Lebanon says Israel hit key border road after Beirut strikes

Addressing thousands of worshippers in a sermon in Tehran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed the Iran-supported Islamist militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, saying they "will not back down." 

Khamenei said Israel "cannot seriously harm" Gaza's Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Iran has blamed Israel for killing the leaders of both Iran-backed groups in recent months. Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility for the killings.

"The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms, and will win," Khamenei said. 

He went on to declare Hezbollah's fight against Israel as a "vital service to the entire region," as he claimed that Israel "will not last long."

Khamenei also alleged that the US was supporting Israel to ensure energy export from the region to the West.

Israel, the United States, Germany and other nations classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has delivered his first public sermon in five years, addressing thousands of people who gathered in Tehran for Friday prayers.

Khamenei justified the October 7, 2023, terror attacks as well as Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this week.

"The operation of our armed forces a few nights ago was totally legal and legitimate," he said, delivering the sermon with an assault rifle at his side.

Iran "will take the necessary action" after consulting with its political authorities, Khamenei said, ruling out "impulsive decisions."

Khamenei delivered part of his speech in Arabic, and called on Muslim nations to unite against what he described as their "common enemy."

The crowds in attendance were waving Palestinian and Lebanese flags and carrying portraits of slain leaders of Iran's "axis of resistance" against Israel and the United States — Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has landed in the Lebanese capital, according to the official National News Agency (NNA). 

"An Iranian plane has landed at the Rafik Hariri International Airport with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on board," NNA said.

Araghchi's arrival comes hours after airstrikes hit just outside the airport. 

It is the first reported visit by a top Iranian official to Lebanon since Israel killed Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last week.

Araghchi is expected to meet with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, according to the Reuters news agency. 

Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamieh said an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanon-Syria border has cut off the main international road connecting the two countries. 

"The road that leads to the main humanitarian crossing for thousands of Lebanese into Syria is now cut off after an Israeli strike," he said.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported that Israeli strikes had hit the Masnaa border crossing, saying the attack resulted in "cutting off the road." 

On Thursday, Israel accused Hezbollah of using the crossing to transport military equipment. 

"The IDF will not allow the smuggling of these weapons and will not hesitate to act if forced to do so, as it has done throughout this war," said Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military's Arabic language spokesman.

Lebanon estimates 300,000 people, most of whom are Syrian, have crossed that road into Syria over the last 10 days to escape the escalating conflict in Lebanon.

Unconfirmed US media reports have suggested Hezbollah strongman Hashem Safieddine was the target of Israel's latest strikes on Beirut. 

He is the maternal cousin of Hezbollah's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive Israeli air raid in south Beirut last week. 

Safieddine has long been tipped as Nasrallah's successor after serving in some of Hezbollah's highest positions for decades.

Unlike Nasrallah, who had lived in hiding to avoid assassination, Safieddine has been a more public Hezbollah figure.

He has close ties to Iran, where he studied. His son is married to the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general who was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq in 2020.

In 2017, the US designated Safieddine a terrorist over his role in Hezbollah, which it considers a terrorist organization. 

His fate after the latest strikes in Beirut remains unclear. The Israeli military has not commented on whether Safieddine was targeted by the latest strikes.  

US President Joe Biden has said that Washington is discussing possible Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil facilities as retaliation for Tehran’s missile attack on Israel. "We're discussing that," Biden told reporters.

His comments contributed to a surge in global oil prices amid rising fears of potential supply disruptions. Brent, the international benchmark, surged over 5% to $77.62 (€70.3) a barrel, with US contract West Texas Intermediate rising similarly.

Biden, however, added that he thought an all-out war could be avoided.

"I think we can avoid it, but there's a lot to do yet," he told reporters, stressing that "we're going to help
Israel."

After Tuesday's missile attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation.

The US said it would work with its longtime ally to ensure Iran faced "severe consequences."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, said that Tehran would be ready to respond.

"Any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces," he said.

The UN Security Council has affirmed its full support for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after Israel banned him from entering the country.

The 15-member body said in a statement that "any decision not to engage with the UN Secretary-General or the United Nations is counterproductive, especially in the context of escalating tensions in the Middle East."

The statement did not name Israel.

The UN's most powerful body also "underscored the need for all member states to have a productive and effective relationship with the secretary-general and to refrain from any actions that undermine his work and that of his office."

The UN statement comes after Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced Wednesday that Guterres is "persona non grata" — not welcome — in the country.

The Israeli government has accused the UN chief of being biased against Israel.

At least 18 people were killed at the Tulkarm refugee camp in West Bank following an Israeli airstrike, said the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The Israeli military says the strike killed a local Hamas leader, Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi.

It accused Oufi of participating in numerous attacks in West Bank and said he was in the process of planning another assault.

The air raid was the deadliest in the West Bank since 2000, the AFP news agency quoted a Palestinian official as saying.

The Palestinian movement Fatah, a Hamas rival based in West Bank, called for demonstrations on Friday to honor the "heroic martyrs" of Tulkarm.

Tulkarm was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a large-scale Israeli military operation in late August against militants based in the West Bank.

Violence in the territory has surged alongside the war in Gaza which began after Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by a number of countries, attacked Israel on October 7.

Israel's military has ordered residents of more than 20 towns in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes as it continued with a cross-border incursion.

The latest warnings took the number of southern towns subject to evacuation calls to 70.

Among the towns affected is the provincial capital Nabatieh as well as other communities north of the Litani River, which formed the northern edge of the border zone established by the UN  Security Council after Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006.

The announcement suggests the Israeli military may widen a ground operation launched earlier this week against the militant group.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said 28 health workers in Lebanon were killed in the past day, and it called for a cease-fire.

The UN health agency said access to medical care is becoming limited as three dozen health facilities closed in the south and five hospitals were either partly or fully evacuated in Beirut.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the dire situation, noting that health workers are not showing up at their jobs because they've fled areas that have been bombed.

He said WHO had to scrap plans to fly in medical and trauma supplies Friday because Beirut international airport is mostly closed.

Lebanon's health minister, meanwhile, said Israeli strikes that hit hospitals and health care centers violate international law.  

The Lebanese Red Cross also said an Israeli strike wounded four of its paramedics and killed a Lebanese army soldier as they were evacuating wounded people from the south.

It said the convoy near the village of Taybeh, which was accompanied by Lebanese troops, was targeted Thursday despite coordinating its movements with UN peacekeepers.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

At least one Israeli strike early on Friday hit outside the perimeter of Beirut's international airport, Reuters news agency reported, citing a source in the Lebanese Ministry of Transport and Public Works.

Earlier in the evening, a source close to Hezbollah told AFP an Israeli strike had targeted a warehouse next to Beirut airport, in the capital's south.

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

Israel also launched renewed strikes on Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, near midnight on Thursday.

The air raids targeted Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumored successor to assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, report Axios and the New York Times. 

Safieddine's fate was not clear, he said.

Israel's military has not yet commented on whether it targeted Safieddine.

sri/wd (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)