As it happened Israel-Iran conflict updates: IDF tells more Lebanese towns to evacuate amid ground invasion; Hamas head killed in West Bank strike

Thanks for reading our live blog. We’ll end our rolling updates here for now, but if any major news breaks soon, our moment-by-moment coverage will be back.

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

• The Middle East is still nervously awaiting Israel’s response after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Iran “will pay” for launching almost 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday in response to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
• In Beirut today, the Israeli military heavily bombed southern suburbs that are Hezbollah strongholds. Some media outlets reported the strikes targeted head of Hezbollah’s executive affairs, Hashem Safieddine, who is the presumed heir to the militant group’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah. The fate of Safieddine is not yet clear.
• In southern Lebanon, more than 70 towns are now under evacuation orders, including the provincial capital Nabatieh, as Israel intensifies its ground incursion.
• In eastern Lebanon, an Israeli airstrike has cut off a main highway linking Lebanon with Syria, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said today.
• US President Joe Biden said he believes all-out war can be avoided.
• An evacuation flight with 500 Australians aboard is expected to leave Beirut for Cyprus tomorrow.

Thanks for your company. Have a good night.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has just landed in Beirut, according to Lebanese state media.

A Reuters live broadcast showed an Iranian-flagged plane landing at Beirut airport today, just hours after airstrikes hit outside the airport perimeter overnight.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks in September.Credit: Anadolu via Getty Images

Araqchi is set to meet Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and speaker of parliament Nabih Berri, who is a close ally of Iran-backed Hezbollah, according to his schedule.

Reuters

Israel carried out a series of massive airstrikes overnight in southern suburbs of Beirut, injuring at the three Hezbollah-linked rescue workers, a Lebanese security source told Reuters.

The new wave of strikes came after Israel warned more people to evacuate communities in southern Lebanon that are outside a United Nations-declared buffer zone. Israel Defence Force spokesman Avichay Adraee posted a new list of towns on social media in the last hour.

A man runs for cover as a smoke raises in the background following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut on Friday.Credit: AP

The most recent blasts in Beirut rocked the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, sending huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shaking buildings kilometres away, The Associated Press reported.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said there were more than 10 consecutive airstrikes in the area late yesterday.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the intended target was, but The New York Times reported the strikes were aimed at an underground bunker where senior Hezbollah leaders were thought to be meeting, including the presumed successor to the group’s recently assassinated chief.

Meanwhile in Syria, Dama Post, a pro-government Syrian media outlet, said Israeli warplanes fired two missiles, damaging the road between Masnaa Border Crossing in Lebanon and the Syrian crossing point of Jdeidet Yabous. It was the first time this major border crossing has been cut off since the beginning of the war.

AP, Reuters, with Lachlan Abbott

A few photographs are filtering in from the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Israeli airstrikes hit again overnight.

It is now almost 9.30am in Lebanon and the morning light is starting to show the full extent of the damage:

A photographer near the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, today.Credit: AP

The streets of Beirut on Friday morning.Credit: AP

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected calls to expel Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi as Australians trickle out of Lebanon despite the government booking planeloads of seats to get them to safety.

In a social media post on Sunday, Sadeghi praised slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “blessed martyr”, prompting outrage from the government and the Coalition asked for him to be removed.

On Friday, Albanese defended the government’s decision to allow Sadeghi to stay in Australia as it keeps communication channels open with Iran, which earlier this week launched a barrage of missiles at Israel in a clear escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

“We maintained a relationship with Iran since 1998 which is continuous. Not because we agree with the regime but because it’s in Australia’s national interest,” he said.

Read the full story here.

An Israeli strike hit near Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria today, cutting off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments recently, according to a Lebanese minister.

Lebanon Transport Minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters the strike was within Lebanese territory close to the border and created a 4-metre wide crater.

A Syrian woman fleeing the war in Lebanon carries a mattress as she arrives at the Syrian-Lebanese border crossing in Jousieh on Tuesday.Credit: AP

Yesterday, an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) military spokesman accused Hezbollah of using the crossing to transport military equipment into Lebanon.

“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,” IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.

According to Lebanese government statistics, more than 300,000 people – a vast majority of them Syrian – had crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the last 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment.

A Syrian girl fleeing the war in Lebanon arrives at the Syrian-Lebanese border earlier this week.Credit: AP

Reuters

Beirut is now waking up to the smell of smoke once again after Israel bombed the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.

The strikes reportedly targeted the head of Hezbollah’s executive affairs, Hashem Safieddine, who is the presumed heir to the militant group’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah. But this hasn’t yet been confirmed by the Israeli military or Hezbollah.

The IDF just said on Telegram it had spotted more than 20 rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon shortly after 7am. All were intercepted or fell into open areas, it said.

Meanwhile, internally displaced Lebanese citizens took shelter overnight as the fighting continues on the ground in Lebanon’s south. Here are a few recent photos of those who had to flee:

Internally displaced children play soccer at a shelter in Beirut.Credit: Getty Images

Lebanese seek shelter in Beirut.Credit: Getty Images

Children play at a shelter for Lebanese fleeing violence.Credit: Getty Images

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

In statements made on Friday (AEST) almost certainly aimed at Israel, the 15-member council “underscored 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”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters last week.Credit: AP

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced on Wednesday that Guterres is not welcome in the country, accusing the secretary-general of being biased against Israel after not going far enough to condemn Iran’s missile attack.

Guterres on Tuesday issued a brief statement after the attack condemning “the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation”. Earlier on Tuesday, Israel had sent troops into southern Lebanon.

Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said Guterres’ failure to call out Iran made him persona non grata in Israel.

“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil,” Katz said.

At a security council meeting after the ban, Guterres said: “As should have been obvious yesterday in the context of the condemnation I expressed – I again strongly condemn yesterday’s massive missile attack by Iran on Israel.”

Reuters, AP

Israeli warplanes launched an intense barrage of airstrikes overnight in an attempt to target Hashem Safieddine, a cousin and the presumed successor of the assassinated Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, according to three Israeli officials.

The bombardment was one of the heaviest in the area since Israel killed Nasrallah, but it was not clear if Safieddine, who was presumed to be at a meeting of senior Hezbollah officials, was killed in the airstrikes.

Here’s what we know about Safieddine.

Senoir Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine at a military commander’s funeral in July.Credit: Anadolu via Getty Images

Born in the early 1960s in southern Lebanon, Safieddine was one of Hezbollah’s earliest members. He joined after the Shiite Muslim group was formed in the 1980s, with Iranian guidance, during Lebanon’s long civil war.

He rose quickly up its ranks alongside Nasrallah, playing many roles and serving as a political, spiritual and cultural leader, as well as leading the group’s military activities at one point.

In 1995, he was promoted to Hezbollah’s highest council, its governing Consultative Assembly, and was soon after appointed as head of the group’s Jihadi Council, which controls Hezbollah’s military activities.

Just three years later, in 1998, Safieddine was elected to lead the party’s Executive Council, a position that was also twice held by Nasrallah.

Like Nasrallah, he studied in Iran. Safieddine formed strong ties with Tehran, the Iranian capital, during his religious studies in the Iranian city of Qom before returning to Lebanon to work for Hezbollah.

Safieddine was designated a terrorist by the United States and Saudi Arabia in May 2017 for his leadership role in Hezbollah.

At the time, the State Department called him “a senior leader” in Hezbollah’s Executive Council, which oversees the group’s “political, organizational, social, and educational activities.” It said that Safieddine posed “a serious risk of committing acts of terrorism that threaten the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

The New York Times

US President Joe Biden said he did not believe there is going to be an “all-out war” in the Middle East, a region that has been on edge amid Israel’s assaults in Gaza and Lebanon and escalation of the US ally’s tensions with Iran.

Asked on Friday (AEST) how confident he was that such a war can be averted, he paused and told reporters: “How confident are you it’s not going to rain? Look, I don’t believe there is going to be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it.”

US President Joe Biden speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One on a day spent surveying damage from Hurricane Helene.Credit: AP

He added: “But there is a lot to do yet, a lot to do yet.”

When asked if he would send American troops to help Israel, he responded: “We have already helped Israel. We are going to protect Israel.”

Reuters