The Israeli military said Sunday it killed Nabil Kaouk, another high-ranking Hezbollah official, a day after the Lebanese militant group confirmed the death of multiple commanders, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel says it’s carrying out attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Numerous airstrikes rocked the country on Sunday.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least 24 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes that hit two buildings in the country’s south. Separately, the Health Ministry said Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and injured at least 47.
Meanwhile, the number of people displaced by the conflict from southern Lebanon has more than doubled and now stands at more than 211,000, according to the United Nations.
Hezbollah and Israel have traded near-daily strikes since the Israel-Hamas war started after the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group stormed into Israel almost a year ago on Oct. 7, sparking fears of regional war.
Kaouk’s death represents the seventh senior Hezbollah commander killed in just over a week. He was the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central Council. He also served as Hezbollah’s military commander in south Lebanon from 1995 until 2010.
In 2020, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Kaouk and another member of Hezbollah’s council, Hassan al-Baghdadi.
The Israeli military said it killed Kaouk in a strike in a southern Beirut suburb on Saturday. Hezbollah confirmed the death Sunday.
News in the region is moving fast. Here’s the latest on other developments:
White House says Israel has ‘wiped out’ Hezbollah leadership but the group will try to rebuild
A senior White House official says Israel has “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure with a barrage of airstrikes, but warned that the militant group will work to quickly rebuild.
National security spokesman John Kirby said “they will try to recover. We’re watching to see what they do to try to fill this leadership vacuum.”
Referring to the strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Kirby said, “I think people are safer without him walking around.” But, speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, he sidestepped questions about whether the administration agreed with how the Israelis are going about targeting Hezbollah leaders. Lebanese officials say the strikes have killed many civilians.
The White House continues to call on Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day temporary cease-fire that was floated by the U.S., France and other countries last week, but rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
UN says 70,000 people have fled Lebanon for Syria
The United Nations’ refugee agency says 70,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria to escape Israeli bombardment.
The total includes both Lebanese citizens and Syrians who had moved to Lebanon but are now returning.
Sarah Haj Hassan fled Shmustar near Lebanon’s eastern city of Baalbek, on Saturday after intense Israeli strikes.
She’s one of some 7,500 people who has registered in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb of Damascus.
“I lost my house, and my parents’ house was damaged,” she told The Associated Press. “At the end of the day, we need to care for our children.”
Iran’s president says “decisive response” needed after strikes on Hezbollah
Iran’s president said Sunday that a “decisive response” was needed following Israel’s killing of numerous leaders of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in recent days.
President Masoud Pezeshkian characterized the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah as crimes.
“The Lebanese fighters should not be left alone in this battle,” Pezeshkian said during a Sunday cabinet meeting, his office reported.
Iran has armed and trained Hezbollah for decades and relied on it to put pressure on Israel, its chief regional rival.
Iran on Sunday also condemned Israeli airstrikes against power plants and port facilities in Yemen that targeted Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Pezeshkian called Israel a brutal regime and urged all Islamic countries not to be indifferent. And he criticized Western countries over a promised ceasefire in the region after Iran did not respond to the killing of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
“The claims by the United States and European countries’ leaders, who promised a ceasefire in exchange for Iran’s non-response to the assassination of martyr Haniyeh, were complete lies,” he said.
Netanyahu appoints a former rival to his Cabinet, cementing his own position
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin on Sunday appointed a former rival, Gideon Saar, as a member of his Cabinet.
The move expands Netanyahu’s governing coalition and helps entrench the Israeli leader in office.
Under their agreement, Netanyahu said, Saar will be given a spot in the Security cabinet, the body that oversees the management of the ongoing war.
Saar had hoped to replace Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, another rival of Netanyahu’s. But a deal to become defense minister fell through several weeks ago after fighting intensified with Hezbollah.
Israel says it has struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the group’s attacks
Israel’s military says dozens of aircraft have struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the militants’ recent attacks on Israel.
The military says it targeted power plants and sea port facilities in the city of Hodeida.
The Houthi media office said the Israeli strikes hit the Hodeida and Rass Issa ports along with two power plants in Hodeida city, which is a stronghold for the Iranian-backed rebels. Fire and plumes of smoke could be seen in the air over Hodeida after the strikes.
The strikes have killed at least 4 people and wounded 33 others, Houthi-run media reported. The dead include a worker at the port in the city of Hodeida and three engineers at the city’s Hali power plant, al-Masirah TV reported. Rescue teams were still searching for missing people under the rubble at the plant.
The group said it had taken precautionary measures and Israel’s strikes would not stop Houthi attacks on shipping routes and on Israel.
The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arriving on a flight from the United States.
The US says it has killed 37 militants in airstrikes in Syria
The U.S. military says it killed 37 militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group in two strikes in Syria this month.
U.S. Central Command said it struck northwestern Syria on Tuesday targeting a senior militant in charge of military operations for the al-Qaida-linked Hurras al-Deen group and eight others.
It also said a large-scale airstrike on Sept. 16 targeted an IS training camp in a remote location in central Syria. That attack killed 28 militants including “at least four Syrian leaders,” the U.S. said.
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There are some 900 U.S. forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory.
Hezbollah confirms death of a senior commander in charge of its southern front
Hezbollah has confirmed the death of a senior commander in charge of its southern front.
The Lebanese militant group says Ali Karaki was killed in an intense Israeli airstrike on Friday that also killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut.
It says Karaki was responsible for all of Hezbollah’s units in southern Lebanon in the ongoing conflict with Israel.
He is among a handful of senior officials in the militant group killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in recent days.
The Israeli military said Sunday that it killed another high-ranking Hezbollah official, Nabil Kaouk, in an airstrike on Saturday.
World Food Program launches a mission to provide food to up to 1 million in Lebanon
The World Food Program says it has launched an emergency operation to provide food to up to 1 million people displaced by violence in Lebanon.
The U.N. agency said Sunday it distributes ready-to-eat food rations, bread, hot meals and food parcels to families in shelters across the country.
The agency says it needs $105 million to help it continue the work until the end of the year and has urged the international community to support the humanitarian response.
Corinne Fleischer, the agency’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, said: “Lebanon is at a breaking point and cannot endure another war.”
Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said the government estimates that about 250,000 people are in shelters while four times as many may be displaced outside the shelters.
Israeli military says it has dismantled a Hamas tunnel in central Gaza
The Israeli military says it has uncovered and dismantled a Hamas tunnel in central Gaza that was over a kilometre long.
It said Sunday that the tunnel ran near residential buildings, and that inside were several rooms and equipment used by militants for prolonged stays.
The military released footage showing the entrance to the tunnel, a long staircase leading down and what appeared to be an iron blast door.
Hamas is believed to have built hundreds of kilometres of tunnels across Gaza to evade Israeli airstrikes. The militants have also used the tunnels to hold hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war and to launch ambushes against Israeli forces.
Israel has announced the destruction of several large tunnels throughout the war.
Suez Canal revenue drops by 60 per cent
Egypt’s president says its revenues from the Suez Canal have dropped by 60 per cent, or more than $6 billion, in recent months as attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels disrupt Red Sea shipping.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi spoke during a graduation ceremony Sunday at the Police Academy in Cairo.
“The ongoing developments are very serious and could lead to expanding the conflict’s theatre,” he said.
Attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis have led shipping firms to divert traffic around the Red Sea and, by extension, the Suez Canal linking it to the Mediterranean.
The Houthis say they are targeting ships linked to Israel, the United States and Britain in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. However, many of the targeted vessels have no connection to Israel or the war.
The canal is a major source of foreign currency for Egypt’s battered economy.
In July, Adm. Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, said the canal’s annual revenues dropped to $7.2 billion from $9.4 billion the year before. He said 20,148 vessels transited through the canal in the fiscal year 2023-24, down from 25,911 the year before.
Israeli strikes kill at least 4 people in the Gaza Strip
Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes have killed at least four people in the Gaza Strip.
Two people were killed in separate strikes early Sunday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. That’s according to the nearby Awda Hospital, which received the bodies. It said another six people were wounded.
In northern Gaza, first responders recovered two bodies after a strike on a house early Sunday, according to the Civil Defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
The Gaza Health Ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, more than half of them women and children. It does not say how many of those killed were militants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Around 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Nearly 250,000 people are in shelters following Israeli strikes, Lebanese official says
Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon have been displaced from the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, a Lebanese cabinet minister spearheading the country’s emergency response said.
Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said the government estimates that about 250,000 people have left their homes and taken refuge in government-run shelters and informal ones. However, he told the Associated Press the total number is about “four times as many directly affected and/or displaced outside the shelters.”
The United Nations said that as of Friday, 211,319 people were forced to relocate, and that was before some intensive Israeli airstrikes over Beirut’s southern suburbs in recent days.
The Lebanese government has converted schools and other facilities into temporary shelters. Still, many are sleeping on the streets or in public squares, as the government and non-governmental organizations try to find them places to stay.
Thousands in Iran protest Nasrallah’s killing
Thousands of people have gathered across Iran to protest the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike.
State TV aired footage of protests in several major cities on Sunday. At Iran’s parliament, lawmakers chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Iran helped establish Hezbollah in the 1980s and has provided the Lebanese militant group with sophisticated weaponry and training.
The airstrike that killed Nasrallah on Friday also killed Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, a senior officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Guard officially confirmed Nilforushan’s death on its website Sunday, after it had been widely reported in state media the day before.
Lebanese military calls for calm
In its first statement since the recent escalation with Israel and following the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon’s military called for calm among the Lebanese “at this dangerous and delicate stage.”
Government officials fear that the country’s deep political divisions at a time of war could rekindle sectarian strife and violence in the small Mediterranean country.
“The Israeli enemy is working to implement its destructive plans and spread division among the Lebanese,” the military said.
Military vehicles have been deployed in different parts of the capital as thousands of displaced people continue moving from the south to Beirut.
A missile falls in Jordan
Jordan’s military says a Grad missile fired from Lebanon fell in an open area without causing casualties or damage.
The missile was likely fired at Israel by Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which has intensified its rocket attacks after its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.
Jordan and Israel, which share borders, signed a peace treaty in 1994. The Western-allied Arab country also helped intercept missiles fired at Israel by Iran in April.
Jordan has been fiercely critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians and has repeatedly called for a cease-fire in Gaza. It has also said it will not allow its territory to become a battlefield as tensions mount between Israel and Iran.
El-Sissi warns Israeli operations threaten the region
Egypt’s president warned that Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon are pushing the region to the brink and called for international action.
Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, one of the mediators between Israel and Hamas, called for “an immediate and comprehensive cease-fire” in both Gaza and Lebanon amid an unprecedented escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. His remarks came after Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Along with the United States and Qatar, Egypt has for months spearheaded negotiations between Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza. But negotiations have repeatedly stalled amid mounting fear of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas. Diplomats see a cease-fire in Gaza as the best way to avert a regional war.
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