Hezbollah deputy leader says confrontation with Israel is now ‘open-ended battle of reckoning’
We have this snap from the Reuters news agency. Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem has said that the Lebanese militant group had entered a new phase of its conflict with Israel which he described as an “open-ended battle of reckoning”.
“Threats will not stop us… We are ready to face all military possibilities,” he added.
The comments were made earlier today during a funeral for a top commander killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday.
Key events
A regional military escalation is not in Israel’s “best interest,” White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said on Sunday.
“We don’t believe that escalating this military conflict is in their best interest,” Kirby said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding the United States was “saying this directly to our Israeli counterparts.”
Kirby added: “The tensions are much higher now than they were even just a few days ago.”
But he added “we still believe that there can be time and space for a diplomatic solution here and that’s what we’re working on.”
Lorenzo Tondo
Sarah Kiperwas, from Krayot, told the Guardian: “I heard a big blast around 6.30 am.
“From our balcony, I could see flames and then they told us that someone got hurt.
“I am 68 years old and I have lived in this neighborhood all my life. This is the fourth time in my life that my city has been hit.
“This time I believe it will be harder than the others. Hezbollah had been there for almost a year waiting to make our lives impossible. But we are ready to fight and finish it.
“No one in the world would stand by if the enemy continues to bomb us.”
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has praised its ally, Hezbollah, after the Lebanese group launched overnight rocket strikes at northern Israel.
Hamas said in a statement:
Hamas saluted the resistance fighters in Lebanon for their resilience and bravery in facing the Zionist war machine and for their determination to continue fighting in support of the Palestinian people and their resistance in Gaza and the West Bank.
Here are some more comments from Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem.
“We admit that we are pained. We are humans. But as we are pained — you will also be pained,” Kassem said at the funeral of top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil, who reportedly led the Radwan Force, a special forces unit tasked with cross-border attacks on Israel.
He said a barrage of rockets fired by the group deep into Israel early on Sunday was only the beginning, vowing to destroy Israel’s economy.
Hezbollah deputy leader says confrontation with Israel is now ‘open-ended battle of reckoning’
We have this snap from the Reuters news agency. Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem has said that the Lebanese militant group had entered a new phase of its conflict with Israel which he described as an “open-ended battle of reckoning”.
“Threats will not stop us… We are ready to face all military possibilities,” he added.
The comments were made earlier today during a funeral for a top commander killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday.
Kenneth Roth, the former Human Rights Watch executive director, has said Al Jazeera has been one of the most important sources of information throughout Israel’s war on Gaza, given the fact foreign journalists banned from entering the strip. Roth said Israel shut Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah because the network has exposed “Israeli repression – the apartheid” in the occupied West Bank.
He wrote in a post on X:
Al Jazeera has been one of the most important sources of information on Israeli bombing and starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza and repression in the West Bank, so Israel shuts down its Ramallah bureau after already have shut its East Jerusalem bureau.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, reposted Roth’s message, saying: “no witnesses allowed”.
Al Jazeera TV denounces Israel’s ‘criminal’ raid on West Bank office
Qatar-based media outlet Al Jazeera has condemned a raid by Israeli forces on its office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and the issuing of a 45-day closure order. The Israeli military said, without providing evidence, that it closed the Al Jazeera TV office in Ramallah because it incited “terror”.
The closure order was signed after a legal opinion and intelligence assessment “determined that the offices were being used to incite terror, to support terrorist activities and that the channel’s broadcasts endanger the security and public order in both the area and the state of Israel as a whole,” a military statement said.
Al Jazeera, which says it has no affiliation with militant groups, has denounced the raid as a “criminal act” by Israeli forces and has said it would take legal action to protect it rights and promised to continue its coverage.
The network said:
Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press is blatantly aimed at concealing its actions in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, in contravention of international and humanitarian law.
Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, along with arrests, intimidation, and threats, will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to coverage.
The Israeli government in May banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel, in a move authorised by an Israeli court, and raided a Jerusalem hotel the network used as its office, saying its broadcasts threatened national security. Al Jazeera has vehemently denied accusations by Israel that it is a terrorist mouthpiece. The network says that Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip. Four of Al Jazeera’s journalists have been killed since the war in Gaza began last October.
As of 20 September 2024, preliminary investigations conducted by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed at least 116 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused journalists from Al Jazeera, a Qatari-based network, of links to Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, or its ally Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera has fiercely denied Israel’s accusations and said Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.
Four of Al Jazeera’s journalists have been killed since the war in Gaza began last October, and the network’s office in Gaza was bombed.
The broadcaster said the soldiers did not provide a reason for the closure order on Sunday.
“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari in a conversation broadcast live on the network.
“I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier said, according to the footage.
Omari said the order accused the network of “incitement to and support of terrorism”, according to Al Jazeera.
“Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth,” Omari said.
Israeli forces carrying guns have entered Al Jazeera’s offices in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, ordering staff to vacate and imposing a 45-day closure. pic.twitter.com/zqJYStVkDG
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 22, 2024
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) has said it is “deeply concerned” over the Israeli raid this morning that forced the closure of Al Jazeera’s Ramallah bureau in the occupied West Bank.
The Qatar-based channel aired live footage of the Israeli troops storming the channel’s office and handing over a military closure order to one of the Al Jazeera TV staff before the broadcast was disrupted.
In a statement posted to X, the FPA said:
The Foreign Press Association is deeply troubled by this escalation, which threatens press freedom, and urges the Israeli government to reconsider these actions. Restricting foreign reporters and closing news channels signals a shift away from democratic values.
Summary of the day so far…
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Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets early on Sunday across a wide and deep area of northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa. The barrage came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 45 people, including one of Hezbollah’s top leaders, as well as women and children.
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The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Israeli strikes on Lebanon would continue until it was safe for evacuated people in the north of Israel to return. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has in recent days dealt Hezbollah “a series of blows it could not have imagined”. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, meanwhile, claimed that Israel does not want a war with Lebanon but stressed it has a right to self-defence.
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Israel’s civil defence agency ordered all schools in the north of the country to close.
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The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, warned of an “imminent catastrophe” in the Middle East.
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At least 41,431 Palestinian people have been killed and 95,818 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said.
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An Israeli airstrike killed at least seven people in the Kafr Qasem school in Beach camp – which was sheltering displaced families – in Gaza City on Sunday, Palestinian health officials said.
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Al Jazeera said armed and masked Israeli forces raided its office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and issued a 45-day closure order.
A Hezbollah spokesperson has said the war between the militant group and Israel has now entered a ‘“new phase” and confirmed that they would keep up their attacks until these is a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
Speaking at a funeral for a Hezbollah member on Sunday, in quotes reported by the Associated Press, Hassan Fadlallah said: “We have a strong and capable resistance. All of [Hezbollah’s] options are on the table, and it is prepared for any scenario, war or confrontation.”
Britain will keep under review possible new sanctions against Israeli settlers in the West Bank and will act if it has to, foreign minister David Lammy said on Sunday, adding he was concerned by actions that were inflaming tensions.
Britain announced sanctions against Israeli settlers in February and May this year over what it said was extremist groups perpetrating settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Lammy, who became foreign minister in July after a Labour election victory, indicated the new government would take a similar approach and said that further sanctions were possible.
“We are very worried about escalatory behaviour, very worried about inflamed tensions,” he said. “I’m absolutely clear: if we have to act, we will act, and I’m in discussions with G7 partners particularly and European partners on that.”
Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon to continue until residents in north safe to return, Gallant says
The Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has said Israeli strikes on Lebanon would continue until it was safe for evacuated people in the north of Israel to return.
“Hezbollah has begun to feel some of the capabilities of the Israel Defense Forces … and we are seeing the results,” Gallant said during a tour of the Israeli Air Force’s command and control room.
“These moves will continue until we reach a situation where we safely return the residents of the north to their homes. This is the goal, this is the mission, and we will do everything necessary to meet it,” he added, in comments reporting by the Times of Israel.
Hezbollah has vowed to fight on until a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, setting the stage for a long conflict.
Israel’s communications ministry has said it is working closely with telecommunications firms to “ensure the continuation of landline, cellular and internet connections everywhere” across the country.
“As part of the ministry’s preparations for an emergency, and under the direction of communications minister, the ministry distributed about 440 satellite phones to the heads of (local) councils and security officials,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it is “prepared for an emergency and will continue to conduct regular situation assessments”.
It comes after Hezbollah responded to Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon with four rocket barrages early on Sunday morning and more than 140 rockets and drones fired into Israel’s Jezreel Valley.
Death toll in Gaza reaches 41,431 says health ministry
At least 41,431 Palestinian people have been killed and 95,818 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The toll includes 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry.
The health ministry has said thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the enclave.
We have some more information on the Israeli airstrike that Palestinian health officials said killed seven people in the Kafr Qasem school (in Beach refugee camp) in Gaza City on Sunday (see post at 10.28).
Officials have said among those killed was Majed Saleh, the director of the public works and housing ministry. Israel’s military claimed that the strike, that happened around 11am local time (0800 GMT), targeted Hamas fighters there. Hundreds of displaced Palestinian people were sheltering at the school.
Netanyahu says Israel has hit Hezbollah in ways it could not imagine
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a statement form his office. In it, he said Israel has in recent days dealt Hezbollah “a series of blows it could not have imagined”.
“If Hezbollah has not understood the message, I promise you, it will understand the message,” Netanyahu said, as he promised the return of northern residents who were evacuated due to attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“No country can tolerate firing on its citizens, on its cities, and us – the State of Israel – will not tolerate it. We will do everything necessary to restore security,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
