Israel attacks Lebanon updates: Unequivocal US support for Israel’s wars

Lebanese Americans say they are anxious and angry as Israel steps up attacks in their home country. For more on how the community is coping, read our feature here.

Leaders gathered at the UN decried Israel’s repeated attacks on journalists in the Gaza Strip and called for accountability. Read more here.

And you can always find all our latest coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s main events:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing calls for de-escalation in Lebanon, pledging to carry out “full force” attacks against Hezbollah until it ceases firing rockets across the border.
• Israeli air strikes killed 92 people in Lebanon and wounded 153 others over the past 24 hours, its Health Ministry says.
• In war-battered Gaza, Israeli forces attacked northern Jabalia’s Hafsa al-Faluja school, killing at least 15 Palestinians – among 36 to die in the past 24 hours.
• The Israeli military says it shot down a ballistic missile fired from Yemen that targeted Tel Aviv in the latest long-range strike on the heavily populated city.
• In southern Beirut, an Israeli attack killed the head of one of Hezbollah’s drone units, Mohammad Hussein Surur, the Lebanese armed group confirmed.

An Israeli air strike on a school sheltering displaced families in Jabalia in northern Gaza killed at least 15 people.

It was the latest deadly attack by Israel’s military on shelters housing Palestinian civilians desperately seeking a safe place.

Watch the video below:

The army said fighter jets, following orders from the Northern Command, attacked about “220 terrorist targets” over the past day.

“Among the targets attacked were military buildings, launchers that fired at the state of Israel, terrorists, and the [Hezbollah] organisation’s munitions warehouses in deep and southern Lebanon,” it said in a statement.

Earlier we reported an Israeli air strike hit a building housing Syrian workers and their families near the ancient city of Baalbek in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley.

The state news agency initially reported that 23 people were killed. The Lebanese Health Ministry later announced 19 Syrians and one Lebanese died – one of the deadliest single strikes in Israel’s intensified air campaign.

Local official Hussein Salloum said most of the dead were women and children.

Lebanon, with a population of about six million, hosts nearly 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands who are unregistered – the world’s highest refugee population per capita.

EU Council President Charles Michel, speaking at the UN General Assembly, condemned the ongoing fighting in Lebanon and said a Palestinian state must be established.

Watch the video below:

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon to create space for diplomacy to resolve the conflict.

“Further escalation serves no one. It offers nothing but more suffering for innocent people on all sides, and the prospect for a wider war that no one can control and with consequences no one can foresee,” he told the UN General Assembly.

“This is intimately linked to the situation in Gaza where, again, we need to see an immediate ceasefire. It shames us all that the suffering in Gaza continues to grow. The answer is diplomacy, the release of all the hostages, and the unfettered flow of aid to those in need,” added Starmer.

“That is the only way to break this devastating cycle of violence and begin the journey towards a political solution for the long term, which delivers the long-promised Palestinian state, alongside a safe and secure Israel.”

The Lebanon Humanitarian INGO Forum, a body comprised of more than 60 international NGOs, called for an urgent ceasefire saying it is “needed now more than ever”.

The human toll is “already staggering”, it said in a statement. The attacks have led to a large wave of displacement with many civilians forced to flee with only a few belongings.

The protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure and the delivery of aid to all vulnerable communities “remains our highest priority”, it said.

It further warned that without “swift action towards a ceasefire, the situation will continue to worsen”.

Israel’s large-scale bombing campaign in Lebanon has hit close to home for Ali Dabaja, a Detroit-area physician. His cousin was killed along with her husband and three children in an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon.

“There is disbelief. There is anger and there is the feeling of loss – tremendous loss,” Dabaja told Al Jazeera.

He is not alone. As the war in Lebanon intensifies, Lebanese Americans say they are feeling anxiety and sorrow for their loved ones back home – and outrage at the US government for continuing to arm and support Israel.

Read the full story here.

We now have more lines for you from the French president speaking from Canada.

Macron said it would be “a mistake” for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to refuse a ceasefire in Lebanon, and he would have to take “responsibility” for a regional escalation of violence.

“The proposal that was made is a solid proposal,” Macron said, saying the truce plan supported by the US and EU had been prepared with Netanyahu himself.

“Israel must stop its strikes and Hezbollah must stop its retaliating,” French President Emmanuel Macron told a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Macron said France opposes Lebanon “becoming a new Gaza” during his visit to Canada, citing the “absolutely shocking” number of Palestinian civilian casualties.

Earlier, the United States, France and several Arab and European countries called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border following intense discussions at the United Nations.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the calls for de-escalation, pledging to carry out “full force” attacks against Hezbollah until it ceases firing rockets across the border, dimming hopes for a ceasefire.

Norwegian police issued an international search request for Rinson Jose, a Norwegian-Indian man linked to the sale of pagers to the Lebanese group Hezbollah that exploded last week.

Jose, 39, disappeared while on a work trip to the US last week. He is a founder of a Bulgarian company reportedly part of the pager supply chain.

Police last week opened an investigation into a Norwegian man’s alleged links to the blasts. “A missing persons case has been opened and we have issued an international search for the person,” Mari Elise Bunaes Myhrer of the Oslo police told broadcaster NRK.

Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon last week, killing at least 37 people and wounding nearly 3,000 in an attack widely blamed on Israel, which has refused to comment.

The Israeli military says two barrages of 40 to 45 rockets each were fired from Lebanon into Israel, with many intercepted. One man was taken to hospital in moderate condition with shrapnel injuries.

Hezbollah said the first barrage targeted defence industry complexes near the port city of Haifa, while the second targeted the northern town of Safed.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen met Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati, saying the two discussed the continuing “dangerous” situation in Lebanon.

“We need an immediate ceasefire to allow for a diplomatic solution in line with UN resolutions,” she posted on X.

Palestinian authorities are demanding answers after Israel sent a truck full of 88 decomposed bodies to Gaza.

Since October 7th, Israeli forces have returned hundreds of bodies to Gaza, many decomposed and unidentifiable. But on Wednesday, Palestinian authorities refused to accept the container with 88 corpses until Israel provides full data with the victims’ names, time of death, and the location they were taken from.

Under international humanitarian law, those killed during an armed conflict must be handled with care and dignity. So why has Israel been allowed to do this in a degrading manner? Watch here for answers: