Lebanon says Israel hit key border road after Beirut strikes

A senior figure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said that Iran would respond to any Israeli attack by striking energy sources inside Israel.

"If the occupiers make such a mistake, we will target all their energy sources, installations and all refineries and gas fields," IRGC commander Ali Fadavi said.

On Tuesday, Iran fired almost 200 missiles toward Israel, some of which hit their targets. The full extent of the damage from the strikes is not yet clear.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was in Beirut on Friday, said that Tehran was supporting its "friends" in Lebanon.

"Be sure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is and will be firmly standing by the friends in Lebanon," Araghchi told reporters, "and it was necessary to say this in person."

Argahchi also said: "If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one."

The minister's arrival came after intense bombardment of parts of Beirut by the Israeli military.

He was in Lebanon for talks with Lebanese officials. Iran is the major backer of Hezbollah, a Shiite group that was engaged in multiple conflicts against Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck a 3.5-kilometer (2-mile) long tunnel that it alleged Hezbollah was using to transfer weapons from Syria into Lebanon. 

The tunnel enabled "the transfer and storage of large quantities of weapons underground," the IDF said on social media, without providing evidence. 

The attack, conducted with fighter jets, destroyed buildings, weapons warehouses and "other terrorist infrastructure," it added. 

The IDF said it also hit "infrastructure" at the Masnaa border crossing between Syria and Lebanon.

Lebanon earlier reported that an Israeli strike forced the closure of the Masnaa border crossing, through which more than 300,000 people are estimated to have fled to Syria.

UN officials have said most shelters in Lebanon for displaced people were full, pushing people to sleep out in the streets or public parks.

"Most of the nearly 900 government established collective shelters in Lebanon have no more capacity," the UN refugee agency's Rula Amin said during a press briefing in Geneva. 

Mathieu Luciano, head of the International Organization For Migration's office in Lebanon, raised concern for thousands of live-in domestic workers, often female migrants, whom he said has been "abandoned" by their employers.  

"They face very limited shelter options," he said, adding that many of them came from Egypt, Sudan and Sri Lanka.

On Friday alone, the Israeli military told residents of over 20 towns and villages in southern Lebanon to immediately evacuate, suggesting an expansion of Israel's ground operation. 

So far, people in almost 90 villages in the south have been told to evacuate from their homes, in addition to parts of the capital, Beirut.

The Lebanese government estimates over 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced in the current escalation. 

The Israeli military has said its strikes on the southern parts of the Lebanese capital overnight were targeting the intelligence unit of the militant group Hezbollah.

Israel later said it killed the head of the Iran-backed group's communication networks in a "precise, intelligence-based strike."

Hezbollah has accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, saying a rescuer at the site of the air raid was killed in a drone attack.

Earlier reports suggested that the target of the overnight attack was Hashem Safieddine, the rumored successor to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. 

Safieddine's brother was seen at the sermon given by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Friday. 

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.