Biden calls on Israeli military to stop strikes on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon

The U.S. military conducted airstrikes against multiple Islamic State group camps in Syria yesterday morning, according to a statement released today.

Central Command said the strikes will "disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organize and conduct attacks."

It said that battle damage assessments are underway and "do not indicate civilian casualties."

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it evacuated patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza in a "complex mission" that lasted 12 hours.

The hospital has been under siege by Israel for days. Israeli forces ordered staff and patients to evacuate the hospital, threatening them with arrest if they do not comply, according to the enclave's health ministry.

Sixteen patients and 14 of their friends or family members were successfully evacuated, according to the PRCS.

The organization shared video that showed patients with various injuries being taken off of ambulances following their evacuation.

The IDF declared a closed military zone in northern Israel a short while ago.

"Following a situational assessment, the areas of Zar’it, Shomera, Shtula, Netu’a, and Even Menachem in northern Israel will be declared a closed military zone as of 20:00 today (Saturday)," the IDF said in a statement. "Entry to this area is prohibited."

The IDF did not elaborate on the reasons for today's action near the country's border with Lebanon, where tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have been escalating.

Around 100 out of 207 health care centers in Lebanon are now closed due to the "escalation of violence," according to World Health Organization Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus.

"The attacks on health workers and facilities, which have caused almost 100 deaths, must stop," Ghebreyesus wrote on X. "The number of people injured is increasing. The health system is struggling to cope due to limited human and resource capacity."

Five hospitals have shut down due to structural damage following airstrikes, he said.

"We call for the urgent protection of patients and health workers. We call for peace," Ghebreyesus wrote.

The IDF said Hezbollah launched more than 300 projectiles into Israel this weekend.

"Over a million Israelis ran to shelter during their fast this weekend, the holiest weekend of the year for Jews, as 320 projectiles were launched at them by Hezbollah," an army spokesperson said on X.

Two projectiles were launched from northern Gaza into Ashkelon, a city in southern Israel, according to the IDF.

Sirens sounded in the coastal city tonight as the two projectiles were identified and fell into an open area, the IDF said, adding that no injuries were reported.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad later took credit for the attack, saying it bombed Ashkelon "and the settlements surrounding Gaza with a number of rockets."

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide issued a dire warning in a statement about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which he says is "deteriorating dramatically."

"For more than a year, the people of Gaza have lived in fear of death and destruction," Eide said. "While much attention is focused on Lebanon and a possible escalation in the region, the war in Gaza continues."

Eide said his administration has criticized Israel and Hamas "for violating the rules of war," adding that "Israel’s brutal warfare in Gaza includes indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, as well as measures that prevent the population from receiving humanitarian aid."

Norway has been actively engaged in Gaza through humanitarian and diplomatic efforts.

"The Israeli authorities are still largely preventing access to food and necessary emergency aid," in Gaza, Eide said.

A cease-fire, the release of hostages and humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza are needed, Eide said, but the only path to stability in the region is a two state solution.

"I call on all parties to de-escalate and to replace force of arms with diplomacy and negotiations," he said.

A peacekeeper at the U.N. Interim Forces in Lebanon was injured at the organization's headquarters in Naqoura last night after he was hit by gunfire, the organization's fifth casualty in two days.

A statement released by UNIFIL today said that the victim underwent surgery to remove the bullet "and is currently stable."

It said that it did not yet know the origin of the fire.

Four U.N. peacekeepers were injured last week due to Israeli attacks on UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon. The IDF says it is in "constant communication" with UNIFIL.

The IDF ordered residents of 22 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate north of the Awali River today as it continued its ground invasion across the country.

“The IDF does not want to harm you,” spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement on X, adding that anyone near Hezbollah facilities is "putting his life at risk.

The IDF has issued similar evacuation orders for dozens of other villages in the south.

The Israeli strike near the heart of Beirut on Thursday, further afield from Hezbollah strongholds in the south, is leaving residents on edge and worried about how a widening impact could stoke Lebanon's deep, long-running sectarian divisions as more civilians unaffiliated with or openly opposed to the Shia militant group pay the price for its conflict with Israel.

Joseph Sayegh, a 45-year-old ophthalmologist living in Zalka in eastern Beirut, said Hezbollah’s “suicidal behavior” was dragging ordinary Lebanese civilians into conflict. "Aren’t they aware that they are compromising civilians when they stay among them?” he said. “Israel is using this excuse: it says we are just hitting the leader’s residence, this is not true. We are all very disturbed.”

In Beirut's Hamra neighborhood, 37-year-old housewife Amal Itani echoed Sayegh’s concerns and said Hezbollah risks further dividing Lebanese society. “Every strike that is directed towards innocent civilians is not accepted at all,” she said. “Civilians are being used as human shields.”

Sayegh criticized Hezbollah for endangering lives, saying it was the militant group’s duty to stay away from civilian areas. “We are all very anxious, and if this going to continue, it will aggravate the tensions between Lebanese,” she said.

Others are holding Israel responsible for stoking division in the country. 

Imane Haidar, a 28-year-old makeup artist displaced from Tyre in southern Lebanon, said her relatives had been displaced three times and that “Israel is creating a big sectarian strife, this is not to mention the massacres and the destruction.”

She said there had been “enough killing, enough destruction” and wondered how the rest of Lebanon would handle the number of displaced people.

“How long will people afford to stay on the streets?” she said. “We are down the drain.”

U.S. Presidential Envoy Amos Hochstein spoke on the phone with Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati to discuss ways to reach a cease-fire and prevent further escalation.

Mikati's office said in a statement that the pair discussed returning to a political solution based on U.N. Resolution 1701, which laid out the terms for a cease-fire in the 2006 war.

More than 100 U.N. member states have signed a letter in support of the organization's Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz declared him "persona non grata" and banned him from entering the country.

The letter, initiated and signed by South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Mexico and Uganda, among others, condemned Katz' statement and outlines the group's “full support and confidence in the Secretary-General and his work.”

Tensions have continued to rise between Israel and the U.N. as the U.N.'s international Court of Justice and the independent International Criminal Court considers cases for genocide and war crimes against Israel. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has called the U.N. anti-Israel, and the Israeli military has received international condemnation for its attacks this week on the U.N.'s peacekeeping forces in Lebanon.

The U.S. did not sign the letter in support of Guterres.

Israel’s yearlong assault of the Gaza Strip has killed 42,175 people, health authorities in the besieged enclave said today.

At least 49 people were killed and 219 injured in just the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said, with another 98,336 people injured and many others still under rubble and on roads unreachable by ambulance and civil defense crews.

Ahmed Al-Kahlout, the director for northern Gaza's civil defense, says that 250 people were killed in his area over 8 days since Israel renewed its offensive there. The attacks have included encircling the Jabaliya refugee as well as on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians.

The U.S. announced new sanctions on Iran's petroleum and petrochemical sectors yesterday in response to Iran's missile attack on Israel two weeks ago.

The move targets key sectors of Iran's economy in a bid to deny the government funds to support its nuclear and missile programmes.

“The new designations today also include measures against the ‘Ghost Fleet’ that carries Iran’s illicit oil to buyers around the world,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

“These measures will help further deny Iran financial resources used to support its missile programs and provide support for terrorist groups that threaten the United States, its allies, and partners.”

No food aid has entered northern Gaza since October 1, the World Food Programme said in a statement today as it warned of famine in the area.

Israel has intensified a renewed offensive on northern Gaza this month, and has issued evacuation orders for much of the north. The WFP said many of the crossings into the north had been closed, blocking aid from entering.

“The north is basically cut off and we’re not able to operate there,” said Antoine Renard, WFP Country Director for Palestine. “People have run out of ways to cope, food systems have collapsed, and the risk of famine is real.”  

The number of people displaced in Lebanon by the current conflict with Israel has surpassed the number displaced by the 2006 war between the two countries, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.

In a statement released today, UNRWA reported that almost 700,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon, though the real number is thought to be as high as one million.

It added that the majority of public schools were being used as government-managed shelters.

Lebanese around the world are having sleepless nights, watching the news, trying to get in touch with their parents and friends, feeling helpless about the war raging in their homeland. Even as they perform the normal rythms of everyday life, their anxieties are heightened by the distance: They are away, and the news is disturbing.

Sandra Sobh, 46, lives in Dubai where she works as a school teacher. She told NBC News she is struggling to live a normal life, waking up at 3 a.m., and watching the news before preparing her children for school. While at work, she and the other Lebanese teachers and employees are absorbed by the developments, are constantly sending each other messages about the situation.

Some of her colleagues have displaced parents, dead family members, their houses demolished. Some have lost contact with their loved ones, leaving them grappling with the fear and hope of the unknown. "Don’t think that we are in a better situation because we are away," Sobh said.

The IDF said today that Hezbollah has "increased its misuse of emergency vehicles" and that any vehicle shown to contain "armed operatives" is a military target.

It said medical teams should "maintain distance from members" of Hezbollah and not to cooperate with them.

Israeli has come under criticism for targeting ambulance and emergency services vehicles during its invasion of southern Lebanon.

A member of the Lebanese Civil Defense Team told NBC News two weeks ago that Israeli strikes had destroyed 40 ambulances in the previous 10 days and that many people had died in the ambulances. Emergency services have repeatedly plead for protection as neutral entities carrying out essential services in the conflict.

The Isreali military has been repeatedly condemned for its attacks on ambulances and hospitals in Gaza, including a U.N. report this week that accused Isreal of the "crime against humanity of extermination" for its “concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system.”

Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian has been doing rounds in the region as the conflict widens.

In Turkmenistan yesterday, Pezeshkian addressed Israel via a Russian state TV reporter on the sidelines of an international meeting: "I would like to say to Israel: Stop, stop killing innocent people, stop bombing residential buildings, people who have nothing anyway."

"Israel has violated each and every international agreement," Pezeshkian siad. They do it because they know that the US and the EU have their backs."

Israel is currently weighing up its response to the barrage of missiles sent by Iran two weeks ago, with Iranian military and energy infrastructure emerging as the most likely targets.

Pezeshkian also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkemnistan, underscoring the cooperation between America's adversaries. Support for Iran by a nuclear-armed Russia will likley factor into an assessment of a strike on the country.

Following sirens that sounded between 12:15 p.m. and 12:25 p.m. local time in the Upper Galilee, about 30 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israel, the IDF said.

Some of the projectiles were intercepted, and fallen projectiles were identified in the area.

Israeli attacks have killed 60 and wounded at least 168, the Lebanese Public Health Ministry said yesterday evening, which included the death toll from bombing in central Beirut late on Thursday night.

In total, 2,229 people had died and 10,380 wounded since the current conflict began, adding that 187,000 displaced persons had been registered at official shelters, though over 1 million people are estimated to have been driven from their homes.

President Biden said last night that he is "absolutely, positively" asking Israel to stop hitting U.N. peacekeepers.

The U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon were attacked yesterday at their base near the country’s border with Israel, injuring two soldiers and marking the second time in as many days that the forces sustained casualties.

The attack drew international condemnation from the leaders of the Spanish, French, and Italian governments, and Lebanon's prime minister Najib Mikati described the attacks as a criminal act.

The Israeli military said its soldiers were responding to “an immediate threat against them.” 

The IDF said this morning it is "operating with great force" in northern Gaza, and issued evacuation orders for several neighborhoods in the area known as D5.

IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the area, including shelters, was considered a "dangerous combat zone," and urged residents to evacuate to the humanitarian zone much further south.

U.S. officials believe Israel has narrowed down what they will target in their response to Iran’s attack, which these officials describe as Iranian military and energy infrastructure.

There is no indication that Israel will target nuclear facilities or carry out assassinations, but U.S. officials stressed that the Israelis have not made a final decision about how and when to act.

The U.S. does not know when Israel’s response could come but officials said the Israeli military is poised and ready to go at any time once the order is given.

U.S. officials stressed that they have no information to indicate the response will come today but admitted that Israel has not shared a specific timeline with them — and it is not clear Israeli officials have even agreed on one yet.

U.S. and Israeli officials said a response could come during the Yom Kippur holiday. 

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Nicaragua is breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel, the Central American nation said on Friday, calling the Israeli government “fascist” and “genocidal.”

Nicaragua’s government, in a statement, said the break in relations was due to Israel’s attacks on Palestinian territories.

The nation’s congress had, earlier in the day, passed a resolution requesting Nicaragua take action to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war.

The conflict, the Nicaraguan government said, now also “extends against Lebanon and gravely threatens Syria, Yemen and Iran.” Iran is also an ally of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s administration.

The Iranian president’s latest stop in a diplomatic drive aimed at blunting Israel’s promised attacks was a meeting today with Russian President Putin in Turkmenistan.

“Relations with Iran are a priority for us,” the Kremlin said, as it released video of the two leaders together. “We work together actively in the international arena, and our assessment of events happening in the world are often very close.”

The relationship is about more than agreeing on anti-Western ideology. Russia has an air defense system that would help Iran if it comes under attack from Israel.

Iran, meanwhile, has supplied Russia with weapons like Shahed drones for its war in Ukraine. And support for Iran by a nuclear-armed Russia will inevitably factor into any assessment of a strike on the country.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for countries to stop selling arms to Israel following a meeting with Pope Francis at Vatican City.

“I do believe that it is urgent that under the spotlight of all that is happening in the Middle East, the international community should cease to export arms to the Israeli government,” Sánchez told reporters.

The prime minister’s message came after peacemakers with the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) were injured in Israeli attacks today. The Israeli military said its forces were responding to an “immediate threat” when it hit the UNIFIL post.

More than 100 medical and emergency workers have been killed in Lebanon since last October, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“There are recurring reports of essential civilian infrastructure having been struck, including hospitals, clinics, ambulances and schools — along with destruction of housing,” the U.N. office warned in a statement, adding that Lebanese civilians are “bearing the brunt” of the latest phase of the conflict.

The office said the only way the conflict will end is at the negotiating table.

“Widening conflict and progressive escalation put the lives and wellbeing of potentially millions of people across the region at risk,” the agency said.