Live updates: Israel targets presumed new Hezbollah leader in massive Beirut strikes; Iran's leader issues warnings in rare speech

The Israel Defense Forces said it killed a Hamas commander and a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative in an airstrike yesterday on Tulkarm, in the West Bank.

The IDF identified the Hamas commander as Zahi Yasser Awfi, the head of the organization's network in Tulkarm, and the mastermind of "a significant amount" of terror attacks, who planned on executing another one "in the immediate timeframe."

The Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed the killing of Awfi and seven other members in a statement issued today.

The IDF also said it killed an operative with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement named Jihad Radwan, as well as at least five other Hamas and PIJ-affiliated individuals.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israel's bombing of the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria today.

The attack cut off access to the border crossing, which is "the vital artery used by hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese and Syrian citizens" attempting to leave Lebanon amid Israeli airstrikes, the ministry said in a statement on Facebook.

"Syria condemns this unbridled Zionist crime that has even begun to affect civil defense crews and humanitarian relief workers, and we call for working to stop it immediately and to ensure that this entity is held accountable for its crimes and that it does not escape punishment," the ministry said.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it targeted the Lebanon-Syria border because of an underground tunnel allegedly used to smuggle weapons into Lebanon for Hezbollah.

A Yazidi woman who the Israel Defense Forces said had been kidnapped by the Islamic State group and rescued from Gaza this week was in the Palestinian enclave of her own accord, Gaza's Government Media Office said in a statement.

The woman, whom the IDF identified as a 21-year-old woman, is older than 25 and was married to a Palestinian man from Khan Younis, the media office said.

She lived with him in Syria, where he was a fighter for the opposition forces until he died. She then traveled to Turkey, Egypt and then to Gaza, where she settled with her late husband's mother "of her own free will," the media office said.

The woman married her late husband's brother after several years and lived with him before he was killed by an Israeli airstrike following Oct. 7, the media office said. She then asked the government in Gaza for shelter, which was provided, before eventually asking to communicate with her family and evacuate the enclave "because she had begun to feel that she was unsafe in the Gaza Strip with the intensity of the bombing," the office said.

Dozens of additional fighter jets have been deployed across the Middle East amid Israel’s intensified attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Earlier this week, President Joe Biden also sent thousands of troops to the Middle East to bolster security for troops already in the region, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

These additional resources would enable the U.S. to assist Israel in its expected retaliatory attack against Iran by providing aircraft or intelligence.

At the White House press briefing, President Biden was asked if he thought Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was trying to influence the U.S. presidential election by saying he would not sign any diplomatic agreement for peace with Hamas before the election. Biden responded citing how much his administration has aided Israel and that Netanyahu should remember that.

The U.S. conducted airstrikes on Yemen this evening, according to U.S. Central Command.

The airstrikes targeted "15 Houthi targets in Iranian-backed Houthi-controlled areas" of the country, including "offensive military capabilities," per CENTCOM.

"These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels," CENTCOM said in a statement on X.

Earlier today, the Houthis reported multiple airstrikes in the capital, Sana'a, Hodeidah International Airport on the west coast and the south of Dhamar City.

The Houthis’ Minister of Information, Hashem Sharaf Al-Din, said the airstrikes came after a solidarity march for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — killed last week in an Israeli airstrike — and the people of Gaza and Lebanon in an attempt to “intimidate our people.”

“We affirm that Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in the face of the enemies and will not submit to intimidation or silence,” Sharaf Al-Din said.

United Nations peacekeepers remain in position in southern Lebanon, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said, noting that they are the only channel of communication between Israeli and Lebanese armed forces.

“Peacekeepers continue to do their best to implement their Security Council mandate in obviously very difficult conditions,” Jean-Pierre Lacroix told reporters in New York yesterday, adding that contingency plans were ready.

The mission, known as UNIFIL, is mandated to help the Lebanese government restore its authority in the country's southern region, which is largely controlled by Hezbollah.

Lacroix said the mission was working with partners “to do whatever they can” to protect civilians, including providing temporary shelter to those who have been displaced and supporting the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Israeli media reports that two drones fired by Iran-backed militia in Iraq struck an Israeli base in the Golan Heights, killing two soldiers and wounding at least 24.

At least 37 people were killed and 151 have been injured in the last 24 hours in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

The deaths are a result of over 150 Israeli airstrikes on the country in the same time period, according to Lebanon’s Disaster Risk Management Unit.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since Oct. 8, 2023, including 127 children and 261 women, according to the ministry of health. More than 9,500 have been injured.

There have been over 150 Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, according to Lebanon's Disaster Risk Management Unit.

The strikes were recorded throughout Lebanon, but mostly in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the department said.

NBC News visited the grieving family of Sami Khader Al-Assali in Jabalia, Gaza. Sami left them to find work in the occupied West Bank 14 months ago and was killed by falling missile debris during Iran’s attack on Israel.

The Houthis said that airstrikes targeted multiple areas in Yemen today. It's not clear at this time who conducted the airstrikes in Yemen.

According to the Houthis' Minister of Information Hashem Sharaf Al-Din, the areas targeted include the capital, Sana'a, Hodeidah International Airport on the west coast and the south of Dhamar City.

Sharaf Al-Din said the airstrikes came after a solidarity march for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — killed last week in an Israeli airstrike — and the people of Gaza and Lebanon in an attempt to "intimidate our people."

"We affirm that Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in the face of the enemies and will not submit to intimidation or silence," Sharaf Al-Din said.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said they intercepted multiple launches after around 70 crossed from Lebanon tonight.

The latest incident took place "a short while ago," when the Israeli Air Force "intercepted two suspicious aerial targets that crossed from Lebanon," the IDF said.

In four other incidents from 6 p.m. onward, the IDF said a total of approximately 70 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, targeting areas in northern Israel, including Kiryat Shmona and Avivim. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and others landed in "open areas," per the IDF.

No injuries were reported as a result of the projectiles, the IDF said.

Very loud explosions were heard in Beirut at around 7 p.m. local time. Local media are reporting that the sound may have been jets breaking the sound barrier.

In the midst of Israeli airstrikes, families across Lebanon are desperate for an end to the mounting chaos unfolding across the country, with some saying that decades of conflict and Israeli invasions, combined with years of grinding economic and political crises, means they can no longer envision a future in the country.

Iman Al-Rafee, a 50-year-old self-employed mother of three, said she, her husband and kids all have Canadian passports. And she told NBC News, "I will leave this time with my children, for good."

Al-Rafee said she was just 8 when Israel launched its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in a nearly two-decade occupation of the country's south. Her family was uprooted from Tyre to Beirut — and then she later moving to Saudi Arabia to join her father, only to return to Lebanon after she turned 18. Then, in 2006, after marrying and resettling in Tyre, she said she had to evacuate once again to Beirut, this time, while pregnant, during Israel and Hezbollah's 34-day war.

In the midst of recent hostilities, she had to leave her home in Tyre again this past summer, renting a house in Mount Lebanon. When she heard that her and her parents' homes had been demolished, she had enough.

"We saw our neighborhood on the news," she said. "We can’t even go and check what the situation is."

Ilana Gritzewsky, a pastry chef, no longer bakes cakes.

It’s been almost a year since she was taken hostage by Hamas — the memories of the Oct. 7 terror attacks remain vivid — and her 55 days trapped in the group’s tunnels under the Gaza Strip transformed her.

“Today, I’m doing more things that I didn’t used to do, rather than the things I used to do,” said Gritzewsky, 30, who spoke to NBC News ahead of the first anniversary of the attack. 

“I don’t bake anymore, which is my profession. I can’t handle it right now,” added Gritzewsky, who was taken captive from kibbutz Nir Oz, a small community in southwestern Israel around 2 miles from the fenced-off border with Gaza.  

Read the full story here.

A year into Israel's assault on Gaza, nearly 42,000 people have been killed and 97,000 injured, according to the health ministry, including 14 people killed by Israel in the past day.

With an estimated 90% of Gaza's buildings damaged or destroyed, thousands more are believed to remain under the rubble and unable to be recovered by emergency services.

After being separated from his family for nearly a year after leaving Gaza before Oct. 7 to find work in the occupied West Bank, Sami Khader Al-Assali had lived in constant fear for the safety of his wife and three children.

But on Tuesday, he became an unexpected casualty of mounting hostilities in the region after he was killed by debris as Israel intercepted one of dozens of missiles launched by Iran in a sweeping attack Tuesday.

"He was so worried about us," his wife, Maha Al-Assali, from the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, tearfully told NBC News' crew on the ground in Gaza yesterday as her three young sons also wiped away tears. But now, she said, "he is gone."

Iran launched its missile attack after vowing revenge for the assassinations of top Hezbollah and Hamas leaders and as Israel carried out sweeping strikes in Lebanon.

Maha Al-Assali said she knew something was wrong when she began receiving a string of calls from family members asking about her husband. Then, her sister-in-law finally broke the news that he had been killed during Iran's strikes.

"My sister-in-law told me, 'Listen, I want to tell you something, but I want you to be patient'," she said. "When she said that, I knew that God had taken him back."

The Israel Defense Forces said they targeted the Lebanon-Syria border because of an underground tunnel used to smuggle weapons into Lebanon for Hezbollah.

The IDF struck the 3.5 kilometer-long tunnel (about 2.2 miles) that crossed from the Lebanese border into Syria yesterday, they said.

"The tunnel’s operations were led by the 4400 Unit, the unit responsible for the transportation of weapons from Iran and its proxies to Hezbollah in Lebanon," the IDF said in a statement. "During the strike, terrorist infrastructure sites, weapons storage facilities, and additional terror infrastructure were destroyed."

NBC News has not independently verified the IDF's claim.

The IDF said they also struck sites adjacent to the border last night, adding that they killed the commander of the 4400 Unit, Mohammed Jaafar Katzir, this week.

International aid organizations say the attacks on the border will make it more difficult to deliver humanitarian aid over land routes, and a strike closed at least one key road being used by thousands of Lebanese to escape into Syria.

Israel struck central Beirut and expanded evacuation orders north of the U.N. buffer zone. NBC News reports from the Lebanese capital on the possibility of Israel widening its ground operation.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement today that two soldiers were killed in combat in northern Israel. Two others were injured. The IDF did not elaborate on the nature of the combat in which the soldiers died.

Separately, Hezbollah said in a series of statements that they had targeted Israeli soliders with artillery shells and rockets in the areas of Karmiel and Dovev in northern Israel. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq also said in a statement that they attacked three targets in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Tiberias in northern Israel using drones.

Sirens sounded in northern Israel, the IDF said.

Displaced Lebanese families across the country are asking a question that will be the minds of thousands of people who have seen their homes destroyed in Israel's ongoing offensive: "When the war ends, where are we going to go?"

Hanane, a 34-year-old mother of four, said she and her family were forced to flee the Beirut suburb of Dahieh, an area known as a Hezbollah stronghold, as Israeli strikes pummelled the area. At one point, she said her family had to sleep on the street in downtown Beirut, before finding shelter, where days passed before they were able to get mattresses and covers. But, she said, "we don't have clothes" and "no money," with her husband also no longer able to work as a school bus driver.

Meanwhile, she said the family's home in Dahieh was likely destroyed, saying she had heard all the surrounding buildings on her street had been "demolished."

"We're alive, but in which conditions?" she said, tearfully.

"I am not thinking about our situation now. It is devastating. But how long are we going to stay here? And when the war ends, where are we going to go?”

A plane carrying 40 tons of medical supplies provided by the World Health Organization and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees arrived in Beirut today.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said Thursday that more than 9,000 people have been injured by Israeli attacks in the country since Oct. 8, 2023.

TEL AVIV — As many as 250 Hezbollah fighters have been killed during Israel's ground invasion in southern Lebanon, the IDF said today, adding that its forces had also found "more and more evidence of a plan to infiltrate Israel."

Speaking at a news conference today, IDF spokesman Nadav Shoshani said at least nine commanders were among the 250 Hezbollah members killed in the first days of the ground operation, adding that at least 100 fighters had been killed within the last 24 hours by forces on the ground, with aerial support.

Shoshani said Israeli forces had discovered "an area saturated with weapons," but did not say where exactly that was. He said they had found "more and more evidence of a plan to infiltrate Israel."

NBC News was not able to independently verify the claims.

Shoshani said there was "no specific timeline" for Israel's ground invasion, during which at least eight Israeli soldiers have been killed, but said the "mission is to make sure Hezbollah is not there."

Iran could target Israeli oil refineries and gas fields if Israel launches a retaliatory attack on Iranian territory, the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said.

Ali Fadavi warned Israel against making a "mistake," saying Iran "will target all its energy sources, stations, refineries and gas fields,"  the semi-official Iranian news agency SNN reported.

"Iran is a large and vast country with many economic centers," he said, warning it could strike Israel's power stations and refineries "all at at once."

Iran's foreign minister also warned that Tehran will retaliate harshly if Israel attacks.

“If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one," Abbas Araghchi said, according to the AP.

Video shared by an Israeli diplomat is said to show a Yazidi woman from Iraq reuniting with her family after being freed this week from captivity in the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces say she was kidnapped as a child over a decade ago by the Islamic State terrorist group and trafficked to a member of Hamas.A Hamas official disputed the account, saying the woman was brought to Gaza from Iraq by a Palestinian man whom she had married and had two children with before he left her in Gaza with his family. ISIS is known to have taken Yazidi women against their will for the purpose of sexual servitude or forced marriages.

NBC News has not independently verified where and when the video was filmed.

ZOUK MOSBEH, Lebanon — For many of the nearly 1 million people who have been displaced from their homes in Lebanon amid Israel's offensive, the horrors of having to flee in search of safety are all too familiar.

"The south always pays the bill for the Arab-Israeli conflict, the most difficult of which is the forced displacement from villages," Mohamad Jomaa, an insurance broker from Ansar in southern Lebanon, told NBC News. "We left our home in 1982, 1993, 1996, 2006 — and now."

Israel has said its ground invasion in Lebanon would be "limited," but memories of past invasions have fueled fears across the country.

Jomaa, 62, who has sought shelter in the southern city of Saida with his mother, wife and six children, recalled a Lebanese proverb: "'The cat holds its kitten with her teeth, from one place to another.' ... Well, we are like that cat."

"People are on the streets and in schools, waiting for somebody to feed them and offer them covers and mattresses," he said. "How can you handle the same situation over and over? I wish it was a dream, in fact it is a real nightmare."

"I don’t know if we will be able to go back to our house and life," Nabil El Hajj Ali, 60, who fled from Al-Abbasiya in southern Lebanon, said in a separate interview. "The whole south is destroyed. It is sad. It is catastrophic."

A stream of "polytrauma" patients has flooded into one Lebanese hospital amid Israel's ramped up airstrikes in Lebanon, which have killed hundreds of people and displaced as many as 1 million.

"We are receiving many cases of severe polytrauma patients, specifically traumatic brain injuries, acute abdomen," Dr. Bachar Moubayyed, an intensive care doctor and anaesthesiologist at the hospital in Tyre, a town on the Mediterranean coast of southern Lebanon, told NBC News.

Moubayyed said doctors at the hospital have been providing patients with emergency care and then transferring them to other facilities once they are in stable condition due to the "quantity of the patients we are receiving," though he said the number had declined in recent days. He said the patients were of "all ages," including children.

Seeing young people rushed into the hospital, he said, "it's genocide. They are killing all the civilians. Bombs, everywhere." Moubayyed said he did not know what lay ahead, but he said doctors at the hospital would continue "trying to do our work, our job — saving lives."

With its vastly superior air force and Iran’s relatively weak air defenses, Israel could hit a wide range of targets in Iran if it wanted to, including military and intelligence sites, senior commanders, oil terminals and refineries or even nuclear sites. Israel would also be likely to get a helping hand from U.S. intelligence collected via satellites and other sources.

“There are so many things they can hit, and they’re going to be able to hit all those with great effectiveness. Iran’s not going to be able to stop them,” said a former senior U.S. military officer with experience in the region.

But Israel will have to balance the potential reaction from Iran, including the risk that Tehran could choose to launch attacks on Arab Gulf states that host U.S. air bases or choose to plant sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes.

Read the full story here.

People carry their belongings as they flee eastern Lebanon through the rubble at Masnaa border crossing with Syria this morning.

Thousands of people continue to flee amid Israel’s ongoing offensive, with as many as 185,000 people having crossed the border since Israeli forces ramped up strikes and launched a ground invasion into the country, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, or UNHCR.

Many of the people crossing the border will be Syrian refugees returning to the country they once fled after seeking safety in Lebanon amid Syria’s ongoing civil war. On Wednesday alone, UNHCR in Syria said at least 14,000 Syrians and 3,000 Lebanese nationals made the crossing at the Jdaidet Yabous border point.

A third State Department flight departed Beirut yesterday, landing in Frankfurt early this morning carrying approximately 97 Americans and their family members, a spokesperson said today.

As was the case with the first two flights, the U.S. government-organized charter had the capacity to carry 300 passengers.

To date, the State Department has assisted approximately 350 U.S. citizens, U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs), and their immediate family members to depart Lebanon via organized flights.

Oil prices have jumped more than $5 a barrel since the start of the week amid intensifying fears that Israel could launch an attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure.

The rally, which puts crude futures on track for gains of around 8% week-to-date, has surprised many market observers in that it appears to be somewhat subdued given what’s at stake.

Energy analysts have questioned whether oil markets are being too complacent about the risk of a widening conflict in the Middle East, particularly given that the fallout could disrupt oil flows from the key exporting region. Iran, which is a member of OPEC, is a major player in the global oil market. It’s estimated that as much as 4% of global supply could be at risk if Israel targets Iran’s oil facilities.

Goldman Sachs says a sustained fall in Iranian output could send oil prices up $20 a barrel, while Swedish bank SEB has warned that crude futures could rally to more than $200 a barrel in an extreme scenario.

Read the full story here.

Out of the nearly 200 missiles launched by Iran earlier this week toward Israel, 32 of them struck the Nevatim Air base, assessed Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Canada.

Satellite images have shown damage at the military air base which is in Israel's south. The images showed a hole in the roof of an aircraft hangar, according to The Associated Press. Large pieces of debris can be seen spread around the building, it adds.

NBC News has not verified the claims and the Israeli military has not commented on the damage.

Three schools of U.N.'s agency in Gaza, UNRWA, were hit in the last two days, the organization's chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X last night, adding that more than 140 of its schools have been attacked since Oct. 7.

At least 21 people were killed, he said.

"Schools used to be a safe haven for learning, they have now turned into hell for far too many," he said, adding the schools were home to 20,000 displaced people.

Israel unleashed a new wave of airstrikes across Lebanon on an underground bunker in Beirut, targeting senior leaders of Hezbollah. Israeli officials say they aim to “destroy Hezbollah’s capabilities.”

The Israeli military said on Friday that for the first time in nearly two months, there were sirens sounding in southern Israel, near the Gaza strip.

“Almost a year after Oct. 7, Hamas is still threatening our civilians with their terrorism and we will continue operating against them,” the army added in a post on X. 

The road crossing between Lebanon and Syria, used by tens of thousands to flee Israeli attacks, has been "very significantly bombed," said World Food Programme’s country director Matthew Hollingworth.

“It will mean that goods that would normally come overland through that crossing — the cheapest, most effective way to bring commodities into the country — will also not be able to be to be received here,” he told BBC Radio 4 today,

Passengers believed to be German citizens at Beirut's Rafic Hariri international airport this morning as they attempt to evacuate as the capital is rocked by Israeli airstrikes. Several countries have ongoing operations to remove nationals to safety. 

At least 28 healthcare workers Were killed in the past 24 hours, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters yesterday, adding dozens of healthcare facilities have been shuttered amid Israeli bombardment.

“Many health workers are not reporting to duty as they fled the areas where they work due to bombardment, he said, “This is severely limiting the provision of mass trauma management and continuity of health services,” he added.

Healthcare workers were working under dangerous situations with limited resources, he said, “and yet health care continues to come under attack.” 

“We had planned to deliver a large shipment of trauma and medical supplies tomorrow to Lebanon," he said, but the organization is unable to due to the closure of Beirut airport.

Civilians are bearing the brunt of a "truly catastrophic" situation in Lebanon, a senior U.N. official said, urging respect for the rules of war nearly two weeks since Israel launched a major offensive against the armed group Hezbollah.

With around 1 million people in Lebanon impacted, Imran Riza, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, said the pace of displacement since Sept. 23 had exceeded worst case scenarios, and too much damage was being done to civilian infrastructure.

"What we saw from Sept. 23 on is truly catastrophic," Riza said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. He was referring to the day when Israel dramatically ramped up airstrikes in Lebanon, killing more than 500 people in a single day, according to Lebanese government figures.

"The level of trauma, the level of fear amongst the population, has been extreme," he said.

While it may be easy for governments to condemn Iran’s actions and defend Israel’s, that doesn’t address the “real cause” of the current crisis, Oman’s foreign minister said.

“It is only by ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine that we can hope to restore peace to the region,” Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi said today in a post on X.

“Anyone who believes we can achieve peace by other means — by containing Iran, by eliminating Hamas, by defeating Hezbollah, or by steadfast political, military and financial support for Israel — is either deluded, naive or deliberately trying to avoid the truth.”

For too long, he said, many Western governments “have postponed reckoning with this reality and failed to guarantee the Palestinian people the security and stability that only statehood can provide.”

Israel's actions in the Middle East have only fueled "rising anger and motivation among the people," Iran's supreme leader said, delivering his final comments in a rare sermon today.

Noting Israel's recent assassinations of top Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, Khamenei said Israel was still "unable to seriously damage strong organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, or Islamic Jihad" and had resorted "to terror, destruction, and civilian bombings, perceiving these actions as victories."

But, he warned its actions would only lead "to the emergence of more leaders" whom he suggested would see Israel's "removal from existence." Iran does not recognize Israel's right to exist and seeks the Jewish state's eradication.

Destroyed residential buildings after the Israeli military carried out airstrikes on the Dahiyeh suburb south of the Lebanese capital this morning.

Continuing his rare sermon today, Iran's supreme leader railed against the United States, accusing Washington of protecting Israel as a "facade" for a "deadly agenda."

Khamenei paid tribute to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, saying his assassination marked a "significant loss that has truly saddened us." But, he said, "our mourning does not equate to depression, anxiety or hopelessness" as he called on people in Lebanon not to "lose hope or feel troubled" and not to "waver in your struggle" in a message that appeared aimed at Hezbollah and its supporters.

"Every blow dealt to the regime serves humanity and the region," he said of Israel as he also condemned the U.S., accusing Washington of trying to "dominate the region’s resources" through Israel.

Neither Israel or the U.S. has so far responded to Khamenei's sermon.

The Israeli military says it assassinated Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, the head of communications for Hezbollah's networks, in a "precise, intelligence-based" strike in Beirut yesterday.

The IDF said Sakafi was a senior Hezbollah member responsible for the group's communications unit since 2000. In a statement, it said Safiki had made significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between Hezbollah's units and that his work had "garnered him respect," leading him to have close affiliations with senior leaders within the group.

Hezbollah has not yet confirmed the killing.

The Israeli military has issued evacuation warnings for 35 villages and towns in southern Lebanon, a day after asking residents north of the U.N. buffer zone to also leave in a possible sign of expanding goals for its ground campaign.

"Evacuate your homes immediately. Be careful, you are prohibited from heading south," IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X. "Any heading south could put you in danger."

While the evacuation orders initially applied to residents south of the U.N. buffer zone line that was establishedafter the 2006 war, Israel yesterday expanded the warnings further north.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said his country's ballistic missile attack on Israel was the "least punishment" it could deliver for "the crimes of the Zionist regime."

Delivering a rare sermon while leading a prayer service at Tehran’s grand mosque, Khamenei said Islamic nations have the "same enemy" and must "tighten the belt of defense and independence ... from Afghanistan to Yemen."

Khamenei touted Iran's attack on Israel as a "brilliant operation" that was "entirely legal and legitimate." He also defended other attacks against Israel, including Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attacks and Hezbollah's conflict with Israeli forces, saying "every nation has the right to defend its country and territory against aggressors."

Khamenei added that his country would continue to "fulfill any duty it has in this regard with strength and determination. We will neither delay nor act impulsively in carrying out our responsibilities."

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has just begun a rare public sermon as he leads a Friday prayer service at Tehran’s grand mosque commemorating Hezbollah's slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel last week.

It was Khamenei's first time leading prayers in almost five years.

We'll be providing updates on the content of Khamenei’s sermon, which comes days after Iran launched a major missile attack on Israel after vowing revenge for the assassinations of top Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, the head of Hamas' network in Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, was killed in an Israeli airstrike yesterday, Israeli military said.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 18 people were killed in the strike which hit a cafe inside the Tulkarm refugee camp.

The IDF said Oufi led an attempted car-bombing attack last month, supplying weaponry and "leading a significant amount of additional terror attacks" toward Israel.

Hamas and Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority presidency, condemned the strike.

Lebanese children comfort one another as they are displaced on the streets of Beirut during Israeli strikes last night.

Asked last night how confident he was that all-out war can be avoided in the Middle East, President Joe Biden said, “How confident are you it’s not going to rain? Look, I don’t believe there’s going to be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it. But there’s a lot to do yet.”

Asked whether he would send U.S. troops to help Israel, Biden said, “We’ve already helped Israel, we’ll continue to. We’re going to protect Israel.”

Biden said he hadn’t spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days “because there’s no action going on right now.”

He said he didn’t know whether oil prices would go up if Israel attacked Iranian oil facilities. Asked whether he was telling Israel not to carry out such an attack, Biden said, “I don’t negotiate in public.” 

Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah and overseer of Hezbollah's political affairs, is has been widely expected to succeed the militant and political group's longtime leader of over three decades after Nasrallah was killed in Israeli strikes.

It was not clear whether Israel's attempt to assassinate Safieddine was successful.

As head of Hezbollah's executive council, Safieddine has oversight over Hezbollah's political affairs. He also sits on the Jihad Council, which oversees the militant group's military operations, according to news agency Reuters.

The U.S. designated Safieddine a terrorist in May 2017, noting his role as a "senior leader" in the group. In an interview last month, Shiite cleric and former Hezbollah executive Mohammad Ali al-Husseini described Safieddine as a far more hardline figure than Nasrallah.

“If Hassan Nasrallah was a pleasant character who was easy to deal with by those around him, Hashem Safieddine has an assertive and stubborn personality, and I would even go as far as to say bloodthirsty,” al-Husseini told told Saudi broadcaster Al Arabiya, according to Agence France-Presse.

Israel’s intense strikes on Beirut last night were targeting the presumed new leader of Hezbollah and other senior militants, an Israeli official told NBC News.

Hezbollah has not formally announced a new leader following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah last week, but it is widely believed that Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s cousin and a senior leader in the group, would take over the role.

The Israeli official said the attacks were targeting Safieddine as he met with other surviving Hezbollah leaders in an underground facility. Israel’s military is still assessing whether Safieddine was killed. 

Hezbollah’s reputation in the Middle East has been boosted by Israel’s ground incursions in Lebanon, according to a firm that analyzes millions of posts and articles in the region to gain an understanding of sentiment.

The research underscores the possible risks for Israel of a ground war with the Lebanon-based militant group, which was formed with Iran’s backing in 1982 to fight an Israeli invasion of Lebanon that year.

“Outside of the Shiite communities, Hezbollah has been viewed poorly, more as an agent of chaos than the sharp edge of the resistance,” said Jonathan Teubner, the founder and chief executive of FilterLabs.

But that has been changing with recent events. “By far the most potent issue for Hezbollah,” he said, “is its support for the Palestinians fighting in Gaza.”

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Aragchi arrived in Beirut at its main airport this morning, hours after the Israeli military bombed near the area.

Aragchi's plane is also carrying 10 tons of food and medicine as part of humanitarian aid to Lebanon, according to a spokesman for the foreign ministry.

The delegation also includes two members of the parliament and head of the Red Crescent society, and is expected to meet top Lebanese officials, the spokesperson added.

An Israeli strike this morning in eastern Lebanon, near its border with Syria, cut off a road that was used by thousands of people fleeing the country, Lebanese Transport minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters.

The strike created a 12 feet-wide crater, Hamieh was quoted as saying. The Israeli military had previously accused Hezbollah of using the border crossing to bring military equipment into Lebanon.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayotallah Ali Khamenei, is set to deliver a rare sermon this morning in Tehran, where the assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will also be honored in a ceremony.

The sermon comes as the world watches for an Israeli response to Iran's ballistic missile attack.

A massive barrage of Israeli strikes struck an area near Beirut's main airport in Lebanon, Reuters video showed, with huge explosions lighting up the sky and sending shockwaves in the Lebanese capital early this morning.

Israel has been regularly targeting the city's nearby southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, and had earlier issued evacuation warnings for that area.

The target of the strikes, compared by some observers to the attack that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, was not immediately clear.

Oil prices were little changed early today but remained on track for strong weekly gains, as investors weighed the prospect of a wider Middle East conflict disrupting crude flows against an amply supplied global market.

Brent crude futures ticked down 8 cents, or 0.1%, to $77.54 a barrel as of 12:15 a.m. ET. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down 6 cents, or 0.08%, to $73.65 a barrel.

Both benchmarks were headed for weekly gains of about 8%.

President Joe Biden said yesterday that the U.S. was discussing strikes on Iran’s oil facilities as retaliation for Tehran’s missile attack on Israel. The comments contributed to a 5% rally in oil prices.

The Israel Defense Forces said the majority of 20 rockets launched toward Haifa from Lebanon early this morning were intercepted, while the rest fell in open areas. Sirens had sounded around 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. ET).

Sirens sounded about 20 minutes later in the Upper Galilee area, where the IDF said some of the rockets fired from Lebanon were intercepted and the rest fell in open areas.

The IDF said it had also intercepted a “hostile aircraft” that entered Israeli territory from the east.

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