IDF Eliminates 21 Hezbollah Commanders in 4 Days, US to Provide Humanitarian Aid For Lebanon | LIVE

Speaking at a town hall in North Carolina on Friday, former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Israel should hit Iran's nuclear sites and "worry about the rest later."

Trump was criticizing U.S. President Joe Biden's comments made on Wednesday saying he will not support an Israeli attack on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program.

“The answer is no,” Biden said Wednesday, when asked if he would support such retaliation after Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel on Tuesday.

"The answer should have been hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later," Trump said on Friday.

For just under an hour, Trump talked with a military-heavy audience in Fayetteville, North Carolina about issues from immigration and hurricane relief to veterans affairs and international relations.

Trump took several questions from people, all of whom had some connection to the military.

Israel intercepted two rockets fired from Lebanon Saturday as fire continued to smolder in the northern part of the country.

The fire was ignited by an earlier rocket attack.

Rocket alert sirens have been blaring all day in northern Israel.

The Israeli military said some 90 projectiles were fired Saturday from Lebanon into Israel.

Most were intercepted or fell in open areas, but several rockets fell in the northern Arab town of Deir al-Asad, where police said three people were lightly injured, and in the nearby city of Karmiel, damaging an apartment building.

Israel began a ground incursion Tuesday into Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest conflict, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Iran's Foreign Minister confirmed on Saturday that initiatives aiming to reach a cease-fire in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are underway.

Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Damascus that the countries involved are attempting to reach a deal, but did not name any of them.

He said they are mostly regional states and some states from outside the Middle East.

He added that any proposal should be first accepted by the Palestinian and Lebanese sides and once that happens Iran and Syria will "back such a move."

He reiterated that Iran will retaliate for any Israeli attack against his country.

Araghchi said any response by Iran to an Israeli attack will be "stronger and they can test our will."

Earlier in the day, Araghchi met with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Thousands of people have continued to cross on foot through the main Masnaa Border Crossing from Lebanon into Syria even after Israeli airstrikes cut off the road leading up to it.

The Associated Press journalists on Saturday saw a nonstop stream of people walking through a large crater created by the airstrike to buses waiting on the other side.

Nearly 375,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria, fleeing Israeli bombardment, in less than two weeks, Lebanese officials said.

The government's crisis management unit, citing figures from Lebanese General Security, said 374,621 people — Lebanese citizens and Syrians living in Lebanon — have crossed into Syria since Sept. 23, when Israel intensified its air bombardment campaign in Lebanon.

Israel began a ground incursion Tuesday into Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group. The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

A Slovak government plane landed in the capital Bratislava on Saturday with 46 people on board who were evacuated from Lebanon, according to the foreign ministry.

Another plane with 44 people onboard will land later in the day.

The ministry said a total of 34 Slovaks were among the group as well as nationals from other European countries.

The Czech Foreign Ministry said 10 Czechs and their three relatives with Lebanese passports will be on the second flight.

The evacuees were first taken from Beirut to Larnaca in Cyprus by a military transport plane before they boarded the government planes to Bratislava.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets in London on Saturday to call for a cease-fire as the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel approached.

Massive rallies were also planned in several European cities, including Paris and Rome, with the largest gatherings expected from Saturday to Monday.

Events will peak on Monday, the date of the anniversary.

By midday Saturday, thousands had gathered in central London’s Russell Square amid a significant police presence.

Some of the march’s organizers had said they planned to target companies and institutions they claimed were “complicit in Israel’s crimes,” including Barclays Bank and the British Museum.

Scuffles broke out as police officers pushed back activists trying to get past a police cordon.

Two senior terrorists in Hamas’ military wing in Lebanon were eliminated in two joint IDF and ISA operations.

- Muhammad Hussein Ali al-Mahmoud served as Hamas’ executive authority in Lebanon and directed terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria. He was responsible for Hamas’ entrenchment inside Lebanon, using it to supply weapons for rocket attacks against Israel and in attempts to manufacture advanced weaponry.

- Said Alaa Naif Ali carried out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets and worked to recruit Hamas operatives inside Lebanon.

Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon on Saturday, hitting Beirut’s southern suburbs with 12 airstrikes and striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in northern Lebanon for the first time.

The attack on the Beddawi refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli killed an official with Hamas’s military wing, along with his wife and two young daughters, the Palesitnian militant group said in a statement. Tripoli is much farther north than the majority of Israel’s strikes, which have been concentrated in southern Lebanon and Beirut.

Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began in October last year, in addition to most of the top leadership of Hezbollah.

At least six people were killed in more than a dozen Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday, according to National News Agency, Lebanon’s official news agency.

The Israeli military said special forces were carrying out targeted ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, destroying missiles, launchpads, watchtowers and weapons storage facilities. The military said troops also dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.

Some 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border. On Tuesday, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon. Nine Israeli troops have been killed in close fighting in the area in the past few days, the military said.

Also on Saturday, Palestinian medical officials say Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza early Saturday have killed at least 9 people, including two children.

One strike hit a group of people in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least five people, including two children, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.

Another strike hit a house in the northern part of the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four people, the Awda hospital said. The strike also left a number of people wounded, it said.

The Israeli military did not have any immediate comment on the strikes, but it has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.

The Israeli military on Saturday released a video it claimed shows Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said in a statement that special forces were carrying out “limited, localized, targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, including underground tunnels, watchtowers, and weapons storage facilities.

On Tuesday, Israel began a ground incursion into Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group while also conducting airstrikes across the country.

The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response.

More than 41,800 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

A military plane evacuating 97 people from Lebanon arrived in South Korea on Saturday.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the group on the plane includes South Korean nationals and their family members. There are about 30 South Koreans left in Lebanon besides diplomats and embassy workers who are staying.

Israeli military on Saturday warned residents in parts of central Gaza to evacuate, saying its forces will soon operate there in response to Palestinian militants.

A surgeon in Beirut has accused Israel of waging a “war on children” in Lebanon, drawing a comparison to how large numbers of young people have faced death and injury during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon at American University of Beirut Medical Center, who previously worked in Gaza, gave his account from the ground to CNN’s Michael Holmes on Saturday.

“We are seeing [a] similar pattern to what I was seeing in Gaza in October and November last year,” he said.

Hospital in Southern Lebanon Evacuated After Israeli Strike, 9 Medical Staff Injured

Israeli army warns Palestinians in large areas of Bureij, Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza Strip to seek refuge elsewhere ahead of possible military offensive

U.S. officials told New York Times that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is alive and rejecting any ceasefire deal, instead hoping for a regional war to force Israel to scale back operations in Gaza.

Officials say Hamas “has shown no desire at all to engage in talks,” according to NYT.

At least 18 people including several Hamas fighters have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late on Thursday.

The Palestinian Authority-run news agency Wafa said the strike had hit a cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp where many civilians were present.

Hamas confirmed that commander Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi was killed by the strike, who the IDF say attempted a car bombing last month and supplied weapons. 

Aircraft of the Air Force attacked during the night, in a targeted manner and under the intelligence guidance of the Amman and the Northern Command, operatives of the terrorist organization Hezbollah who were operating in the headquarters established in a mosque near the Salah Ahandor Hospital in southern Lebanon.

The headquarters was used by the terrorists to plan and carry out terrorist operations against the IDF forces and the State of Israel, said IDF. 
 

Hezbollah claims it repelled an Israeli offensive in the border village of Adaisseh overnight.

It says Hezbollah fighters "engaged" Israeli troops, "resulting in a massive explosion within the advancing forces, forcing them to retreat and causing casualties among their ranks".

No response from IDF on this yet. 

Explosions in Beirut After Israel Warns People in Southern Suburb to Leave

The IDF’s spokesman in Arabic, @AvichayAdraee, once again urges Lebanese civilians to avoid populated areas where Hezbollah terrorists are embedded and launching attacks:

“A call to all residents of Lebanese villages who have evacuated their homes for their own safety: IDF raids are continuing. For your safety and the safety of your families - do not return home until further notice.”

Sirens have been sounding in northern Israel overnight and this morning to warn residents of incoming attacks.

The Israeli military says five "projectiles" (usually meaning rockets) were identified crossing from Lebanon this morning.

Some of these were intercepted before they could land, while others were left to fall in open areas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says.

An Israeli airstrike has cut off a main highway linking Lebanon with Syria, leaving two huge craters on either side of the road.

Abbas Araghchi arrived in the capital, Damascus, after visiting Lebanon to strengthen ties in the region.

He is expected to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad later today.

Israeli Drone Targets Apartment Building in Beddawi Camp, Northern Lebanon.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed that it had eliminated the head of Hezbollah's communication networks, Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, in the strikes it carried out on Beirut.

"Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, the Commander of Hezbollah’s Communications Unit, killed during a precise, intelligence-based strike in Beirut yesterday", IDF said in an X post.

Israel said it had targeted the intelligence headquarters of Hezbollah in Bierut and was assessing the damage on Friday after a series of strikes on senior figures in the group that Iran's Supreme Leader dismissed as counterproductive.

Vice President Kamala Hsarris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, as her presidential campaign seeks to win back voters angry at U.S. support for Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon. 

Incoming reports say Ibrahim Amin Al-Sayyid has been appointed as the new Hezbollah leader after yesterday’s Israeli assassination of Hashem Safieddine

Beirut was hit by further blasts early Saturday.

The night sky lit up as explosions and smoke were seen on the skyline.

Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September.

Israel's multilayered air-defense system appears to have passed another test after fending off Iran's latest missile barrage.

In Tuesday's night's strike, Iran fired over 180 missiles toward Israel. The attack set off air raid sirens across the country and sent residents scrambling for shelter, but caused only a handful of minor injuries and limited damage, in large part because many were intercepted or landed in open areas.
 

President Joe Biden had terse words for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, and said he did not know whether the Israeli leader was holding up a Mideast peace deal in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.

"No administration has helped Israel more than I have, none. None, none. And I think Bibi should remember that," he said, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname. "And whether he is trying to influence the election, I do not know but I am not counting on that." Biden, in a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room, was responding to comments made by one of his allies, Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who told CNN this week that he was concerned Netanyahu had little interest in a peace deal in part because of US politics.
 

IDF Says It Struck Hamas Command Centre in Former School in Central Gaza

US President Joe Biden has advised Israel to look for 'Other Alternatives' to deal with Iran, Biden suggest striking in Iran's oil facilities. He said that US want peace in the world and that this war in the middle east should be avoided from further escalation