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.
This also came hours after an Israeli airstrike on northeast Lebanon killed 11 people. Israel says it’s carrying out attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
Kaouk’s death represents the seventh senior Hezbollah commander killed in just over a week. The Israeli military said it killed Kaouk in a strike in a southern Beirut suburb on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the number of those 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 Palestinian militant group stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, sparking fears of regional war.
Kaouk 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.
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.
People check a damaged building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Choueifat, south east of Beirut, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024.
Hussein Malla/AP via CP Images
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.”
Families gather in Martyrs’ square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024.
AP Photo/Bilal Hussein
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 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
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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.
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.
Iranian foreign minister says Nilforushan’s killing won’t go ‘unanswered’
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the “horrific” killing of General Abbas Nilforushan wouldn’t “go unanswered,” the foreign ministry’s website reported Sunday.
Nilforushan, a senior officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was killed in the same Israeli strike on Beirut Friday that targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Araghchi called the killing a “horrible and cowardly act” and vowed to use all political, diplomatic, legal, and international channels to pursue those behind it and their supporters.
Meanwhile, in Tehran, many Iranian officials, including Mohammad Javad Zarif, the former Iranian foreign minister and the current vice president for Strategic Affairs, and Gen. Esmail Qaani, the commander of Quds Forces, the foreign wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, paid their condolences for Nasrallah’s death at the Hezbollah office in the Iranian capital.
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%
Egypt’s president says its revenues from the Suez Canal have dropped by 60%, 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.
Israeli airstrike kills 11 in northeast Lebanon
Lebanon’s state news agency says an Israeli airstrike early Sunday on a village in northeast Lebanon destroyed a home, killing 11 people.
Six of the bodies were recovered from under the rubble as the search continued for the remaining five in the village of al-Ain, reported National News Agency.
In southern Lebanon, the Islamic Risala Scout Association said five of its members were killed while performing their duties. It said four of the men killed were from the southern village of Tayr Debba while the fifth was from nearby Kabrikha.
More than 700 people have been killed in Lebanon since Sept. 23 when Israel intensified its airstrikes around the country forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes.
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.
