What we know
- Israel launched intense strikes on Beirut targeting Hezbollah's presumed new leader as he met with other senior militants, an Israeli official told NBC News. The IDF is still assessing whether Hashem Safieddine was killed.
- An Israeli airstrike cut off a key road that thousands of Lebanese had been using to cross into relative safety in Syria. Israel's bombardment has displaced more than a million people, filling shelters, and killed more than 2,000 people, according to local officials.
- Iran’s supreme leader vowed his country and its allies would not back down after its "brilliant operation" against Israel in a rare sermon with a rifle by his side and as he led prayers commemorating Hezbollah's powerful leader Hassan Nasrallah.
- President Joe Biden said he won’t "negotiate in public" with Israel over possible retaliatory targets for Iran's missile attack, but said he does not believe there will be "all-out war" in the Middle East.
Pro-Palestinian protest in Sydney to proceed Sunday
Australian authorities said today that they would deploy more police personnel and tighten security measures ahead of pro-Palestinian rallies in Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday, warning protesters that there would be no tolerance of violence.
In Sydney, the Palestine Action Group has dropped its plans to hold a rally Monday, the first anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed. The pro-Palestinian group will instead proceed with its rally Sunday after reaching an agreement with police to change the location and route, and to not display flags, portraits or symbols of prohibited organizations. It plans to hold a vigil on Monday.
“(People) who are thinking of other actions on October 7, think about whether your cause is being advanced or set back,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said it would be “hugely insensitive” to hold a vigil in Sydney on Monday and warned there would be an “overwhelming police response” if it turned into a protest rally.
U.K. charters fourth flight for British nationals to leave Lebanon
The U.K. has chartered a fourth flight for British nationals who would like to leave Lebanon, the British government said today.
It said the flight, which is scheduled to leave Beirut on Sunday, was added as tensions in the region escalate.
“The Government added the extra capacity due to high demand for places on commercial flights and has enabled more than 250 additional people to leave in the last week,” it said.
This is the only currently scheduled flight, the government said, citing a decrease in demand, but the situation will be reviewed.
“The situation in Lebanon remains volatile, so I am glad that we have helped the many people who have heeded our advice to leave the country immediately,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement. “With demand falling, and the security situation deteriorating, there is no guarantee other options to leave quickly will become available. I urge anyone who wants to leave to register now.”
Lammy said the U.K. continues to call for a cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel.
Any British nationals, their spouse or partner and children under 18 are eligible, and must have a valid travel document. Non-national dependants must have a valid visa granted for a stay longer than 6 months in the U.K.
Those who wish to leave should register with the government as soon as possible, it said.
Iran’s supreme leader appeared at Friday prayers in Tehran and said Iran would not hesitate to attack Israel again after this week’s missile barrage. The civilian death toll grew in Lebanon as Israel continued its airstrikes in Beirut aimed at Hezbollah. NBC News’ Richard Engel reports.
U.N. Security Council backs Guterres after Israel bars him from country
The United Nations Security Council expressed its full support for Secretary-General António Guterres after Israel’s foreign minister said he was barring him from entering the country.
The 15-member council said in a statement yesterday that “any decision not to engage with the U.N. Secretary-General or the United Nations is counterproductive, especially in the context of escalating tensions in the Middle East.”
The statement did not name Israel. Such statements by the council are agreed by consensus.
More than 100 projectiles launched into Israel from Lebanon today, IDF says
Approximately 122 projectiles were launched into Israel from Lebanon today as of 11 p.m. local time, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
It's not clear if anyone was injured in the strikes.
"The IDF will continue to operate against the threat of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, in defense of the State of Israel and its residents," the IDF said.
Earlier today, the IDF said around 70 projectiles were launched into Israel from Lebanon. Some of them were intercepted, and others landed in “open areas,” the IDF said. No injuries were reported.
Most of Lebanon's almost 900 shelters are full, U.N. official says
Most of Lebanon's almost 900 shelters are full of people fleeing Israeli airstrikes, forcing many to sleep in the streets, according to a United Nations official.
"People are sleeping in public parks, on the street, the beach,” said Mathieu Luciano, the International Organization for Migration’s office head in Lebanon.
Luciano also expressed concern about the tens of thousands of mostly female live-in domestic workers whom he said were being "abandoned" by their employers amid airstrikes in Lebanon.
“They face very limited shelter options,” he said.
Many of the workers are from Sri Lanka, Sudan and Egypt, Luciano said.
More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced and almost 2,000 have been killed over the last year since tensions between Israel and Hezbollah escalated, according to Lebaneses authorities. Most of the displacement and death happened over the past two weeks.
'Tough talk' on all sides, but if Israel 'goes all out' there will be full scale war, ex-CIA director says
After Biden made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room, Leon Panetta, the former secretary of defense and CIA director, gave his thoughts on the president's comments, the tensions in the Middle East, and the importance of a peaceful and fair election in the U.S. this year.
IDF says it killed Hamas commander and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative in Tulkarm
The Israel Defense Forces said it killed a Hamas commander and a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative in an airstrike yesterday on Tulkarm, in the West Bank.
The IDF identified the Hamas commander as Zahi Yasser Awfi, the head of the organization's network in Tulkarm, and the mastermind of "a significant amount" of terror attacks, who planned on executing another one "in the immediate timeframe."
The Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed the killing of Awfi and seven other members in a statement issued today.
The IDF also said it killed an operative with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement named Jihad Radwan, as well as at least five other Hamas and PIJ-affiliated individuals.
More than a dozen were killed by the Israeli airstrike on the Tulkarm refugee camp, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health.
Saja Khayroush was killed along with her brother, husband and their two children in the strike, according to Reuters. Their family members gathered to mourn them.
"Sham is 8 or 7 years old, second grade," said Amal Khayroush, Saja's mother, about her grandchildren. "Karam is still in kindergarten, he was supposed to enter school next year. He is only 5 years."
Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns Israeli strike targeting Lebanon-Syria border crossing
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israel's bombing of the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria today.
The attack cut off access to the border crossing, which is "the vital artery used by hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese and Syrian citizens" attempting to leave Lebanon amid Israeli airstrikes, the ministry said in a statement on Facebook.
"Syria condemns this unbridled Zionist crime that has even begun to affect civil defense crews and humanitarian relief workers, and we call for working to stop it immediately and to ensure that this entity is held accountable for its crimes and that it does not escape punishment," the ministry said.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it targeted the Lebanon-Syria border because of an underground tunnel allegedly used to smuggle weapons into Lebanon for Hezbollah.
Yazidi woman found in Gaza was not kidnapped by Islamic State group, Gaza Government Media Office says
A Yazidi woman who the Israel Defense Forces said had been kidnapped by the Islamic State group and rescued from Gaza this week was in the Palestinian enclave of her own accord, Gaza's Government Media Office said in a statement.
The woman, whom the IDF identified as a 21-year-old woman, is older than 25 and was married to a Palestinian man from Khan Younis, the media office said.
She lived with him in Syria, where he was a fighter for the opposition forces until he died. She then traveled to Turkey, Egypt and then to Gaza, where she settled with her late husband's mother "of her own free will," the media office said.
The woman married her late husband's brother after several years and lived with him before he was killed by an Israeli airstrike following Oct. 7, the media office said. She then asked the government in Gaza for shelter, which was provided, before eventually asking to communicate with her family and evacuate the enclave "because she had begun to feel that she was unsafe in the Gaza Strip with the intensity of the bombing," the office said.
Her family then contacted the Jordanian government, which coordinated with Israeli forces to get her out of Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the media office said.
The media office accused the IDF of spreading a false narrative.
"We would like to emphasize that this occupation that lies to public opinion is the same one that killed her husband and turned her life into a real tragedy," the media office said.
The IDF has said that the woman spent more than a decade in captivity and was trafficked by the Islamic State group to a member of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said she had been kidnapped and that she was freed in a joint effort by the ministry, Iraq's National Intelligence Agency and in coordination with the U.S. embassies in Baghdad and Oman, and Jordanian authorities.
She was later reunited with family in Iraq, the ministry said.