Israel-Iran conflict as it happened: Tehran declares action against Israel over; Strikes in Lebanon and Gaza continue

Thanks for reading our live blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories:

• Iran fired a barrage of almost 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for attacks against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, propelling the Middle East closer to a long-feared regional war.

• Israel said it intercepted many of the missiles. Iran said most of its missiles hit their targets. Israel hasn’t reported any injuries. But Palestinian officials said a man was killed by a missile that fell in the West Bank.

• In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation, while the US and Australia condemned the attack.

• In Lebanon, the Hezbollah and Israeli ground troop clashed in “close-range engagements” on Wednesday as airstrikes hit southern Beirut and rockets were fired into northern Israel.

• In Gaza, a large Israeli air and ground operation in the southern city of Khan Younis has killed at least 51 people early on Wednesday, according to the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry.

• In Tel Aviv, Israeli police said seven people were shot dead when two Palestinian men opened fire minutes before Iran’s missile barrage on Tuesday evening (local time).

• Meanwhile, Israel’s foreign minister said he had barred United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres from entering the country for his failure to “unequivocally condemn” Iran’s missile attack.

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Stay tuned for our rolling coverage on Thursday (Australian time).

The Israeli military said ground troops “eliminated terrorists” in “close-range engagements” in Lebanon on Wednesday.

The fighting killed an army commander, the IDF said. It claimed more than 150 “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been destroyed.

Meanwhile, earlier today, Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, told reporters touring sites of Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs that Hezbollah had “fought a heroic battle this morning” in the southern villages of Odaisseh and Maroun al-Ras against Israeli soldiers who launched a ground incursion into Lebanon.

And in a separate incident, the Lebanese army just said one of their soldiers was injured in an Israeli drone strike.

With AP

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed the presence of American and European nations in the Middle East in his first remarks since Tehran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel.

Khamenei said on Wednesday that their presence is a source of “conflicts, wars, concerns and enmities” but made no mention of the missile attack the night before.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to a speaker in a meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.Credit: AP

“Regional nations can manage themselves and ... they will live together in peace,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

He said Iran is hopeful of getting “rid of the enemies’ evil” and also urged Western nations to “cut their badness.”

Palestinians take photos with the debris of an Iranian missile, intercepted by Israel, in the West Bank city of Hebron.Credit: AP

Iran has long seen the US troop presence on its doorstep as a threat and demanded their evacuation from neighbouring Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

AP

More images from photographers in the Middle East are filtering in via global newswire services.

Below are few from Lebanon, where Israel resumed airstrikes early on Wednesday, local time:

A woman holds her cat in front of a destroyed building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut.Credit: AP

The site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Wednesday, local time.Credit: AP

Rescuers examine rubble in Beirut.Credit: AP

Israeli police say seven people were killed in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening (local time) minutes before Iran’s missile barrage.

Local authorities confirmed the death toll – up one from earlier reports of at least six killed – on Wednesday afternoon in Israel, where it is now 2pm.

A dead person is loaded into an ambulance following a shooting attack in Jaffa, a mixed Arab-Jewish area of Tel Aviv on October 1.Credit: AP

Police said two Palestinian men from the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Hebron opened fire in the Jaffa neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, including shooting directly into a light rail carriage crowded with passengers that was stopped at a station.

Police said the pair had no prior arrests though one had been involved with disturbing the peace at a demonstration. The two men were shot and killed by security guards and armed pedestrians. One of them was armed with an M16 and the other with a knife.

Police and paramedics who responded to the scene treated another 16 people injured from the shooting as sirens blared across the country.

An Israeli forensic officer examines a light rail car following a shooting attack.Credit: AP

Greece’s foreign ministry says a Greek national was among the people killed.

A ministry statement on Wednesday said the man, whom it did not name, was a resident of Jerusalem.

The ministry condemned what it called a “terrorist” attack and expressed the “deepest sorrow” at the death of the Greek national.

On Wednesday, locals left flowers and candles at the train stop, where bullet holes peppered the signs and train stop benches.

Maya Brandwine, a 33-year-old resident of the neighbourhood, said she was at a local coffee shop on the street when the shooting broke out. During the subsequent Iranian missile attack she ended up sheltering in a bomb shelter with police carrying out sweeps for additional suspects.

“It’s a nightmare, and we’re starting to get used to it,” she said, blaming the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the shooting attack and the general situation in Israel.

AP

Israel’s foreign minister says he is barring United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres from entering the country for his failure to “unequivocally condemn” Iran’s missile attack on Israel.

In a statement posted to X moments ago, Minister Israel Katz said Guterres had been declared “persona non grata in Israel”.

“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as almost every country in the world has done, does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil,” he said.

“This is a secretary-general who has yet to denounce the massacre and sexual atrocities committed by Hamas murderers on October 7, nor has he led any efforts to declare them a terrorist organisation.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres speaks during a security council meeting in late September.Credit: AP

“A secretary-general who gives backing to terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran – the mothership of global terror – will be remembered as a stain on the history of the UN.

“Israel will continue to defend its citizens and uphold its national dignity, with or without António Guterres.”

More details are emerging about an Israeli raid in Gaza that killed dozens on the same night Iran launched missiles at Israel that didn’t injure anyone.

Moments ago, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 51 people were killed and another 82 wounded in a large Israeli air and ground operation in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Palestinians mourn for relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah on Wednesday morning, local time.Credit: AP

Israel’s military has yet to comment on the operation, which began early Wednesday (local time). Palestinian residents say ground forces pushed into three neighbourhoods and heavy Israeli airstrikes hit too.

Mahmoud al-Razd, a resident who said four relatives were killed in the raids, described heavy destruction and said first responders had struggled to reach destroyed homes.

“The explosions and shelling were massive,” he told The Associated Press. “Many people are thought to be under the rubble and no one can retrieve them.”

AP, with Lachlan Abbott

Russia says the situation in the Middle East is developing in an alarming direction and called on all sides to exercise restraint.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia had contacts with all sides and condemned any action that caused the death of civilians, according to a Reuters report published in the last 30 minutes.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that regular infantry and armoured units were joining ground operations in southern Lebanon, stepping up pressure on Hezbollah, as Israel prepared to retaliate against a barrage of Iranian missile strikes.

Reuters

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has launched another large missile salvo into Israel, Reuters reports.

The militant group reportedly targeted areas north of Israel’s city of Haifa.

Reuters

More countries are condemning Iran’s attack on Israel and sending planes to Lebanon to evacuate their citizens as the conflict in the Middle East ratcheted up another notch in the last 24 hours.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Iran and Hezbollah to stop their attacks on Israel and said Tehran is risking a wider regional conflagration.

In a statement on Wednesday morning in Europe, Scholz strongly condemned Iran’s missile barrage against Israel the previous evening. He said that “with this, Iran is risking setting the whole region on fire – that must be prevented under all circumstances. Hezbollah and Iran must cease their attacks on Israel immediately.”

The chancellor added that Germany will continue to push for a ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.

India said it was deeply concerned and reiterated its call for restraint and protection of civilians. A statement from the External Affairs Ministry said: “It is important that the conflict doesn’t take a wider regional dimension, and we urge that all issues be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy.”

South Korea has now said it plans to send military aircraft to evacuate its citizens from conflict areas in the Middle East. On Wednesday afternoon, President Yoon Suk Yeol called a meeting to discuss the impact of intensified fighting in the region.

Spain’s Defence Minister Margarita Robles said her government will send two military planes to evacuate 350 Spanish citizens from Lebanon.

More than 200 Chinese citizens have been safely evacuated from Lebanon by the government, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported

AP