Israel bombs Hezbollah arms factories in Beirut

Israel bombed several Hezbollah arms factories as it targeted the terror group’s south Beirut stronghold in an overnight barrage.
At least six buildings were levelled in 17 Israeli strikes, according to Lebanese state media, who described it as one of the “most violent” bombardments since the conflict with Hezbollah escalated last month.
Footage showed a series of huge explosions followed by smaller blasts in the southern suburbs. The Israeli military said the sites it struck were stationed by Hezbollah “under and inside civilian buildings in the heart of populated areas”.
One person was killed and five others were wounded, including a child, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
One of the strikes hit the office of pro-Iran broadcaster Al Mayadeen, the station said, adding that it had been empty since the start of the conflict.
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An Israeli strike targeting a car on a highway leading to the capital Beirut killed two people on Thursday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.
“An enemy drone targeted a car on the Kahale road,” the NNA said, referring to a mountain area on the main highway between Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
It later said two people were killed in the strike, which took place outside traditional Hezbollah strongholds that have come under heavy Israeli bombardment since war began last month.
Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, has called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and “immediate cessation of hostilities” in Lebanon. 
Mr Guterres is in Kazan, Russia, for the Brics summit, where he is set to talk with Vladimir Putin for the first time in two years. 
Follow our live coverage of the summit and war in Ukraine here.
Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon have stumbled upon a Hezbollah tunnel which contains a cache of weapons.
It was used by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force ahead of a potential invasion of Israel, the military said.
Gazans forced to flee Jabalia following Israel’s fresh assault on Hamas have told how bodies litter the streets following the harrowing two-week siege, write Ruwaida Amer in Gaza and Neil Johnston in Jerusalem.
Refugees evacuated from the camp in northern Gaza said they lived hungry alongside the “smell of corpses” as they were trapped during fighting as Israel battled against militants during a third offensive in the area.
Israel launched the assault on Oct 6, claiming it was was rooting out Hamas terrorists who had regrouped in the area which is home to Gaza’s largest refugee camp.
During intense fighting Israel suffered the loss of its highest-ranking officer to die in ground combat since the war began after the Oct 7 massacre.
Read the full story here.
An Israeli strike on a school in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp has reportedly killed 16 people, including children, according to the local Al-Awda hospital. 
Another 32 people were wounded, the hospital said.
UPDATE: The number of people killed has risen to 17, including seven children, according to Palestinian officials.
Hezbollah and Israel are clashing at “close range” in a village near the Lebanon border, the terror group has said. 
It comes after Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets at northern Israel, injuring at least four people.
Antony Blinken arrived in Qatar for talks on Thursday with the key mediator on the war in Gaza.
After meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, MR Blinken flew to Saudi Arabia and then Qatar. 
There he will meet the senior leaders to discuss where Hamas stands on agreeing to a ceasefire.
Emmanuel Macron has pledged a €100m aid package to support Lebanon as it continues to play host to a war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“In the immediate term, massive aid is needed for the Lebanese population, both for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war and for the communities hosting them,” Mr Macron said in his opening speech at the conference.
It comes after Italy announced a new €10m aid package, while Germany pledges €60m.
Israeli strikes on Damascus and a Syrian military site near the city of Homs killed one soldier and injured seven people, the Syrian defence ministry has said.
The attacks targeted the central Damascus neighbourhood of Kafr Sousa, as well as a military site in the Homs countryside, according to the ministry.
The strikes caused “material damage”, the ministry said, without elaborating further.
It followed reports that explosions were heard in Damascus after Israeli strikes targeted a residential building in the south west of Syria’s capital.
Israel does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.
Four Israelis were injured after a Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets at Nahariya in northern Israel. 
Two people were moderately wounded and two lightly hurt, the Galilee Medical Centre said.
Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the Middle East was on the brink of a full-scale regional war. 
“The fighting that began a year ago in Gaza has now spread to Lebanon,” Putin said alongside Xi Jinping, China’s president, at the Brics summit in Kazan, Russia.
“Other countries in the region were also affected. The degree of confrontation between Israel and Iran has sharply increased. All this resembles a chain reaction and puts the entire Middle East on the brink of a full-scale war,” the Russian president said.
The scenes of thousands of civilians walking on foot out of Jabalia in northern Gaza are being presented differently in Israel from the rest of the world.
From the Israeli perspective, the mass evacuation from an active war zone is yet another example of the lengths the IDF go to in order to minimise harm to civilians.
Footage of Israeli soldiers handing out water to women and children help boost this image. The focus is therefore not on the potential harm to civilians, but rather on Israeli soldiers’ seemingly endless fighting against Hamas in northern Gaza.
Jabaliya has proven particularly difficult for Israel to get control of, with Hamas continuing to re-appear and inflict heavy damages on the IDF. 
Israel carried out 17 strikes on Lebanon overnight, according to state media, marking one of the most destructive nights since the conflict escalated last month.
Turkey’s military struck sites in Iraq and Syria overnight in response to a terror attack which killed five people in the country’s capital.
Video footage showed a man and a woman wielding automatic weapons storming the entrance of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS) on Wednesday afternoon.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which injured 22 people, but Turkey suspects it was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish terror group.
“A total of 32 targets belonging to the terrorists were successfully destroyed” in the retaliatory attack, the Turkish defence ministry said in a statement.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday condemned the “vile terror attack” as he spoke alongside Vladimir Putin at the Brics summit in Kazan, Russia.
Read about yesterday’s terror attack here.
Israel’s military claims to have uncovered evidence showing that six Palestinian Al Jazeera reporters based in Gaza are members of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad terror groups.
The IDF claims to have published documents, which it says it found in Gaza, showing that the six male reporters had a military affiliation to the groups. 
It said the papers included their personal details, salaries and militant training courses. 
Al Jazeera claimed Israel was trying to silence its journalists.
“Al Jazeera condemns Israeli accusations against its journalists in Gaza and warns against [this] being a justification for targeting them,” the network said in a statement.
Israel’s military said it struck 160 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in the last 24 hours, killing “dozens of terrorists” in the process. 
Targets included rocket launchers and military infrastructure across the country.
Three Lebanese soldiers were killed, including an officer, in an Israeli strike, the army said in a statement on Thursday.
Lebanon claimed the strike took place as its soldiers evacuated wounded people on the outskirts of the village of Yater in the south of the country.
The Israeli military apologised on Monday for a separate strike that also killed three Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon.
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We’ll be bringing you updates on the conflict in the Middle East throughout the day.