Israel forces raid Al Jazeera office in West Bank, order 45-day closure

The senior Hezbollah leaders killed in Friday’s Israel Defense Forces air strike were meeting to plan an Israel invasion, officials said as tensions escalate.

The senior Hezbollah leaders killed in Friday’s Israel Defense Forces air strike were meeting to plan an October 7-style invasion in northern Israel, officials said.

Members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force were allegedly studying “plans for a ground invasion at the heart of the occupied territories” in Galilee, a Hezbollah source told the Al-Monitor Middle East news outlet.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog reiterated the claims during a Sky News broadcast Sunday morning as he condemned Iran and its terror proxies.

“All of these leaders came together in order to launch the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on Oct. 7 by Hamas, by burning Israelis, by butchering them, raping their women, abducting and taking hostage people and little babies,” Herzog said.

The Israeli air strike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 45 people, including one of Hezbollah’s top leaders and several other terrorists, as well as women and children. Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies to explode just days earlier.

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike that targeted the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Zibqin on September 22, 2024. Picture: Kawnat Haju/AFP

Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets early Sunday across a wider and deeper area of northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa, as Israel launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon. The sides appeared to be spiraling toward all-out war following months of escalating tensions, The NY Post reports.

The rocket barrage overnight was in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon that have killed dozens. Air raid sirens echoed across northern Israel, sending hundreds of thousands of people scrambling into shelters.

One rocket struck near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a city near Haifa, wounding at least three people and setting buildings and cars on fire. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said four people were wounded by shrapnel in the barrage.

Avi Vazana raced to a shelter with his wife and 9-month-old baby before he heard the boom of the rocket hitting in Kiryat Bialik. Then he went back outside to see if anyone was hurt.“I ran without shoes, without a shirt, only with pants. I ran to this house when everything was still on fire to try to find if there are other people,” he said.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said that three people were killed and another four wounded in Israeli strikes near the border, without saying whether they were civilians or combatants.

Israel forces raid Al Jazeera, order closure

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera claimed Israeli forces have raided its office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, issuing a 45-day closure order.

Israel’s government last week announced it was revoking the press credentials of Al Jazeera journalists in the country, four months after banning the channel from operating inside Israel.

“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari, the network reported, citing the conversation, which was broadcast live.

“I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier said, according to the footage, which showed heavily armed and masked troops entering the office in Ramallah.

Israeli forces raided Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, issuing a 45-day closure order. Picture: Al Jazeera

Omari said the closure order accused the network of “incitement to and support of terrorism”, according to Al Jazeera.

“Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth,” the bureau chief said.

Israel’s army did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has had a long-running feud with Al Jazeera that has worsened since the Gaza war began following the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The Israeli military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatari network of being “terrorist agents” in Gaza affiliated with Hamas or its ally, Islamic Jihad.

The closure order accused the network of ‘incitement to and support of terrorism’, but Al Jazeera denies these accusations. Picture: Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera denies Israel’s accusations and claims that Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.

The media office of the Hamas-run government in Gaza condemned Sunday’s raid, saying it was a “resounding scandal and a blatant violation of press freedom”.

In early April, the Israeli parliament passed a law allowing the banning of foreign media broadcasts deemed harmful to state security.

Based on this law, the Israeli government approved on May 5 the decision to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from Israel and close its offices for a renewable 45-day period, which was extended for a fourth time by a Tel Aviv court last week.

The shutdown had not affected broadcasts from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, from which Al Jazeera was still covering Israel’s war with Palestinian militants.

Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim said the network’s West Bank office closure “comes as no surprise” after the earlier ban on reporting from inside Israel.

‘Imminent catastrophe’: Fears for Middle East after Hezbollah strike

The United Nations special co-ordinator for Lebanon warned on Sunday of an “imminent catastrophe” in the Middle East amid spiking violence between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, saying a military solution was not the answer.

“With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer,” special co-ordinator Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement on X.

The Israeli military said more than 100 projectiles were fired early Sunday from Lebanon, forcing hundreds of thousands to take cover and prompting school closures in Israel’s north.

The military said that “approximately 20 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon” shortly before 5am (0200 GMT), followed by a barrage of “approximately 85 projectiles” launched from Lebanon after 6am (0300 GMT).

“Hundreds of thousands of people had to take refuge in bomb shelters at that time across northern Israel,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told AFP.

Residents watch as first responders and Israeli security forces gather in Kiryat Bialik in the Haifa district of Israel, after a reported strike by Hezbollah. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

Hezbollah said it targeted military production facilities and an air base near north Israel's Haifa after the Israeli military pounded south Lebanon. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

The military in an earlier statement said the rocket fire sparked fires, while Israel’s medical emergency service said at least four people suffered “shrapnel injuries”, three of whom in the area of the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Israel’s civil defence agency has ordered all schools in the country’s north closed following the rocket fire, the latest escalation in nearly a year of cross-border exchanges throughout the Gaza war.

A woman takes a photograph on an Israeli flag deployed on the wall of a damaged building in Kiryat Bialik in the Haifa district of Israel. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

Educational activities would not be permitted across northern Israel until at least Monday at 6pm (1500 GMT), the military’s Home Front Command said, affecting “hundreds of thousands of children” according to Shoshani.

“In Haifa, a lot of school are closed … and offices are empty”, said resident Patrice Wolff, who works in the medical industry.

He told AFP there was “more and more pressure” coming from Hezbollah as well as from Israeli forces on the Lebanese group.

A sapper carries a piece from a rocket as first responders and Israeli security forces gather inside a cordoned-off area in Kiryat Bialik. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

It targeted thousands of rocket launcher barrels. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

The military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the rocket fire.

Shoshani said the military had hit a range of targets over the past day, mostly “rockets launchers and rocket launcher barrels”.

The Israeli strikes were meant “to prevent a larger-scale attack”, the military spokesman told an online press briefing.

A steady escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah has stoked fears of all-out war.

Israeli officials this week have signalled their intention to turn the focus of military operations from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon