Benjamin Netanyahu says attack on Lebanon is ‘not the end of the story’
Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel’s action against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon “is not the end of the story”.
Israel’s prime minister said its air defences had intercepted all rockets and drones launched against the country, Reuters reports.
He also said that the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran should know that the response was “another step towards changing the situation in the north and returning our residents safely to their homes”.
Key events
In Khan Younis, southern Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society distributed around 500 portable toilets in the Al-Mawasi area, the group said on Sunday.
The distribution efforts, carried out with assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross, come amid a dire sanitation crisis as a result of Israel’s deadly bombardment of the strip.
The PRCS Disaster Risk Management teams in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross, distributed around 500 portable toilets in several displaced persons’ gatherings in the Al-Mawasi area of #KhanYunis. pic.twitter.com/5i6QN5c5pH
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) August 25, 2024
In July, UNICEF reported that 60 percent of all WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) facilities had been destroyed or severely damaged, with access to safe water for drinking and bathing, toilets and even soap severely limited.
Hezbollah leader: ‘If results are not seen to be enough, we will respond another time’
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah added:
“We will assess the impact of today’s operation. If results are not seen to be enough, we will respond another time.”
In his address, Hassan Nasrallah added that the Israeli military began striking Lebanon 30 minutes before the group’s operation, but the areas targeted had nothing to do with the operation.
He went on to say that the group’s military operation was completed as planned, “with precision.” Nasrallah also said that Hezbollah targeted a military intelligence base 110 kilometers into Israeli territory, 1.5 kilometers away from Tel Aviv.
He added that Hezbollah sent Katyusha rockets to distract Israel’s Iron Dome and other drone defenses to enter Israeli airspace.
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah is delivering a public address, saying that the group’s response was delayed for several reasons including mass Israeli and US military mobilisation, Reuters reports.
The group decided not to respond to the killing of its top commander by targeting civilian areas, Nasrallah added, saying that the group decided not to target Israeli infrastructure.
He added that Hezbollah wanted to target military sites close to Tel Aviv and that the group decided to target a military intelligence base where an Israeli surveillance unit operates.
Israel and Lebanon exchanged messages via intermediaries on Sunday in order to prevent further escalation, according to two diplomats speaking anonymously to Reuters.
According to one diplomat, the main message was that both sides considered Sunday’s intense bombardment from either side “done” and that neither side wanted a full-scale war.
Jordan warns that escalation in Lebanon could lead to regional war
Jordan has warned that heightened escalation between Israel and Hezbollah could lead to a “regional war”, echoing comments made by Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, earlier (see post at 14.21).
Foreign ministry spokesperson Sufain Qudah said that Israel’s relentless “aggression” in Gaza and the failure to reach a ceasefire was exposing the region to the dangers of an expansion of the conflict, Jordanian state media reported.
It comes after Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Sunday’s strikes in Lebanon were “not the final word” in his country’s military campaign against Hezbollah.
“We are striking Hezbollah with surprising, crushing blows… This is another step towards changing the situation in the north and safely returning our residents to their homes. And, I repeat, this is not the final word,” Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting.
Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel’s war on Gaza and have been demanding a ceasefire since mid-October.
One Israel navy soldier was killed and two were injured during combat in northern Israel on Sunday, the Israeli military said.
Israeli media reported that the soldier died on a naval vessel offshore as an interceptor from Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defence system engaged a drone fired by Hezbollah. These claims are yet to be independently verified by the Guardian.
Summary of the day so far…
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Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across southern Lebanon early Sunday in what it said was a preemptive strike to avert a large Hezbollah attack.
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Hezbollah said it had fired 320 Katyusha rockets towards Israel and hit 11 military targets in what it called the first phase of its retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Fuad Shukr, a senior commander, last month.
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A Hezbollah official said it had delayed its retaliation to give a chance for ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks and other “political considerations”.
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Hezbollah later indicated it was not planning further strikes yet. Israel’s foreign minister said the country did not seek a full-scale war, though tensions remain extremely high.
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Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, warned America’s top general, CQ Brown, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the dangers of a major conflict in Lebanon.
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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel’s strikes on Sunday are “not the end of the story” in its military campaign against Hezbollah.
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At least three fighters were killed in the strikes on Lebanon, while there were no reports of casualties in Israel.
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At 6pm local time (16:00 GMT), Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah is due to give a speech. We will bring you the latest developments on this as soon as we can.
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Egypt is hosting high-level talks in Cairo aimed at bridging the gaps in an evolving proposal for a truce and the release of scores of hostages held by Hamas. The talks were to be attended by CIA director William Burns and David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
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Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels praised attacks by Hezbollah on Israel and renewed threats to launch their own assault in response to Israeli strikes on a port in Yemen last month. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, also praised Hezbollah’s attack on Israel.
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The White House said the US president, Joe Biden, was monitoring events, adding that Israel had the right to self-defence but that the US would “keep working for regional stability”.
The UN’s Palestine relief agency, Unrwa, has said it will launch a polio vaccination campaign with the World Health Organization, Unicef, and other partners for more than 600,000 children under 10 years old, over the coming days.
For the first time in 25 years, polio has been recorded in the #GazaStrip
Given the high risk of the spread of the deadly disease, @WHO, @UNICEF, @UNRWA & partners are launching a vaccination campaign in the coming days for over 600K children who are under 10 years of age. https://t.co/EDS14tU8Ja
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 25, 2024
The UN is appealing to Israel and Hamas for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow humanitarian workers to carry out the immunisation campaign.
Gaza has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater earlier this summer.
UN agencies have been campaigning for four decades to eradicate polio, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, but there has been a resurgence in recent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan and some isolated cases in Nigeria.
Europe’s most senior diplomat will call for sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, as the EU battles to rescue its credibility on the Middle East.
At a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers on Thursday, Josep Borrell will make the case for sanctions against Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, two far-right government ministers, whose inflammatory statements and behaviour have drawn international condemnation.
Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, caused outrage with a recent visit to the al-Aqsa mosque, also known as the Temple Mount, a site that is sacred to Muslims and Jews. The ultranationalist minister, who is seeking to disrupt ceasefire talks, said he went to pray, in violation of the status quo that permits only Muslims to pray, while others can visit.
Ben-Gvir has also called repeatedly for cutting off aid and fuel supply to Gaza, a position he reiterated earlier this month.
Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, also caused outrage earlier this month when he said it might be “justified and moral” to starve 2 million people in Gaza in order to free the remaining Israeli hostages, who were seized in the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel.
In apparent response to these statements, Borrell tweeted on 11 August: “While the world pushes for a ceasefire in #Gaza, Min. Ben Gvir calls for cutting fuel & aid to civilians. Like Min. Smotrich sinister statements, this is an incitement to war crimes. Sanctions must be on our EU agenda.”
You can read the full story by my colleague, Jennifer Rankin, here:
Hamas has welcomed Hezbollah’s attack on Israel in a post on Telegram. The group described Hezbollah’s drone and rocket salvo against northern Israel as a “major qualitative response” that hit “vital and strategic targets”.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group which is an ally of Hezbollah, commends the “strong and focused response” to the assassination of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.
“The crimes against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples will not pass without a response,” it adds.
Hezbollah said it had used drones and more than 320 rockets against 11 Israeli military sites as a “first phase” of its response to the death of Shukr in an Israeli airstrike last month. It did not say when a second phase might come.
We reported earlier that Air France said it was suspending Beirut flights scheduled for Sunday and Monday (see key event at 11.18).
Air France’s subsidiary Transavia, which serves both destinations, is also halting its flights, a spokesperson has now confirmed.
German airline Lufthansa on Friday extended its Beirut flight suspension to the end of September, and said it would not fly to Tel Aviv and Tehran until 2 September.
Royal Jordanian Airlines announced the suspension of Beirut flights “due to the current situation”, and the UAE’s Etihad Airways said it had also cancelled its services to and from the Lebanese capital.
A spokesperson for British Airways said the airline has suspended its flights between London and Tel Aviv following the overnight escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.
Egypt warns visiting US general on risk of major conflict in Lebanon
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has warned America’s top general of the dangers of a major conflict in Lebanon.
US air force general, CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Egypt hours after the missile exchange between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.
In a statement, Sisi’s office said the Egyptian leader told Brown that the international community needed to “exert all efforts and intensify pressures to defuse tension and stop the state of escalation that threatens the security and stability of the entire region”.
The statement read:
(Sisi warned) in this regard of the dangers of opening a new front in Lebanon, and stressing the need to preserve Lebanon’s stability and sovereignty.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, insisted earlier today that his country did not want a full-scale war but said it would “act according to developments on the ground”. Any Hezbollah missile attack on Israeli cities would be likely to trigger a massive Israeli response that would bring the prospect of an all-out war much closer.
Hezbollah official says response to top commander’s killing was ‘delayed by political considerations’
A Hezbollah official has said the group’s rocket and drone attack against Israel on Sunday in retaliation for a top commander’s killing last month had been delayed by “political considerations”, Reuters reported. The official said the group had “worked” to make sure its response to the killing of Fuad Shukr on 30 July would not trigger a full-scale war.
The main “ political consideration” was the ongoing talks on a ceasefire and hostage release deal for the Gaza Strip. Negotiators discussed new compromise proposals in Cairo on Saturday, seeking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas, but there was no indication of progress after hours of talks. There was no sign of any breakthrough on key sticking points, including Israel’s insistence that it must retain control of the so-called Philadelphi corridor, on the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Talks continue this week and American officials still believe that a deal is within reach, despite rising tensions between Israel and Lebanon.
British Airways suspends flights between London and Tel Aviv
British Airways has suspended its flights between London and Tel Aviv following an overnight escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.
A spokesperson for the airline said on Sunday: “We’ve been continually monitoring the situation in the Middle East and have taken the operational decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv up to and including Wednesday, 28 August.
“Safety is always our top priority, and we’re contacting customers to advise them of their travel options.”