Middle East latest: Israel expanding air campaign in Lebanon; UK had planned to sanction far-right Israeli ministers, David Cameron says (2024)

Key points
  • Israel expanding air campaign in Lebanon as fierce fighting in northern Gaza continues
  • Netanyahu: Israel will make its own decisions
  • UK and allies condemn Israeli attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon
  • Lord Cameron saysUK was working on sanctions against Israeli ministers
  • Analysis:Israeli strike on Iran may help Trump's election chances
  • Nancy Pelosi: Netanyahu never believed in peace
  • Latest updates from Alex Rossiin southern Lebanon,Dominic Waghornin Tel Aviv and Alistair Bunkallin Jerusalem
  • Live reporting by Ollie Cooper

11:57:12

Top IRGC leaders turn out for funeral

The funeral of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) general killed alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has drawn the largest crowd of top Iranian leaders together since the start of the month.

A service in Tehran for General Abbas Nilforushan, the IRGC's chief commander, was attended by the country's President Masoud Pezeshkian and other Guard generals including Esmail Qaani of the expeditionary Quds Force.

Rumours had circulated for days regarding General Qaani's welfare after the strike that killed Nasrallah.

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC's aerospace division that oversees its missile programme, and General Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guard's navy, did not attend.

11:32:01

UN: Quarter of Lebanon told to evacuate by Israel

A bit more from the United Nations briefing in Geneva now.

At least 25% of Lebanese territory is currently under evacuation orders from the Israeli military, according to a UN official.

The UN refugee agency's Middle East director Rema Jamous Imseis made the comments as she noted new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon.

"Now we have over 25% of the country under a direct Israeli military evacuation order," she said.

"People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they're fleeing with almost nothing."

11:13:01

Many victims of Israeli strike in north Lebanon were women and children, UN says

Many of the victims of yesterday's Israeli strike on a building in northern Lebanon were women and children, according to the United Nations human rights office.

"What we are hearing is that amongst the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children," spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing, also confirming that the number of dead had risen from 21.

"We understand it was a four-storey residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL [International Humanitarian Law], so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality," he said, calling for an investigation.

10:51:01

Smoke rises over West Bank and Lebanon

These images show smoke rising over the West Bank town of Taybeh and the Lebanese town of Arnoun.

Israeli military action continues in both Palestinian and Lebanese territory (see 6.55am post).

10:24:01

Analysis: Alarm bells ringing for IDF after drone attack

By Alistair Bunkall, Middle East correspondent in Jerusalem

The Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli base over the weekend, which killed four soldiers and injured more than 60, has caused considerable alarm within the IDF.

The drone managed to evade Israel's sophisticated air defence systems, fly 35 miles south of the Lebanese border and impact a dining hall full of soldiers eating.

Hezbollah claims it was targeting the base, which is plausible, but we can't be sure whether it was deliberate or sheer chance that they successfully hit a crowded room.

The visits of Israel's prime minister, defence minister and the IDF chief of staff within hours of one another are an indication of how seriously this incident is being taken.

Hezbollah has been launching drones at northern Israel for months.

The tactic is not new and has also been used by other groups in Iraq, Syria and the Houthis in Yemen, who killed one person when a drone exploded in a Tel Aviv apartment in July.

The drones fly slowly (when compared with missiles), at a lower altitude, with a smaller radar signature and on a less predictable trajectory. These factors all combine to make drones much harder to detect and shoot down.

They can also be confused for birds.

If drone launches are combined with a large barrage of missiles, as was the case on Sunday night, it can confuse, distract or overwhelm the Iron Dome defence system.

Sunday's attack indicates that Hezbollah has been testing the Iron Dome and refining its tactics as the war has developed.

The low cost of drones is also attractive to militaries and groups like Hezbollah, which can fire swarms at targets over a sustained period.

It only needs one to get through and - as we saw on Sunday - the damage can be considerable.

The short distance between Hezbollah drone launches and Israeli territory means reaction times must be fast, and Israel's relatively densely-populated territory means there is also the risk of shrapnel falling on civilian areas from a successful interception.

Watch Bunkall's report on the Binyamina strike here

Russia has used Iranian supplied drones regularly in Ukraine and it has led many Western military analysts to question whether defence budgets would be better spent procuring thousands of drones rather than a few top-of-the-range missiles.

That fact wasn't lost on Ukraine's ambassador to Israel, who said he had warned the Israeli prime minister's office back in February about the damage Iranian-made drones were doing to his country, but received little co-operation from Israel.

Israel, and other militaries, are in the process of developing a laser defence system for dealing with drones and other projectiles. It could be a game-changing, but the capability won't be battlefield ready for many months.

Following its success over the weekend, Hezbollah is bound to keep trying and honing the same tactic, and the IDF must now work out how to stop further attacks.

Israelis live under the protection of one of the world's best air defence systems, but it isn't perfect, and when it fails it costs lives.

10:03:01

Erdogan: UN's failure to protect peacekeepers in Lebanon 'shameful' and 'worrying'

The United Nations' inability to protect its personnel is shameful, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said.

"The image of a United Nations that cannot even protect its own personnel is shameful and worrying for the international system," the Turkish leader said yesterday.

"We are curious what else the Security Council is waiting for to stop Israel," he added during a televised address following a cabinet meeting in Ankara.

Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks in recent days, most of them blamed on Israeli forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated a warning for them to temporarily leave the area where the military is operating against Hezbollah militants.

09:50:02

UK was working on sanctions against Israeli ministers, former foreign secretary says

David Cameron has said he was planning to sanction two far-right Israeli ministers before the previous government left office.

The former foreign secretary told the BBC he had been "working up" sanctions on Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as a way of putting "pressure on Netanyahu" to act within international law.

The two ministers are on the far-right of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, and have called for harsher measures in Gaza and against Israel's enemies elsewhere in the Middle East.

Lord Cameron said: "Before we left office I was working up sanctions on these two ministers, ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who, when you look at what they say, they have said things like encouraging people to stop aid convoys going into Gaza, they have encouraged extreme settlers in the West Bank with the appalling things they have been carrying out.

"So, actually saying to Netanyahu, 'yes, we support your right to self-defence, no, we are not going to end the sale of arms, but actually when ministers in your government who are extremists and behave in this way, we are prepared to use our sanctions regime to say this is not good enough and has to stop'."

He urged the Labour government to "look again at this sanctions issue" rather than go down the "wrong path" of suspending arms exports.

Asked why the sanctions did not go ahead, Lord Cameron said he had been advised that it would have been "too much of a political act" during the election.

09:33:25

55 Palestinians killed in past 24 hours - Gaza health ministry

The health ministry in Gaza says at least 42,344 Palestinians have now been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.

The figures reported by the Hamas-run ministry do not differentiate between fighters and civilians.

A further 99,013have been injured, it added.

For context: While some Israeli officials have sought to cast doubt on fatality figures given out by the Palestinian Health Authority in Gaza, a number of independent groups say they have proved to be largely reliable and broadly in line with those later produced by the UN and Israel itself.

Examination of data from previous Gaza conflicts - the Hamas-run health ministry's counts compared with the post-war United Nations analysis - shows that the initial data is largely accurate with, at most, a 10-12% discrepancy.

The IDF claimed in June to have killed more than 15,000 Hamas militants since the war began, but this remains unverified.

09:09:01

Analysis: What to make of Netanyahu's comments

This morning, we reported on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office sharing a statement on making its own decisions regarding its national interests (see 6.20am post).

The prime minister's office released a statement attached to a Washington Post article which said Mr Netanyahu had told President Joe Biden's administration that Israel would strike Iranian military targets - and not nuclear or oil facilities.

Our Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall has shared his thoughts on what to make of it...

"The reports coming out of the US are that America has been successful in trying to persuade Israel to attack Iranian military sites," he said.

"That kind of attack, obviously, depending on how big it was and how many people were injured or killed, might not trigger a response from Iran," he added.

He said the statement from Mr Netanyahu's office this morning was "pretty ambiguous" in its tone, but was partly "to satisfy the far-right in [his] coalition".

He also noted multiple occasions of "Netanyahu telling Biden one thing to his face and doing something very different in reality".

Watch Bunkall give his full analysis here...

08:50:01

Oil price drops significantly

The oil price has dropped significantly overnight followingreports in the Washington Postthat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the White House he is willing to strike military targets rather then oil or nuclear facilities in Iran.

Brent crude is down more than 3.5% to less than $75 per barrel.

It will be reassuring news for central banks, like the Bank of England, who are on alert for any signs that inflation could be pushed up by tensions in the Middle East.

Middle East latest: Israel expanding air campaign in Lebanon; UK had planned to sanction far-right Israeli ministers, David Cameron says (2024)
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