Middle East

With the escalating attacks on emergency services, as well as the buildings housing the displaced, and crowded neighbourhoods in Beirut, many now see parallels between Israel’s onslaught in Lebanon and its year-long military campaign in Gaza. Last week, a UN commission of inquiry said Israel was perpetrating “a concerted policy …

Israel has not officially said how it intends to respond to Iran’s October missile attack – the second in six months – but Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said last week its reaction would be “deadly, precise and above all surprising”. “They will not understand what happened and how it happened, …

Within days of Israel launching its war in Gaza last October, two Palestinians began filming their daily lives for the BBC. Aya fled to the south of the territory to find safety, Khalid chose to stay in the north. Between them, they document explosions, multiple evacuations, deaths and the trauma …

“Everything is according to operational considerations. We have proven this recently and we will continue to prove it in the coming days as well,” he added. He was speaking during a visit to a military base in northern Israel where a drone launched by the Iran-backed group killed four Israeli …

Overnight, four people were killed when an Israeli aircraft struck a tented camp for displaced people next to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military said it had conducted a “a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a command-and-control centre in the …

Those incidents prompted rebukes from several of Israel’s allies, including France, Italy and Spain. A Downing Street spokesperson said the UK was “appalled”. In his comments on Sunday, Netanyahu said European leaders should direct their criticism towards Hezbollah, not Israel. Israel argues that Unifil has failed to stabilise the region …

It comes as fighting continues in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces have urged UN peacekeepers to leave their positions. A spokesperson for Unifil said on Saturday that there had been a “unanimous decision” to stay in the border region. Separately, Unifil said buildings at a position in the village of …

“Since we already encircled the northern part of Gaza in the past nine or 10 months, what we should do is the following thing to tell all the 300,000 residents [that the UN estimates is 400,000] who still live in the northern part of Gaza that they have to leave …

Especially when it comes to the latest escalation, it would be wrong to assume that Netanayhu is operating outside the Israeli political mainstream. If anything, the pressure on him is to be tougher to strike harder against Hezbollah, but also Iran. When a ceasefire plan in Lebanon was mooted by …

The leaders of France, Italy and Spain issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s actions, saying they were unjustifiable and should immediately come to an end. Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said it “strongly condemns” the IDF attack which injured two of its soldiers. The head of UN peacekeeping said there was …

Recent days have seen significant exchanges of missiles and rockets across the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanon’s health ministry says 22 people died – and more than 117 were left wounded – after two air strikes that came without warning hit central Beirut on Thursday. The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired …

One group of women was searching for a missing relative – a mother of young children who was last seen on a stretcher at the site. The Civil Defence team told the group they needed to check at every hospital in person. “If she left here on a gurney she …

The women say they faced many challenges while living on the streets, as many shelters refused to take them in, claiming they were reserved for displaced Lebanese and not foreigners. All three managed to reach Caritas Lebanon, a non-governmental organisation that has been providing help and protection for migrant workers …

It also said it had taken steps to mitigate harm to civilians and accused Hamas of systematically abusing civilian infrastructure – an allegation the group has previously denied. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry also put the death toll at 28 and denounced what it called a “new massacre” by the Israeli …

“They will not understand what happened and how it happened, they will see the results,” Gallant said. Elsewhere in the Middle East region, fighting has continued between Hezbollah and Israel, with four people killed in an Israeli air strike on a Lebanese village near the southern city of Sidon. In …

Hezbollah can still rely on staunch support in the neighbourhoods where it is the dominant force in political and social life, and among the Shia communities of mixed areas. Several Shia residents of the Mar Elias neighbourhood said they stood completely behind the group. “We are all Hezbollah here, whatever …

The Israeli military says it is expanding its ground offensive against Hezbollah by moving into a new zone in the south-west. The incursion will be backed by a fourth division in the coastal sector, bringing the total number of soldiers deployed to fifteen thousand. On Monday, Israeli forces warned people …

Syria’s state news agency, Sana, cited a military source as saying that the building was hit by three missiles launched by Israeli aircraft from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights. Photographs from the scene showed emergency services personnel inspecting significant damage to apartments on the first, second and third …

This is the third time Israeli forces have gone into Jabalia and its refugee camp over the past year, with the last operation in May displacing tens of thousands of people, killing hundreds and causing widespread destruction. On Monday, Jabalia resident Asmaa Tayeh told the BBC that she and her …

The IDF also said its aircraft had carried out a new round of strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the group has a strong presence, and other areas of Lebanon on Tuesday. Earlier, it announced that a strike in the capital on Monday had killed the commander …