Israel-Lebanon live: Israeli attack kills 22 in attack in central Beirut, but “misses high-value Hezbollah target”

At least 42,126 Palestinians have been killed and 98,117 injured in the Israeli military offensive against Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza Strip Health Ministry said in an updated statement on Friday.

The United Nations human rights office says more than 100 medics and rescue workers have been killed in Lebanon since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began a year ago.

The conflict erupted when the Iranian-backed group opened fire in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas at the start of the Gaza war. It has worsened dramatically in recent weeks as Israel bombed parts of Beirut.

“In total, over 100 medical and emergency workers have been killed across Lebanon since October last year,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said at a U.N. briefing, citing figures she said were compiled by the U.N. humanitarian office.

“We have also received several reports of airstrikes on other medical centers and the deaths of paramedics and firefighters,” she said.

World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said there had been 18 attacks on health facilities in Lebanon since September 17, killing 72 health workers.

Israel says it is targeting military capabilities in Lebanon and Gaza and is taking steps to reduce the risk of harm to civilians. She accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among the civilian population, which she denies.

Lebanese interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati described an attack on the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon as a crime on Friday.

He also said he had spoken with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Israeli forces fired on a UNIFIL observation post at its main base in Naqoura in southern Lebanon on Friday, wounding two people, a UN source said. According to the source, Israeli forces also broke through the perimeter of another UNIFIL position they fired on on Thursday.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel should “stop killing innocent people” and that its actions in the Middle East were supported by the United States and the European Union.

Pezeshkian spoke to a reporter from Russian state television on the sidelines of an international meeting in Turkmenistan.

An Israeli attack late Thursday in the heart of Beirut left 22 people dead and more than 100 injured, according to Lebanese authorities.

An escalation of conflict in the Middle East poses a serious threat to global security and everything must be done to prevent an all-out war in Lebanon, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday.

Guterres also condemned Israeli attacks that injured UN personnel at a news conference on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Laos. He said peacekeepers needed to be protected.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was great concern in Asia about the plight of the people of Gaza and the conflict in the Middle East, stressing that Washington was doing everything in its power to prevent these problems from spreading.

Speaking after the East Asia Summit in Laos, Blinken said concerns about the Middle East had been expressed in conversations with other leaders. In doing so, he reiterated that Washington was committed to diplomacy to control the situation in the face of what he described as an Iranian-led axis of resistance.

“The intense focus of the United States, which has been doing just that for a year, is to prevent the spread of these conflicts. And we’re working on that every day,” Blinken said at a news conference.

“We are working very hard to prevent this from happening through deterrence and diplomacy. “We obviously also share our deep concern about the fate of the children, women and men in Gaza who have been caught in terrible Hamas crossfire for a year now.”

Blinken also said the United States had worked directly with Israel to emphasize the importance of meeting the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza.

Israel has the right to defend itself against Hezbollah attacks, he added, and like the United States, it has a clear and legitimate interest in creating an environment in which tens of thousands of displaced people in southern Lebanon can return to their homes.

“It is also crucial that they do so by focusing on ensuring that civilians are protected and are not caught in terrible crossfire again,” he said.

Israel claims to have killed another Hezbollah commander following reports of fighting in southern Lebanon this morning.

The military wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday morning that it had killed Araeb el Shoga, a commander of the Hezbollah Radwan Forces anti-tank missile unit.

They said he was killed in Meiss El Jabal in southern Lebanon, adding that he was responsible for “numerous anti-tank missile attacks in northern Israel.”

The Israeli military said this morning it had detected an anti-tank missile fired from southern Lebanon across the border into Kibbutz Yaraon Jerusalem Post.

The release said a 27-year-old man from Thailand was killed and two other people were injured.

The US remains convinced that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon despite Tehran’s recent strategic setbacks, two US officials told Reuters.

The comments from a senior Joe Biden administration official and a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) complemented public statements earlier this week by CIA Director William Burns, who said the United States had no evidence on the Iranian leader Seen reversed his 2003 decision to suspend the weapons program.

“We assume that the Supreme Leader has not made a decision to restart the nuclear weapons program that Iran suspended in 2003,” the ODNI spokesman said, referring to Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

U.S. officials have long acknowledged that an attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program could only delay the country’s efforts to develop a nuclear bomb and could even strengthen Tehran’s resolve to do so.

“We are all watching this area very closely,” the Biden administration official said.