Middle East: IDF says it's killed another Hezbollah figure

The Israeli Air Force struck power plants and a port used by the Iranian-allied Houthis in western Yemen, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Sunday, a day after the rebel group said it targeted Israel's Ben Gurion Airport with a missile.

"In a large-scale air operation today, dozens of Air Force aircraft, including fighter jets, refuelling planes, and reconnaissance aircraft, attacked military-use targets of the Houthi terrorist regime in the Ras Issa and Hodeida areas of Yemen," military spokesman Captain David Avraham said.

In July, after a deadly Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv, the Israeli Air Force struck the port city of Hodeidah, causing a massive fire and six deaths.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said 14 paramedics were killed in two days (Friday and Saturday) of intense Israeli bombardment in eastern and southern Lebanon and in Beirut, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed.

"This series of attacks killed 14 paramedics in two days," the ministry said in a statement, adding that it "condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli enemy's repeated attacks on medical centers." 

The ministry stressed that "paramedics do not participate in hostilities."

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his team remain focused on protecting US citizens and forces in the Middle East, defending Israel, and de-escalating the situation through deterrence and diplomacy, the Pentagon said.

Austin has authorized the military to bolster its presence in the Middle East with "defensive" air support capabilities and put other forces on a heightened readiness status, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.

"(Austin) increased the readiness of additional US forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies," Ryder said.

The statement did not specify which new aircraft would be sent to the region.

"Secretary Austin made clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every necessary measure to defend our people," Ryder added. 

Hezbollah has also confirmed the death of a senior commander in charge of its southern front.

The Lebanon-based Shiite militant group says Ali Karaki was killed in an intense Israeli air strike on Friday that also killed the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut.

The group said Karaki was in charge of all its units in southern Lebanon in the ongoing conflict with Israel.

He is among a handful of senior Hezbollah officials killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in recent days.

Hezbollah confirmed another senior leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike. 

The Israeli military said early Sunday that it had killed Nabil Kaouk in an airstrike in a Beirut suburb the day before. 

He is the seventh senior leader of the Lebanese militant group to be killed since September 20.

The group's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in Beirut on Friday.

Sabine Abi Aad, a regional coordinator from the aid NGO ActionAid which supports displaced residents in Lebanon, has told DW the situation there is dire. 

"The window to prevent a full-scale humanitarian crisis is closing very rapidly. The needs on the ground are growing," she said.

"Israeli attacks on Hezbollah targets have had terrifying effects on local civilians who have been forced to flee [from one] place to another in search of safety."

Abi Aad said there were now few safe places in Lebanon. 

"Attacks are covering [an] increasingly large area. There are more than than 800 people killed, thousands injured and more than 200,000 people displaced and more than 50,000 people living in shelters, but authorities in Lebanon are saying that the true number is much higher."

"It's almost half a million people who are likely displaced. There's a huge need for humanitarian assistance. The needs on the ground are growing rapidly. People are in a state of extreme stress and panic." 

Israel's offensive in Gaza since the October 7 terror attacks has killed 41,595 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry. 

There were at least nine deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 96,251 people have been wounded since the latest conflict began.

The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but the UN and multiple humanitarian organizations consider the casualty numbers broadly reliable.

Around half of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants are children and the UN says the majority of civilians killed have been women and children. 

Israel launched its Gaza operation after the Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people. 

Intense Israeli attacks may have forced as many as one million people to flee parts of Lebanon in possibly the worst displacement crisis in the tiny country's history, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said.

One million people would represent about one-sixth of Lebanon's population.

"It is the largest displacement movement that may have happened ... in Lebanon," Mikati said.

Since Monday, Israel has carried out waves of strikes across eastern and southern Lebanon and in parts of the capital, Beirut. Lebanon's Health Ministry estimates that hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have been injured.

Earlier this week, UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said "well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon" and more than 50,000 have fled to neighboring Syria.

Israel's killing of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander in Beirut is a "horrible crime" that will not go unanswered, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said.

Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in Friday's Israeli strikes in the Lebanese capital, which also killed Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Iran-aligned Hezbollah.

 "This horrible crime of the aggressor Zionist regime will not go unanswered, and the diplomatic apparatus will also use all its political, diplomatic, legal and international capacities to pursue the criminals and their supporters," Araqchi said, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Earlier Sunday, Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said that Iranian-allied armed groups would continue to confront Israel with Tehran's help following Nasrallah's killing, Iranian state media reported.

"We will not hesitate to go to any level in order to help the resistance," Qalibaf said.

He also warned the United States. "The US is complicit in all of these crimes and ... has to accept the repercussions," he said.

The Israeli military says it has killed another senior Hezbollah official in an airstrike in a Beirut suburb. 

The military said Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah's Central Council, was killed in an airstrike on Saturday. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah. 

Several senior commanders from the Iran-backed group have been killed in Israeli strikes in recent weeks. The group's long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in Beirut on Friday.

Hezbollah is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Germany and other countries. 

The World Food Program (WFP) said it has launched an emergency operation to provide food assistance to one million people affected by the escalating conflict in Lebanon.
     
"A further acceleration of the conflict this weekend underscored the need for an immediate humanitarian response," the UN agency said in a statement.

The agency is distributing ready-to-eat food rations, bread, hot meals and food parcels to families in shelters across the country.

"In just a few days, WFP assistance has reached thousands of newly displaced people," the program's Lebanon Country Director, Matthew Hollingworth, said. 

"As the crisis deepens, we are preparing to assist up to one million people through a mix of cash and food support," he added.

The agency called on the international community to mobilize $105 million (€94 million) to fund the operation through the end of the year.

China has said it opposes any violation of Lebanon's sovereignty after an Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah's death is widely considered a significant blow to the Iran-aligned group, which is already reeling from a campaign of escalating Israeli attacks.

China's Foreign Ministry on its website urged all parties, and especially Israel, to prevent the conflict from expanding or "even getting out of control."

"China is closely following this incident and deeply concerned about the escalation of tensions in the region," the statement said. 

It called on "all parties, particularly Israel, to take immediate steps to cool down the situation." 

The ministry said China "opposes and condemns all action that harms innocent civilians and opposes any move that exacerbates conflict."

Iran has called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.

Israel had "perpetrated a flagrant act of terrorist aggression against residential areas in Beirut, using US-supplied thousand-pound bunker busters," Iran's UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, wrote in the letter to the Security Council.

He called on the Security Council to "take immediate and decisive action to stop Israel's ongoing aggression" and prevent it "from dragging the region into full-scale war."

The timing of any proposed meeting of the 15-nation body remains uncertain. Diplomatic sources have suggested a session on Sunday is unlikely.

The Israeli military says it has conducted strikes against "dozens" of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, two days after an airstrike that killed the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "attacked dozens of terrorist targets in the territory of Lebanon in the last few hours," the army said in a statement. 

It added that the strikes targeted "buildings where weapons and military structures of the organization were stored."

The Lebanese Health Ministry says Israel's strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 1,030 people in less than two weeks. They include 156 women and 87 children, according to the ministry.

The UN says the strikes have also displaced more than 200,000 people inside Lebanon and caused more than 50,000 to flee to neighboring Syria.

Nasrallah was killed on Friday in an Israeli airstrike on a compound underneath civilian residential buildings in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The killing has sparked fears of an all-out regional war. 

Iran condemned the killing as "unjust bloodshed."

The Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah on Saturday confirmed the death of its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah, whose death could dramatically reshape conflicts across the Middle East, was killed in an Israeli strike on the group's central command headquarters in Beirut's southern suburbs.

Israel's army said it was continuing strikes with fighter jets on what it called Hezbollah targets and told residents to evacuate three buildings it was attacking. 

Earlier, on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations and vowed that Israel's campaign against Hezbollah would continue.

Netanyahu ended his visit to the United States early and returned to Israel.

rc/nm (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)