A man inspects destroyed buildings in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs after Israeli military strikes on 29 September. (Photo: Wael Hamzeh / EPA-EFE) 
Israel attacked more targets in Lebanon, where its intensifying bombardment over two weeks has killed a string of top Hezbollah leaders and driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Israel should not be allowed to attack countries in the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” one after the other, said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday.
Israel strikes Houthi targets in Yemen, killing at least four people
Israel said it bombed Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday in response to missile fire by the Iran-aligned group at Israel over the past two days, marking another front in fighting in the Middle East.
The Israeli strikes killed at least four people and wounded 29, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said in a statement, and residents said the bombing had caused power outages in most parts of the port city of Hodeidah.
Israel’s military said that dozens of aircraft, including fighter jets, had attacked power plants and a seaport in Hodeidah and the port of Ras Issa.
It was the second such Israeli attack on Yemen in just over two months. In July, Israeli warplanes struck Houthi military targets near Hodeidah after a Yemeni drone hit Tel Aviv and killed one man.
“Over the past year, the Houthis have been operating under the direction and funding of Iran, and in cooperation with Iraqi militias in order to attack the State of Israel, undermine regional stability, and disrupt global freedom of navigation,” said the military.
Yemen’s Houthi militants, backed by Iran, have repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians, since the Gaza war began with a Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
In their latest attack, the Houthis said they had launched a ballistic missile on Saturday towards the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, which Israel said it had intercepted. Israel intercepted another Houthi missile on Friday.
In a post on X, Mohammed Abdulsalam, a spokesperson for the Houthis, said Sunday’s Israeli strikes would not cause the group to “abandon Gaza and Lebanon”.
Israel launches fresh strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon
Israel attacked more targets in Lebanon, where its intensifying bombardment over two weeks has killed a string of top Hezbollah leaders and driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israeli strikes on Sunday had killed 24 people in Ain Deleb in the south and 21 people in Baalbek-Hermel in the east and that 14 medics had been killed in airstrikes over the past two days.
Israeli drones hovered over Beirut overnight and for much of Sunday, with the loud blasts of new airstrikes echoing around the Lebanese capital.
Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire across the border since the start of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Israel rapidly ramped up its attacks on Hezbollah two weeks ago with the declared goal of making northern areas safe for residents to return to their homes, killing much of the group’s leadership. Israel’s defence minister is now discussing widening the offensive.
Nasrallah’s death dealt a particularly significant blow to the group which he led for 32 years, and it was followed by new Hezbollah rocket fire on Israel, while Iran said his death would be avenged.
The US has urged a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Lebanon, but has also authorised its military to reinforce in the region in a sign of the growing unease.
In an interview with NBC, the chair of the US Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee, Senator Mark Kelly, said the bomb that Israel used to kill Nasrallah was a US-made 900kg guided weapon.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said all-out war with Hezbollah or Iran would not help residents of northern Israel return to their homes. “We believe that a diplomatic path is the right course,” he said.
In Iran, which helped create Hezbollah in the early 1980s, senior figures mourned the death of a senior Revolutionary Guards member killed alongside Nasrallah, and Tehran called for a UN Security Council meeting on Israel’s actions.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was moved to a secure location in Iran after Nasrallah’s killing, sources told Reuters.
Nasrallah’s body was recovered intact from the site of Friday’s strike, a medical source and a security source told Reuters on Sunday. Hezbollah has not yet said when his funeral will be held.
Nasrallah had not only made Hezbollah into a powerful domestic force in Lebanon during his 32 years as leader, but helped turn it into the linchpin of Iran’s network of allied groups in the Arab world.
Supporters of the group and other Lebanese who hailed its role in fighting Israel, which occupied south Lebanon for years, mourned him on Sunday.
“We lost the leader who gave us all the strength and faith that we, this small country that we love, could turn it into a paradise,” said Lebanese Christian woman Sophia Blanche Rouillard, carrying a black flag to work in Beirut.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people — a fifth of the population — had fled their homes.
In Beirut, some displaced families spent the night on the benches at Zaitunay Bay, a string of restaurants and cafes on Beirut’s waterfront. On Sunday morning, families with nothing more than a duffle bag of clothes had rolled out mats to sleep on and made tea for themselves.
The UN World Food Programme began an emergency operation to provide food for those affected by the conflict.
On Sunday, Israel’s military said the air force had struck dozens of targets in Lebanon including launchers and weapons stores while its navy said it had intercepted eight projectiles coming from the direction of Lebanon and one from the Red Sea.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Our message is clear — for us, no place is too far.”
Nasrallah’s death capped a traumatic fortnight for Hezbollah, starting with the detonation of thousands of communications devices used by its members. Israel was widely assumed to have carried out that action, but has not confirmed or denied it did.
Hezbollah’s arsenal has long been a point of contention in Lebanon, a country with a history of civil conflict. Hezbollah’s Lebanese critics say the group has unilaterally pulled the country into conflicts and undermined the state.
Iran’s president denounces Israeli attacks on Tehran’s regional allies
Israel should not be allowed to attack countries in the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” one after the other, said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday.
Israel said it had bombed Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday, expanding its confrontation with Iran’s allies in the region after killing the Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday in an escalating conflict in Lebanon.
Pezeshkian, in comments carried by state media, said Lebanon should be supported.
“Lebanese fighters should not be left alone in this battle so that the Zionist regime [Israel] does not attack Axis of Resistance countries one after the other,” he said.
An Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander, Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in the attack that killed the Hezbollah leader in Beirut.
“We cannot accept such actions and they will not be left unanswered. A decisive reaction is necessary,” said Pezeshkian.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, condemned the Israeli strikes in Yemen, saying they had targeted “civilian infrastructure” such as a power plant and fuel tanks.
“Iran once again warns about the consequences of the Zionist regime’s warmongering on regional and international peace and security,” added Kanaani.
Netanyahu bolsters government with opposition legislator
Israeli opposition legislator Gideon Saar is rejoining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the two said on Sunday, a step that is likely to strengthen the premier politically.
The hawkish Saar, who has been one of Netanyahu’s most vocal critics in the past few years, is due to serve as a minister without a portfolio and have a seat in the prime minister’s security Cabinet, said Israeli television station N12.
Expanding the government to include Saar strengthens Netanyahu by making him less reliant on other members of his ruling coalition, which has been struggling in the polls as it presses on with a war in Gaza and against Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“Difficult and trying days lie ahead,” said Netanyahu. “This move contributes to our own unity and to our unity in the face of our enemies.”
Opposed to Palestinian statehood on security grounds, Saar is seen as further to the right than Netanyahu ideologically, but his joining the government is not widely expected to have a big impact on its security policy.
By joining the government with his four-seat party, Saar will give Netanyahu a solid majority of 68 in the 120-seat parliament.
This could help solve one of the biggest political challenges the coalition faces in the next few months — passing a new military conscription law, after Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in June that the state must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students into the military.
The issue has widened cracks in Netanyahu’s coalition, which relies on two ultra-Orthodox parties that want to keep their constituents in religious seminaries and out of a melting-pot army that might test their customs.
Saar’s inclusion also reduces the power of the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has threatened to bring the government down if it ends the war in Gaza.
Saar (57) was once a senior member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party but left after a failed leadership challenge.
Known more for poised pragmatism, rather than personal charisma, Saar broke away from Likud in 2020 to form his own party, becoming one of the most fierce critics of Netanyahu, who faces a long-running trial on corruption charges that he denies.
Pope slams attacks that go ‘beyond morality’
Pope Francis, asked on Sunday about Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon that killed Nasrallah as well as non-combatants, criticised military attacks that he said go “beyond morality”.
On the flight back to Rome from Belgium, the pontiff said countries cannot go “over the top” in using their military forces. “Even in war there is a morality to safeguard,” he said. “War is immoral. But the rules of war give it some morality.”
Responding to a question during an in-flight press conference about Israel’s latest strikes, the 87-year-old pope said: “Defence must always be proportionate to the attack. When there is something disproportionate, you see a tendency to dominate that goes beyond morality.”
Francis, as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, often makes calls for an end to violent conflicts, but is usually cautious about appearing to determine the aggressors. He has spoken more openly in recent weeks about Israel’s military actions in its nearly year-long war against Hamas.
Last week, the pope said Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon were “unacceptable” and urged the international community to do everything possible to halt the fighting. In a press conference on Saturday, he decried the deaths of Palestinian children in Israeli strikes in Gaza.
Diplomatic efforts for ceasefire under way, says Lebanese minister
Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary said during a Cabinet session on Sunday that diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire with Israel were under way.
“It is certain that the Lebanese government wants a ceasefire, and everyone knows that Netanyahu went to New York based on the premise of a ceasefire, but the decision was made to assassinate Nasrallah,” said Makary.
“Diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire are ongoing. The prime minister is not falling short, but the matter is not that easy,” he added.
Pakistanis protesting Hezbollah leader’s killing clash with police
Stone-throwing protesters in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi clashed on Sunday with police who stopped them from reaching the US consulate during demonstrations over Israel’s killing of Nasrallah.
Protesters chanted “Death to America” while carrying posters of Nasrallah.
Police said seven officers were injured and receiving treatment in hospital from stones thrown by protesters.
“Police had to resort to baton charging and tear gas against those who breached the cordons in a bid to disperse the crowd,” said Police Deputy Inspector-General Asad Raza, adding that protesters had tried to reach areas beyond cordons agreed upon with organisers in advance.
He said police would register criminal cases against protesters who acted violently.
Pro-Iran Shi’ite religious political party Majlis Wahadatul Muslimeen had organised the rally of about 3,000 people in the country’s most populous city. DM
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