Explosions rock Beirut after Netanyahu tells UN Israel is ‘winning’ – Middle East crisis live

By Guardian-Léonie Chao-Fong /Joanna Walters/Lili Bayer/Amy Sedghi Fri 27 Sep 2024

Series of powerful blasts shake Lebanese capital; Israeli PM speaks in New York amid mounting pressure over attacks in Lebanon

Israel says it carried out an airstrike against Hezbollah military HQ in Beirut suburbs

William Christou

Israel bombed Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, late Friday afternoon local time, with at least six loud explosions heard across the city.

Multiple large plumes of smoke billowed above the southern suburb of Beirut, visible from the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive away.

Israel said it conducted an airstrike against Hezbollah’s military headquarters in the area. It was the largest bombing of Beirut since hostilities broke out nearly a year ago. It was the fifth time that Israel struck Beirut in a week.

Joanna Walters

Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, has said the death toll in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of Friday was 25. One attack killed nine members of a family, including four children, in the border town of Shebaa, mayor Mohammad Saab told Reuters.

More than 700 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks since Monday, according to a tally of official tolls.

The shops behind us were hit. The young boy who was with me was martyred [killed], and I’m still alive,” said 13-year-old Syrian Abdallah Tawfik Al-Hamid, lying in a hospital bed in southern Lebanon following an airstrike.

Hezbollah said it had fired rockets into Israel on Friday at Kiryat Ata near the city of Haifa some 20 miles from the border, and at the city of Tiberias, declaring the attacks a response to Israeli strikes on villages, cities and civilians.

Though Israeli air defences have shot down many of Hezbollah’s rockets, limiting damage, the attacks have displaced tens of thousands and shut down normal life across much of northern Israel as more areas fall into its crosshairs.

Fresh explosions rock southern Beirut

A series of powerful explosions shook Beirut a little earlier today and thick clouds of smoke reportedly rose over the city.

Witnesses told the news agency Reuters of what appeared to be a fresh round of bombing on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital.

Lebanese media said there were a series of Israeli airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the city.

Israel’s foreign minister yesterday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and continued airstrikes that have killed hundreds of people in Lebanon this week and heightened fears of a regional war.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said four buildings had been destroyed in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.

The conflict in the Middle East continues to destroy countless lives. The scenes since 7 October from Gaza and Israel have haunted millions around the world and the crisis is being felt with an increasing intensity in Lebanon and the West Bank. 

As the war reaches a new stage, understanding what is happening – and what comes next – is more important than ever.

With correspondents on the ground and reporters updating this liveblog around the clock, the Guardian is well-placed to provide comprehensive, fact-checked reporting, to help all of us make sense of a terrible war which has already reshaped global politics. 

Back on the ground in Lebanon, there are fresh reports of air strikes on the capital.

Massive, thick clouds of smoke were seen rising from Beirut today after multiple explosions were heard, according to Reuters witnesses.

Summary of the day thus far

• Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN’s general assembly, where he said his country is winning. He declared that there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach and called for a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
• Speaking of Hezbollah, Netanyahu said “enough is enough” and that “we won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes.”
• The Israeli leader also criticised the United Nations and the ICC prosecutor, and said that no army has done what Israel is doing to minimise civilian casualties.
• Earlier, the prime minister said in a statement that Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the US ceasefire proposals on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead. “Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes,” the statement said.
• UK defence secretary John Healey is looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully” and that airstrikes and rocket fire exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah present a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”.
• The Lebanese health minister, Firass Abiad, said 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of today. Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
• Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they had targeted Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone.
• The UN said on Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties.
• The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that more than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours.
• Australia suggested the world set “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood” in a sign of increasing frustration about the stalled peace process.
• Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US-based charity, firing on her car in what officials said was a case of mistaken identity.

The American embassy in Beirut has said that it “is not evacuating U.S. citizens at this time”.

“There is a commercially available flight that U.S. citizens who expressed interest in departing Lebanon will have to book and pay directly with the airline,” it said.

Number of diplomats leave UN general assembly chamber for Netanyahu speech

Here’s footage of diplomats leaving the chamber ahead of Netanyahu’s speech.

Netanyahu also criticised the United Nations, referring to it as a “swamp of antisemitic bile”.

“Until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.”

He also took aim at the international criminal court’s prosecutor.

In his speech at the UN general assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Israel doesn’t want to see a single innocent person die.

“No army has done what Israel is doing to minimise civilian casualties: we drop fliers, we send text messages, we make phone calls by the millions to ensure that Palestinian civilians get out of harm’s way,” he said.

Outside the luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue, a small group of anti-Benjamin Netanyahu protestors gathered across the street. Some waved Israeli flags while others held signs with Netanyahu’s face imprinted with a red handprint.

One protestor, Yehuda Cohen, 55, condemned Netanyahu’s speech at the UN.

“While there is intense war in Israel, he’s dealing with himself … he thinks he’s the great speaker, he will save Israel by speaking, he’s actually destroying Israel. He’s responsible for the events of 7th of October,” Cohen said.

“He must put everything aside, stop the war and go for a hostage deal. I want my son back home. I sent my son to the army so he can protect Israel. On the 7th of October, they were outnumbered, he was neglected and kidnapped … The Israeli government, it’s not that they’re doing nothing for a hostage deal, they’re doing everything to prevent a hostage deal,” Cohen added.

Netanyahu calls for peace agreement with Saudi Arabia

Netanyahu also stressed the need to achieve a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, citing the experience of the Abraham accords.

“I say to you, what blessing such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring – it would be a boon to the security and economy of our two countries, it would boost trade and tourism across the region, it would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut,” he said.

“Such a peace, I’m sure, would be a true pivot of history: it would usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism, between Mecca and Jerusalem,” the Israeli leader said.

“One of the best ways to foil Iran’s nefarious designs is to achieve the peace,” he added.

'We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes', Netanyahu says

Speaking of Hezbollah, Benjamin Netanyahu said the group has murdered the citizens of many countries and attacked Israel unprovoked.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes,” he added. “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another 7 October-style massacre,” he said.

“Hamas has got to go,” Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said at the UN general assembly.,Israel seeks a demilitarised and deradicalised Gaza, he stressed.mThe hostages must be returned to their families, he said.

'We are winning', Netanyahu says, warning Iran that there's no place Israel cannot reach

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at the UN general assembly.

“We are winning,” he declared, showing a map he termed “the curse” of Iran’s influence and another which he described as a blessing.

Netanyahu also called for an end to the “appeasement” of Iran. Everything must be done to ensure Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons, the Israeli leader added.

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