation for displacement.

Pezeshkian said Iran had been forced to react due to Israel’s behaviour. He said:

Since I was elected as the president, I have been trying to say that we are looking for peace and tranquility, because no country or region can develop with war.

He restated his grievance that he had been misled when he agreed not to respond to the assassination of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in June due to claims that Israel was close to signing a Gaza peace deal.

Patrick Wintour

The broad hints of an Iranian counter-escalation especially if its nuclear sites are struck raise issues of whether Iran would be willing to hit what it regards as Israel’s most sensititve nuclear sites.

The warnings came as the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, sought assurances from Gulf States in Doha that they would remain neutral in the event of any joint Israeli-US attack in Iran.

Majid Takht-Ravanchi, the political deputy at Iran’s ministry of foreign affairs, also held a briefing with international diplomats in Tehran to warn them if Israel challenged Iranian sovereignty again, Israel will receive “a crushing and instructive response”.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will lead Friday prayers in Tehran while his foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will travel to Beirut to discuss if there is any possibility of reviving a ceasefire.

Iran struck Israeli military bases on Tuesday in response to the killing of the Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut on Friday, and Israel has vowed a response.

Iran warns US that any country that helps Israeli attack will be a ‘legitimate target’

Patrick Wintour

Iran has warned Washington that a large Israeli strike will lead to attacks on Israeli infrastructure and any country that aids such an attack will be deemed an Iranian target.

In a statement issued by Iran’s mission at the UN in New York, Iran said:

Should any country render assistance to the aggressor, it shall likewise be deemed an accomplice and a legitimate target. We advise countries to refrain from entangling themselves in the conflict between the Israeli regime and Iran and to distance themselves from the fray.

Iran also stressed no messages to “aggressors” will be sent except through the Swiss diplomats, the country designated to transmit Iranian messsages to the US. There had been claims that Iran was using Qatar as an intermediary with the US.