IDF targets Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon for first time
Israel carried out some of its deepest strikes in Lebanon on Monday in the first attacks on Hezbollah targets outside of the country’s south since the start of the war in Gaza.
The strikes hit an area some 11 miles west of the city of Baalbek, security sources said. The eastern city, a Hezbollah bastion known for its ancient ruins, sits within the Bekaa Valley region. It borders government-held Syria, a major Hezbollah ally.
The Israeli military said its air force was striking Hezbollah “deep inside Lebanon,” after the group downed an Israeli drone.
At least two people were killed in the strikes, a Hezbollah official said.
Hezbollah has been waging attacks on Israeli positions at the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since the Oct 7 attack on Israel by its Palestinian ally Hamas, in what it has described as a campaign to support Palestinians under fire in the Gaza Strip.
Outside of the daily tit-for-tat clashes, Israel has been routinely puncturing deeper inside Lebanese territory in recent weeks, unnerving much of the Lebanese population.
Some 50 Lebanese civilians and more than 200 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in the clashes. Six Israeli civilians and a dozen troops have been killed in Israel.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to intensify attacks against Hezbollah, even if a temporary ceasefire in Gaza is reached, in order to force the group away from the border.
Follow the latest updates below and join the conversation in the comments section.
04:01 PM GMT
Today's blog is now closed
That’s all for today, thanks for following along. Here is a closing summary of the day’s main events.
Israel launched its deepest airstrikes in Lebanon on Monday, targeting near Baalbek, a Hezbollah bastion in the northeast of the country. The strikes killed two Hezbollah members and were the latest example of the conflict widening at a dangerous pace. It was the first time that Israel has targeted Hezbollah outside of the south of the country and the first time it has hit Baalbek since the 2006 war.
Hezbollah launched a barrage of 60 Katyusha rockets at Israeli positions in the Golan Heights in response, as well as two other missile barrages on positions in the disputed Shebaa farms.
An active US Air Force servicemember has died from his wounds after self-immolating outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” he screamed as he doused himself in flammable liquids and set himself on fire in protest of the war in Gaza.
A month on from The Hague order that Israel implement “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today that Israel has failed to comply.
The head of UNRWA, the embattled principal supplier of aid in Gaza, said that 50 per cent less aid was allowed to enter the enclave in February than was allowed in January. It comes as the war nears its five-month mark and starvation is gripping the blockaded territory.
Israeli officials headed to Qatar today to work on terms of a Gaza truce and hostage release deal, a source told Reuters, a step towards nailing down a ceasefire which Washington says is now close. The source said the Israeli working delegation, made up of staff from the military and the Mossad spy agency, was tasked with creating an operational centre to support negotiations. Its mission would include vetting proposed Palestinian militants that Hamas wants freed as part of a hostage release deal.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said Monday the military presented a plan for evacuating civilians in the Gaza Strip, along with an “operational plan”. The statement did not give any details about how or where the civilians would be moved and did little to settle the fears of aid groups that mass civilian casualties would be inflicted if the full-scale assault goes forward.
The Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh submitted his resignation of the Palestinian Authority government, which rules parts of the West Bank, calling for a shake up of Palestinian politics that could handle the “day after” the war in Gaza stops. “The decision to resign came in light of the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem and the war, genocide and starvation in the Gaza Strip,” Shtayyeh said. The next stage, he said, would require “the extension of the Authority’s authority over the entire land, Palestine”.
03:42 PM GMT
French aid air-dropped over Gaza by the Jordanian military
03:39 PM GMT
Jordan's King Abdullah reiterates his call for an immediate ceasefire
Jordan’s King Abdullah warned on Monday of the dangers of Israel’s planned assault on Rafah and reiterated his appeal for an immediate ceasefire to help protect civilians in Gaza and bring in much needed aid, the royal palace said.
The king also said the only way to end the decades-old conflict was to find a “political horizon” for Palestinians that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state on territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, including east Jerusalem.
03:34 PM GMT
US using AI to identify enemy targets in the Middle East, report says
The US used artificial intelligence to identify targets hit by air strikes in the Middle East this month, a defence official told Bloomberg.
“We’ve been using computer vision to identify where there might be threats,” Schuyler Moore, chief technology officer for US Central Command, which runs US military operations in the Middle East, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We’ve certainly had more opportunities to target in the last 60 to 90 days,” she said, adding the US is currently looking for “an awful lot” of rocket launchers from hostile forces in the region.
Moore said AI systems have also helped identify rocket launchers in Yemen and surface vessels in the Red Sea, several of which Centcom said it has destroyed in multiple weapons strikes during February.
It was not immediately clear if the report was referring to joint US-UK strikes in Yemen.
03:27 PM GMT
Pictured: Ultra-Ortodox Jewish men protest against attempts to change policy that exempts them from military conscription
03:24 PM GMT
Palestine Red Crescent Society suspends coordination for medical missions over ‘unlawful behaviour’ by Israeli troops
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it has suspended all humanitarian coordination procedures on medical missions in the Gaza Strip for the next 48 hours.
In a statement, the PRCS said the move was “due to the failure to ensure the safety and security of the Society’s Emergency Medical Services teams, the wounded and the sick in PRCS hospitals, centres and ambulances”, which stemmed from a “lack of commitment and respect of the Israeli occupation forces to the procedures and coordination mechanisms agreed upon with the United Nations’ organisations”.
The statement cited a rescue mission to evacuated patients from Al Amal hospital yesterday during which they said Israeli forces blocked the mission for seven hours and detained medical staff.
🚨The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) suspended all humanitarian coordination procedures on medical missions in the Gaza Strip for the next 48 hours, due to the failure to ensure the safety and security of the Society's Emergency Medical Services teams, the wounded and the… pic.twitter.com/fuIseVEzTF
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) February 26, 2024
The Israeli government did not immediately comment.
02:59 PM GMT
Israel's view of incoming rocket fire from Lebanon
02:58 PM GMT
Hezbollah says it's launched three barrages on Israel over the past hour in retaliation for east Lebanon strikes
Hezbollah said it fired a volley of rockets at an Israeli military base on Monday in retaliation for deadly Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s east.
“In response to the Zionist aggression near the city of Baalbek”, Hezbollah fighters targeted the base in the occupied Golan Heights “with 60 Katyusha rockets” at 4pm (2pm UK), the group said in a statement.
Just 15 minutes later Hezbollah said that it targeted a “radar site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms with rocket weapons, achieving direct hits.”
Five minutes after that it said it targeted the “Ruwaisat Al-Alam site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms with rocket weapons, achieving direct hits.”
The IDF said that “dozens” of rockets were fired at the Golan Heights. Israeli media said there were no immediate reports of casualties.
02:49 PM GMT
Pictured: The desperate scramble of children searching for aid in Gaza
02:46 PM GMT
Israel defying ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by failing to allow adequate humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, Amnesty says
Israel is not complying with orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to implement “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Amnesty International said today.
The statement follows a separate report from Human Rights Watch today, who also found that Israel is not complying with the World Court order, a month on from the ruling.
“Not only has Israel created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, but it is also displaying a callous indifference to the fate of Gaza’s population by creating conditions which the ICJ has said places them at imminent risk of genocide. Time and time again, Israel has failed to take the bare minimum steps humanitarians have desperately pleaded for that are clearly within its power to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” said Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“As the occupying power, under international law, Israel has a clear obligation to ensure the basic needs of Gaza’s population are met. Israel has not only woefully failed to provide for Gazans’ basic needs, but it has also been blocking and impeding the passage of sufficient aid into the Gaza Strip, in particular to the north which is virtually inaccessible, in a clear show of contempt for the ICJ ruling and in flagrant violation of its obligation to prevent genocide.”
“The scale and gravity of the humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s relentless bombardment, destruction and suffocating siege puts more than two million Palestinians of Gaza at risk of irreparable harm.”
02:27 PM GMT
The UN and Palestinian Red Crescent evacuate 24 people from Gaza’s al-Amal hospital
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it successfully evacuated 24 people from al-Amal Hospital yesterday, including 18 patients and injured people, eight of whom needed urgent surgery.
The PRCS also said in its post on X that logistical supplies, food, and water were delivered to the hospital, which is in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
“Despite pre-coordination by the United Nations convoy team and their escort, the occupation obstructed the convoy’s passage for approximately seven hours at the military checkpoint west of the al-Amal neighbourhood,” the statement said.
“All medics were forced out of their vehicles and made to sit on the ground, while three of them were detained and taken to an unknown location after being stripped of their clothes. The occupation released one of them after midnight, while the detention of medics Jihad Aslim and Ramadan Ashour has continued since yesterday evening.”
With prior coordination and accompanied by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Palestine Red Crescent ambulance teams successfully evacuated 24 individuals from Al-Amal Hospital yesterday. Among them were 18 patients and wounded… pic.twitter.com/MLrhYNCRDF
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) February 26, 2024
02:08 PM GMT
Israeli opposition readies for wartime municipal elections
The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, “is still in our lives, after Oct 7, after the greatest disaster to befall the Jewish people happened on his watch, is completely crazy. It can’t go on,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has said ahead of tomorrow’s municipal elections.
Members of Mr Netanyahu’s government have spoken out against calls to hold national elections during wartime, claiming it would harm the country at a time of crisis. Lapid, however, is quoted in Israeli media as saying that Israel “needs elections as soon as possible.”
“It is technically possible, it is possible in terms of the army, it is even possible to do it without tearing the people apart. In the last few weeks, people held parlour meetings, put up posters, activated campaign staffs, and no disaster happened. Israeli democracy worked,” he said.
01:52 PM GMT
Pictured: Israel mourns the death of IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza
01:48 PM GMT
'We had to slaughter our horses to feed our children' in northern Gaza
Similar to Reuters, AFP has also today released reporting on starvation in Gaza, this time from the north of the enclave where aid has not reached since January.
“We had no other choice but to slaughter the horses to feed the children. Hunger is killing us,” Abu Gibril told AFP.
Residents have taken to eating scavenged scraps of rotten corn, animal fodder unfit for human consumption and even leaves to try to stave off the growing hunger pangs.
“There is no food, no wheat, no drinking water,” said one woman.
“We have started begging neighbours for money. We don’t have one shekel at home. We knock on doors and no one is giving us money”.
Tempers are rising in Jabalia about the lack of food and the consequences. On Friday, an impromptu protest was held involving dozens of people.
One child held up a sign reading: “We didn’t die from air strikes but we are dying from hunger.”
Another held aloft a placard warning “Famine eats away at our flesh”, while protesters chanted “No to starvation. No to genocide. No to blockade.”
01:41 PM GMT
50pc less aid entered Gaza in February than January, UNRWA chief says
February registered a 50% reduction of humanitarian aid entering #Gaza compared to January.
Aid was supposed to increase not decrease to address the huge needs of 2 million Palestinians in desperate living conditions. Among the obstacles: lack of political will, regular closing…— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) February 26, 2024
01:35 PM GMT
Bird-feed loaf and a date wrapped in gauze: What children eat in Gaza
After surviving on bitter loaves made from animal feed instead of proper flour, three young brothers who fled their home in Gaza City for a tent further south were tucking into a tub of halawa, a sweet crumbly paste.
Seraj Shehada, eight, and his brothers Ismail, nine, and Saad, 11, told Reuters they had run away in secret to take refuge with their aunt in her tent in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, because there was nothing to eat in Gaza City.
“When we were in Gaza City, we used to eat nothing. We would eat every two days,” Seraj Shehada, told the Reuters reporter as the three boys ate the halawa straight out of the tub, with a spoon.
“We would eat bird and donkey food, just anything,” he said, referring to loaves made from grains and seeds meant for animal consumption. “Day after day, not this food.”
Some of the few aid trucks to reach the north have been mobbed by desperate, hungry crowds, while aid workers have reported seeing people thin and visibly starving with sunken eyes.
“It was bitter. We didn’t want to eat it. We were forced to eat it, one small loaf every two days,” he said, adding that they drank salty water and got sick, and there was no way to wash themselves or their clothes.
“We secretly came to Deir al-Balah. We did not tell our father,” he said.
The boys’ aunt, Eman Shehada, was caring for them as best she could. Heavily pregnant, she said she had lost her husband in the war and was left alone with her daughter, a toddler.
“I am not getting the nutrition needed, so I feel tired and dizzy,” she said.
She cannot afford even to buy a kilo of potatoes.
“I don’t know how to manage our affairs with these three kids, my daughter, and I am pregnant, I can give birth at any moment.”
01:30 PM GMT
US Air Force member has died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in DC
An active-duty member of the US Air Force has died after he set himself ablaze outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC while declaring that he “will no longer be complicit in genocide”.
The 25-year-old airman, Aaron Bushnell, of San Antonio, Texas, died from his injuries, the Metropolitan Police Department said Monday.
Bushnell had walked up to the embassy shortly before 1pm on Sunday and began livestreaming on the video streaming platform Twitch, a person familiar with the matter told AP.
Law enforcement officials believe the man started a livestream, set his phone down and then doused himself in accelerant and ignited the flames. At one point, he said he “will no longer be complicit in genocide”, the person said.
Israel has adamantly denied the genocide allegations.
01:01 PM GMT
Hostage families plan a 4-day march from Gaza border to Jerusalem
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum has announced that the families of the hostages are inviting the Israeli public to a “giant march” that will last four days from the Gaza border to Jerusalem, according to Israel’s Ynet news.
The march, which will begin on Wednesday in Re’im and conclude on Saturday in Jerusalem will happen amid ongoing negotiations for the release of the hostages.
Israel says that Hamas is still holding more than 130 hostages in Gaza and that at least 31 of them are dead, but probably more.
According to Israeli media, the military has collected at least 350 bodies in Gaza since it launched its ground invasion in October, many of whom were dug up from Palestinian cemeteries.
12:48 PM GMT
Pictured: Israeli drone strike far from frontlines targets a car in Lebanon's Sour
📸 [#Picture] An Israeli drone fired a missile at a car on the Mjadal road (Sour), reports our correspondent in South Lebanon, citing security sources.
Follow our live blog for updates 👉 https://t.co/TRQA4t43Vn pic.twitter.com/dTQCnGc3Qs— L'Orient Today (@lorienttoday) February 26, 2024
Israeli drone strikes far away from the frontlines of the day-to-day clashes have stepped up in recent weeks. There is no immediate confirmation of casualties from this strike.
12:45 PM GMT
Israeli delegation heads to Qatar for ceasefire deal push - report says
Israeli officials headed to Qatar today to work on terms of a Gaza truce and hostage release deal, a source told Reuters, a step towards nailing down a ceasefire which Washington says is now close.
Israel is under pressure from its main ally the United States to agree a truce soon, to head off a threatened Israeli assault on Rafah, the last city at Gaza Strip’s southern edge where over half the enclave’s 2.3 million people are sheltering.
The source said the Israeli working delegation, made up of staff from the military and the Mossad spy agency, was tasked with creating an operational centre to support negotiations.
Its mission would include vetting proposed Palestinian militants that Hamas wants freed as part of a hostage release deal.
Israel has not officially commented on such talks and there was no immediate word from the Qatari hosts on Monday.
12:24 PM GMT
Israeli strikes in the Bekaa valley will not go without response, Hezbollah MP says
Hezbollah parliament member Hassan Fadlallah has said that Israel’s deepest strikes in Lebanon since the 2006 war today would not go unanswered.
“Israeli aggression in Baalbek and in any other area will not go unanswered, and the organisation will choose the appropriate response,” he said in televised remarks.
12:19 PM GMT
Pictured: the wait for aid to drop in Gaza
12:14 PM GMT
Explainer: Hezbollah on the Lebanon-Israel border
Diplomatic efforts to put a stop to the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel have mostly focused on efforts to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
The resolution was written to confirm the withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon after the July 2006 war. It also mandates that Hezbollah disarm and move its forces north of the Litani River in Lebanon.
The Israeli defence minister has repeatedly said in recent weeks that it specifically wants Hezbollah’s elite Redwan forces to withdraw from the border and move above the Litani River. If diplomatic efforts do not work, they will use force, he said.
While Hezbollah never withdrew to above the Litani in 2006, both the Lebanese state and Hezbollah also maintain that Israel did not withdraw from all Lebanese territory – specifically the occupied Shebaa farms, Ghajar and the Kafr Shouba heights, which are now all disputed areas.
Hezbollah, with significant opposition in Lebanon, argues that its arms are necessary to deter Israel from attacking southern Lebanon.
Diplomats have also focused on having a beefed-up Lebanese Army on the border as well as negotiations over these disputed areas. Eventually, the plans could lead into a demarcation of the land border between Lebanon and Israel, following the maritime border deal reached in 2022.
Israeli strikes in recent weeks have targeted Hezbollah above the Litani river, including the strikes on Lebanon’s east today, which were around 75 kilometres away from the border.
The most recent of the proposals, put forward by France, would involve Hezbollah withdrawing its forces 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border. Lebanon is still studying the proposal, and Hezbollah officials have indicated they are willing to consider it, but both government and Hezbollah officials have said there would be no agreement on the border before there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
11:52 AM GMT
Israel army proposes evacuation plan as Netanyahu vows push into Gaza's far-south
The Israeli prime minister’s office said Monday the military presented a plan for evacuating civilians in the Gaza Strip, along with an “operational plan”.
“The (Israeli army) presented the War Cabinet with a plan for evacuating the population from the areas of fighting in the Gaza Strip, with the upcoming operational plan,” said a statement in Hebrew from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
The announcement comes as Israel threatens a full-scale invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which has so far been untouched by ground troops.
The statement did not give any details about how or where the civilians would be moved.
11:44 AM GMT
Bracing for impending assault, Palestinians in Rafah continue to face bombardment
11:37 AM GMT
Israel occupation ‘affront to justice’, UN court told
The League of Arab States on Monday called Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories an “affront to international justice”, saying failure to end it amounted to “genocide”.
The International Court of Justice entered its last day of week-long hearings after a request from the United Nations, with an unprecedented 52 countries giving their views on Israel’s occupation.
“This prolonged occupation is an affront to international justice,” Abdel Hakim El-Rifai, the 22 Arab-country bloc’s representative, told judges in The Hague. “The failure to bring it to an end has led to the current horrors perpetrated against the Palestinian people, amounting to genocide.”
Most speakers during the hearings have demanded that Israel end its occupation, which came after a six-day Arab-Israeli war in 1967, AFP reported.
But last week the United States said Israel should not be legally obliged to withdraw without taking its “very real security needs” into account.
Speakers on Monday warned a prolonged occupation posed an “extreme danger” to stability in the Middle East and beyond. “If left unchecked, it runs the risk of not only threatening regional but also global peace and security,” Turkey’s representative Ahmet Yildiz said.
11:24 AM GMT
Israel confirms striking eastern Lebanon for first time since 2006 war
The IDF has confirmed that it carried out airstrikes on the east of Lebanon for the first time today, marking the first time they have targeted Hezbollah outside of the south of the country.
“A short while ago, IDF fighter jets struck sites used by Hezbollah’s Aerial Defence Array in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement.
“The strikes are in response to the launch of a surface-to-air missile at an IDF Hermes-450 UAV which fell earlier today (Monday).
The IDF will continue operating to defend the State of Israel from the threat of Hezbollah terrorist organization, including in aerial operations above Lebanese territory.”
11:10 AM GMT
Strikes near Baalbek killed two people, Hezbollah official says
A Hezbollah official confirmed to Reuters that three strikes hit near Baalbek.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
He said the strikes killed at least two people and that one hit a warehouse for food products that’s part of Hezbollah’s Sajjad Project that sells to people in its stronghold at prices lower than on the market.
11:07 AM GMT
One injured in rocket attack from Lebanon into northern Israel, reports say
One person has been injured in northern Israel from a rocket attack that was launched from Lebanon, the Times of Israel military correspondent has reported.
A rocket fired from Lebanon struck a chicken coop in the border community of Shtula, wounding one person.
They are reportedly listed in good condition, with shrapnel injuries. pic.twitter.com/f5AJzD2ujt— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) February 26, 2024
10:45 AM GMT
Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is ‘root cause’ of regional conflict, Turkey tells World Court
Ahmet Yildiz, Turkey’s deputy foreign minister, told judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday that Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is the root cause of conflict in the region.
“The unfolding situation after Oct 7 proves once again that, without addressing the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there can be no peace in the region,” he said on the sixth day of hearings.
“The real obstacle to peace is obvious. The deepening occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, and failure to implement the two-state vision,” he added.
The UN’s top court, also known as the World Court, is hearing arguments from more than 50 states following a request by the UN General Assembly in 2022 to issue a non-binding opinion on the legal consequences of the Israeli occupation.
The hearings are part of a Palestinian push to get international legal institutions to examine Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories.
10:04 AM GMT
Israel hits near Lebanon's Baalbek for first time since 2006 war
At least two simultaneous Israeli strikes hit around Lebanon’s city of Baalbek on Monday, security sources said, in the first bombardment of eastern Lebanon since regional hostilities erupted following the start of the war in Gaza.
The Israeli military said it was “currently striking Hezbollah terror targets deep inside Lebanon” but provided no further details. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
10:01 AM GMT
Pictured: IDF operations in Gaza
09:54 AM GMT
Rafah assault would be ‘nail in coffin’ of Gaza aid, UN chief warns
A full-scale Israeli military operation in Rafah would deliver a death blow to aid programmes in Gaza, where humanitarian assistance remains “completely insufficient”, the UN chief warned this morning.
Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Antonio Guterres said that Rafah is “the core of the humanitarian aid operation” in the Palestinian territory.
“An all-out Israeli offensive on the city would not only be terrifying for more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there; it would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programmes,” he said.
His comments came after Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Sunday reiterated that his country was intent on a ground invasion in Rafah, in its bid for “total victory” over Hamas.
09:37 AM GMT
Gaza death toll nears 30,000
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 29,782 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory during the war between militants and Israel.
The toll includes at least 90 fatalities in the past 24 hours, while 70,043 people have been injured since the conflict began on Oct 7, a ministry statement said.
09:37 AM GMT
Watch: Hezbollah downs Israeli Hermes 450 drone
🤳 [#Video] #Hezbollah claims to have shot down an Israeli Hermes-450 type drone with a surface-to-air missile, over Iqlim al-Teffah (Nabatieh), adding that the fall of the drone "was visible to the naked eye."
📸 Muntasser Abdallah pic.twitter.com/Mo1AEf4sD6— L'Orient Today (@lorienttoday) February 26, 2024
09:31 AM GMT
Houthis claim first civilian death from US-UK airstrikes
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have reported the first civilian death in US and British air strikes after the latest round of joint raids over the weekend.
One person was killed and eight wounded, the Houthis’ official news agency said late on Sunday, a day after US and British forces said they fired on 18 targets across the country.
The US-British strikes were in response to dozens of Houthi drone and missile attacks on Red Sea shipping since November, which the rebels say are in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war.
“The American-British aggression on the district of Maqbana in the governorate of Taiz has left one civilian dead and eight wounded,” the Houthis’ Saba agency said, citing a statement from the rebel-run health ministry.
The Houthis, who control war-torn Yemen’s most populated areas, have previously reported the death of 17 of their fighters in the Western strikes targeting military facilities.
09:29 AM GMT
Hezbollah downs Israeli drone over Lebanon
Hezbollah this morning downed an Israeli Hermes 450 drone with a surface-to-air missile, the IDF have confirmed.
The fall of the drone over the Nabatieh district, Hezbollah said, was “visible to the naked eye”.
The Iran-aligned group has downed or seized control of several drones in recent weeks.
The Israeli military said that two missile launches had targeted an Israeli Air Force UAV operating over Lebanon. The first, it said, was intercepted by Israel’s ‘David’s Sling’ Aerial Defense System but the drone “fell inside Lebanese territory” after a second launch.
09:19 AM GMT
Pictured: Further displacement in Gaza
09:15 AM GMT
Palestinian Prime Minister Shtayyeh resigns
Mohammad Shtayyeh, Palestine’s prime minister, said on Monday he was resigning to allow for the formation of a broad consensus among Palestinians about political arrangements following Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The move comes amid growing US pressure on Mahmoud Abbas, Palestine’s president, to shake up the Palestinian Authority as international efforts have intensified to stop the fighting in Gaza and begin work on a political structure to govern the enclave after the war.
In a cabinet statement, Shtayyeh said the next stage would need to take account of the emerging reality in Gaza.
He said the next stage would “require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip, the national unity talks, and the urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus”.
In addition, it would require “the extension of the Authority’s authority over the entire land, Palestine”.
The Palestinian Authority, formed 30 years ago under the interim Oslo Peace Accords, exercises limited governance over parts of the occupied West Bank but lost power in Gaza following a struggle with Hamas in 2007.
Israel has said it will not accept Palestinian Authority rule over Gaza after the war.
09:11 AM GMT
Netanyahu: Total victory in Gaza will be ‘weeks away’ once Rafah assault begins
Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that total victory in Gaza will be “weeks away” once the controversial planned assault on Rafah begins.
“Once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion. Not months,” the Israeli prime minister told CBS News on Sunday. “If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway. It has to be done because total victory is our goal and total victory is within reach.”
He said that four of the six remaining Hamas battalions are concentrated in Rafah.
Foreign governments, including Israel’s closest allies, have expressed concerns that the offensive will cause mass civilian casualties.
Since the New Year Israel has faced a Hamas resurgence in areas across Gaza City and the north of the enclave which they had withdrawn from.
08:55 AM GMT
Israel vows to increase attacks on Hezbollah, even during any potential truce
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, vowed last night to up the attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon even if another temporary ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
“We will continue the fire, and we will do so independently from the south until we achieve our goals,” Gallant said. He said there is a simple aim: to push Hezbollah away from the Israeli border, either through a diplomatic agreement or by force.
Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, said in a speech earlier this month that the group would adhere to a ceasefire in southern Lebanon if a ceasefire should be reached in Gaza, as happened last time. Attacks would resume and escalate, he said, if Israel continued to strike in Lebanon after any agreement with Hamas.
08:48 AM GMT
Good morning
Hello and welcome to The Telegraph’s daily live blog of the war on Gaza. Follow along as we bring you all of the latest updates throughout the day.
First up this morning:
Israeli troops killed more than 30 Palestinian gunmen in Gaza City’s Zeitoun district over the past 24 hours, the Israeli military claimed on Monday.
Ten others terrorists were killed in the central Gaza Strip, as well as an unspecified number in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
Gaza City was overrun by Israeli forces in the first stages of the war and has seen renewed incursions against Hamas terrorists in recent weeks.
It came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back on the idea that having another temporary ceasefire soon would stop the planned assault on Rafah, saying that it would only delay it. Almost 1.5 million people are sheltering in the southernmost city after numerous displacements.
Foreign governments and aid organisations have repeatedly expressed fears that an invasion of Rafah, in the enclave’s south, would lead to mass civilian casualties.