Lebanon warns of an escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The terrorists are firing rockets at northern Israel. All developments in the news blog.
1.20 am: According to an Israeli army spokesman, the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist organization was planning a similarly devastating attack on Israel as the terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on October 7 last year. Hezbollah military commander Ibrahim Akil, who was killed in Israel’s air strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, was the mastermind of a plan to attack northern Israel, said Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari. The Shiite terrorists’ plan “to conquer Galilee” was to “infiltrate Israel, take control of the communities in Galilee and kill and kidnap Israeli civilians, similar to what Hamas did on October 7.”
11.50 p.m.: The Lebanese Hezbollah has confirmed the death of its military commander Ibrahim Akil as a result of an Israeli air strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut. Akil died a martyr’s death, the pro-Iranian terrorist organization announced late in the evening. Israel’s army spokesman Daniel Hagari had previously declared the terrorist group’s military commander dead. According to Lebanese sources, at least 14 people were killed in the attack in a densely populated suburb of Beirut. At least 66 others were injured.
11.45pm: In view of the severe tensions and repeated mutual attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib sees the danger of a major war. “Either this Council forces Israel to stop its aggression,” Bou Habib told the UN Security Council in New York, “or we will be silent witnesses to the great explosion that is looming on the horizon today.” Before it is too late, “you must understand that this explosion will spare neither the East nor the West and will throw us back into the dark ages.”
Bou Habib accused Israel of being behind the attack in his country that exploded pagers and radios. The minister said thousands of pagers were detonated. In between, he held up a picture in the council that appeared to show a bloody hand with fingers blown off.
10:09 p.m.: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has described the attack in Lebanon, which was attributed to Israel and which set off hundreds of exploding pagers and radios, as a war crime. “If the attacker is not in a position to assess the compatibility of the attack with the binding rules of international law, in particular the likely impact on the civilian population, the attack should not be carried out,” Türk told the UN Security Council.
“International humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps in the form of apparently harmless, portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material. Violence intended to spread terror among the civilian population is a war crime,” Türk continues.
21:20: According to President Joe Biden, the US government is working on the return of displaced people from the Israeli-Lebanese border area. “We continue to try, as we have done from the beginning, to ensure that both the people of northern Israel and southern Lebanon can return to their homes,” Biden said at the start of a cabinet meeting in Washington, according to reporters present.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the entire team worked with the intelligence community to make this happen. “We will keep working until we get it done. We still have a long way to go.”
19:57: Following the violent deaths of several Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a brief statement, according to media reports. Israel’s goals are clear and its actions speak for themselves, Netanyahu said.
