October 3, 2024 - Israel strikes on Hezbollah targets continue in Beirut, Lebanon

Our live coverage of conflict in the Middle East has moved here.

Veiled Iranian women hold portraits of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during a memorial for Nasrallah and IRGC General Abbas Nilforoushan in Tehran, Iran, on October 2.

Israeli strikes in Beirut overnight targeted?Hashem Safieddine, a potential successor to late Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, an Israeli official told CNN. It’s unclear if he was killed.

Israel’s aerial campaign in Lebanon is being conducted at an intensity comparable only to the first weeks of its?bombardment in?Gaza?last year, an air warfare expert told CNN.

Israel’s escalated offensive in Lebanon has killed over 1,300 people since it began on September 17, according to a CNN tally.

A million people?have been displaced?in less than three weeks of Israel’s campaign, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. One humanitarian agency said Lebanon’s?shelters were overflowing.

Here are the latest developments in the region:

Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system operates for interceptions as rockets are launched from Lebanon towards Israel, as seen from Haifa, Israel, on Thursday, October 3.

Israel accused Hezbollah of launching approximately 230 projectiles from Lebanon into Israeli territory on Thursday.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, claimed to have carried out 32 varied attacks throughout the day, including rocket salvos on Israeli settlements and military bases and attacks on Israeli soldiers carrying out ground operations in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah was not the only Iran-backed group to have claimed to have attacked Israel on Thursday. In a separate incident, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of several Iran-backed militias, claimed responsibility for a drone attack in southern Israel.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a drone over southern Israel and no one was injured.

Smoke rises following an explosion over Beirut's southern suburbs after a strike, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon, on Thursday, October 3.

The Middle East is bracing for Israel’s response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this week. Meantime, Israel is continuing its heavy aerial bombardment and ground incursion in Lebanon.

At least 37 people were killed and 151 were injured by Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Thursday, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has pledged to continue to strike Hezbollah targets in Beirut, the Bekaa valley and southern Lebanon.

Since this afternoon, local time, about 100 projectiles have been launched from Lebanon into Israel, the Israeli military said.

Here are the top headlines:

Israel’s military ordered residents to evacuate areas around two buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs and stay at least 500 meters away, warning that it would soon target the sites.

One of the evacuation areas includes the Sainte Therese Hospital, which is within a 500 meter radius of one of the target buildings.

CNN is attempting to call the hospital.

One evacuation order was issued at 12:48?a.m. local time. The other was published at 1:27 a.m.

An Israeli airstrike Thursday night killed the leader of the Hamas network in the Tulkarem area in the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The IDF alleged that Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi planned and led a car bombing in Ateret, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, and took part in other attacks against Israelis in the West Bank

Other local Hamas operatives were also killed in Thursday’s strike, the IDF said.

Hamas condemned the attack, but did not confirm if Oufi was killed.

The head of Hezbollah's Executive Council Hashem Safieddine attends a ceremony of the Iran-backed Shiite militant group in Beirut's southern suburbs on May 24.

The Israeli strikes in Beirut late Thursday into early Friday local time targeted senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, an Israeli official told CNN.

Safieddine is one of the possible successors of late Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike last week.

It is unclear if the strike killed Safieddine.

The husband of one of the seven people killed in a shooting and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday has described the agonizing search for his wife and baby while Iranian missiles rained down on the city.

His wife, Inbar Segev-Vigder, a 30-year-old fitness instructor, was traveling by light rail to her home in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa neigborhood on Tuesday evening when two men began stabbing and shooting people on the train and in the street.

According Yeari Vigder, his wife was carrying their 9-month-old baby boy in a carrier when she was shot at close range.

When he arrived at the scene of the attack to search for his wife, Vigder found their family’s dog, who was shot,?but his wife and son were nowhere to be seen.

As the barrage of some 200 Iranian missiles began to streak the sky over his head, Vigder frantically searched for his family on the bloodstained streets around the light rail station.

He eventually found his son, Ari, in a nearby children’s hospital where he was being looked after by doctors in an underground safety room.

“Ari has no scratch on his body,” Vigder said. “It’s amazing, it’s our little miracle in this whole story.”

He said his wife “was everything for us. We loved her so much. We still love her.”

Sixteen people were also wounded in the attack on Jerusalem Boulevard in Jaffa, according to Israeli Police. The incident happened just minutes before Iran launched a barrage of?missiles at Israel, its largest-ever such attack, sending sirens blaring across the country and residents running to bomb shelters.

Israeli authorities identified the gunmen as Muhammad Mask, 19, who was killed at the scene, and Ahmed Himoni, 25, who was severely injured. Police said the pair were residents of Hebron, a Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank. Hamas later claimed responsibility for the attack.

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike targeting an area in Beirut's southern suburb late on Thursday, October 3.)

At least 37 people were killed and 151 were injured by Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Thursday, the Lebanese health ministry said.

This included nine deaths and 24 injuries in Beirut, where multiple strikes were carried out overnight, including one in the center of the city.

At least 18 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, updating the previous death toll that stood at 16.

The office of the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister condemned the strike, calling it a “heinous crime,” and demanded urgent action from the international community to stop Israel’s attacks.

“It is high time for the international community to put an end to these ongoing crimes, which have no parallel in contemporary history,” the office said in a statement.

President Joe Biden speaks to the press as he prepares to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on October 3

The US does not believe Israel has made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile attack, according to an official familiar with the matter.

Israeli and American officials continue to discuss a response to Tuesday’s attack, but so far it is the United States’ understanding that Israel is still determining how to proceed, the official said.

Biden said earlier Thursday there were discussions about hitting Iranian oil reserves but stopped short of endorsing that option.

The open-ended comments about targeting Iranian oil nonetheless prompted a spike in the price of oil as markets anticipated an attack on Iranian energy.

The official cautioned against speculation on what Israel might decide to hit, including oil facilities,?because its leaders hadn’t yet decided on a course of action.

Footage from Reuters shows a huge fireball followed by a large plume of smoke rising over the southern suburbs of Beirut.

A CNN team heard several explosions in Beirut around midnight local time.

Footage on Reuters showed a huge fireball followed by a large plume of smoke rising over the southern suburbs of Beirut.

This comes after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning to residents of several specified buildings in the southern Beirut suburb of?Bourj el Barajneh.

The Israeli military has issued an evacuation warning to residents of several specified buildings in the southern Beirut suburb of?Bourj el Barajneh.

In a warning posted shortly before 4 p.m. ET, residents were warned they were “located near facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah,” which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will soon target.

The IDF Arabic spokesperson told civilians to evacuate their residences “immediately” and stay at least less than 500 meters away.

Bourj el Barajneh?is a densely populated area that includes a Palestinian refugee camp and where many poorer migrants live.

State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller speaks to the media during a briefing on Thursday, October 3.

The United States and Israel have had discussions about what comes after Israel’s incursions in Lebanon, but it’s not clear how long the military actions on the ground will last, according to the State Department.

Miller would not say if the Israelis have an end game for the conflict in the north, as they ramp up cross-border incursions and Beirut strikes against Hezbollah.

“The Israelis will have to speak to that question, not me,” he said.

Despite Miller’s vague answers when it comes to any clarity US officials have received about Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah, the spokesperson said for now, the US is fully supportive of Israel’s efforts to target Hezbollah with “targeted objectives” aimed at the militant group’s infrastructure.

“We want to see a diplomatic resolution, but we do want to see Hezbollah’s capabilities degraded,” Miller said.

At least 16 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said Thursday night.

A video obtained by CNN shows bodies hanging from a damaged structure moments after the strike. Other videos show ambulances evacuating victims from the camp and residents carrying wounded people to a hospital.

Israel confirmed that its air force carried out the strike, saying details of the operation would follow.

The US State Department said it is looking to clarify whether Michigan doctor Kamel Ahmad Jawad, who was killed in Lebanon on Tuesday, was an American citizen. Spokesperson Matthew Miller called him a legal permanent resident on Wednesday, but said in a briefing Thursday that “either way, he’s an American, and his death was a horrific tragedy.”

“We offer our sincerest condolences to his family,” Miller said.

Miller said the department “could not verify that he was a US citizen,” adding, “I see now that the family has described him as a US citizen. That may very well be true. We are looking through our records now to verify whether he was an American citizen.”

Jawad was killed Tuesday “after being hit by an Israeli airstrike while trying to save innocent lives in his hometown of Nabatieh, Lebanon,” his family said in a statement.

“He served as their guardian, provided them with food, mattresses, and other comforts, and anonymously paid off their debts. I would often ask him if he was scared, and he repeatedly told me that we should not be scared because he is doing what he loves the most: helping others live in the land he loved the most,” the statement said.

The Israeli military said it is?going to continue striking Hezbollah targets in Beirut, the Bekaa valley and southern Lebanon.

Herzi Halevi, the chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said in a video message Thursday that the military is?“determined to destroy” Hezbollah infrastructure near the Lebanese border and will continue to inflict damage against the militant group.

Halevi said returning residents near the border to their homes “means destroying the terrorist infrastructure that Hezbollah has built near the border so they could raid our communities and kill Israeli civilians when given the order.”

Israel has accused Hezbollah of embedding weapons facilities beneath residential buildings in Beirut, while Israeli political leaders have become increasingly defiant of international calls for restraint and outrage over growing civilian casualties in Lebanon and Gaza.

Halevi said in his video message that Israeli troops “are more prepared and trained than ever, bearing the experience from the operations in Gaza, and their advantage in the combat arena is clear.”

Two hangars, used to store large planes at Nevatim Air Base in Israel, were heavily damaged by missiles from the Iranian attack on Tuesday, October 1.

Iran’s missile attack on Israel on Tuesday destroyed at least three buildings at the Netavim Air Base in southern Israel and left at least a dozen craters, a CNN analysis of satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows.

Iran’s military chief Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri said that the base — located in the remote Negev desert in Israel — was targeted, along with another air base and the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.

Iran's missile attack on Tuesday, October 1, on Israel left at least a dozen craters at the Netavim Air Base in southern Israel, like the one seen in the middle of this?image.

Videos geolocated by CNN show a number of explosions at the airbase during the attack. Missiles tore large holes in the roofs of two hangars used to store larger planes.?Debris from the structures, splintered by the missile, are scattered on the?ground around the hangars.

Right next to the hangars, two additional craters are seen in a taxiway of the base.?Satellite imagery shows that a portion of the taxiway hit by the missiles is being actively being excavated and repaired.

Iran also appeared to have targeted other?hangars at the base. Two missiles just missed a group of hangars, which are likely used for storing fighter jets, by about 40 feet, based on where the craters are.

A third building just north of the hangars was also hit.?It’s unclear what that building was used for, but it was not used to store aircraft.

Taxiways, a runway and other roadways at the base were also hit. The southernmost runway and a nearby taxiway both have craters of almost 30 feet.

About 250 Americans and their family members have now departed Lebanon on two US-organized flights this week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Thursday.

The second flight departed Beirut on Thursday morning, carrying 134 passengers, Miller said. Both that flight and the flight on Wednesday went on to Istanbul, Miller said.

In addition, the US has worked with Middle East Airlines to increase the number of seats set aside for US citizens.

“In the past week, we have made over 1,400 seats on available on flights out of Lebanon, and many seats do remain available,” Miller said Thursday.

Miller acknowledged that the price on those commercial flights is high, which is part of why the US has organized its own flights.

Lebanese Economy Minister Amin Salam participates in an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2022.

Israel’s offensive in Lebanon is “destroying the country,” Lebanese Economy Minister Amin Salam told CNN.

Salam condemned Thursday morning’s strike on central Beirut, the first in that part of the city since 2006, highlighting how Israel is striking increasingly close to civilian areas.

Salam warned that the displacement of over 1 million Lebanese and Syrian people from Lebanon will be a “long-term issue” for the government to manage, even if a ceasefire went into effect.

“We need to rebuild their towns, their villages. We need to provide peaceful conditions for them. So, we are really in a very complicated operation now to take care of all those people,” the minister added.

Nearly half of the people in Lebanon’s emergency shelters are children and the facilities are operating beyond capacity, according to the Lebanon county director of a humanitarian agency.

“About 47% of the people that are in these shelters are children,” Adams said, who is based in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Women and girls have been disproportionately affected by the displacement caused by the airstrikes, he said.

Aid workers have been attempting to find people shelter and assist with injuries from Israel’s aerial campaign, while also providing them with food and supplies, Adams added. He said his agency is seeing thousands fleeing various neighborhoods, looking for safety.

“The city is well equipped but not equipped enough for the number of people that are injured. Supermarkets do have some supplies but they are running out very quickly,” particularly in southern Lebanon, Adams said.

An Israeli military officer was killed in combat in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The IDF identified the soldier as Ben Zion Falach. He is the ninth Israeli soldier to have been killed since Israel launched its ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon this week.

Falach, 21, was an officer in the 202nd Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade, the IDF said in a statement.

Israel’s military says it killed several Hezbollah commanders in a strike on a military structure in southern Lebanon.

The commanders of the combat area, engineering forces and fire coordination were among those killed, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

The strike was carried out during a joint operation between the Israeli Air Force and the Golani Brigade, which has been conducting ground raids in southern Lebanon over the past day, it added.

The IDF also said it destroyed another military structure in a different strike and seized weapons and other equipment during the raids.

About 100 projectiles have been launched from Lebanon into Israel in the last several hours, the Israeli military said.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, the launches have been happening since 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET).

Most were directed at the town of Metula along the Israel-Lebanon border.

A CNN team in Beirut heard loud blasts on Thursday evening local time and saw smoke rising over Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Fliers calling for the return of the Israeli hostages are seen in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum says it will not hold its weekly rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday, two days before the anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023.

The forum said the decision was made in light of the “security situation” in the region.

But dozens of rallies are still set to take place this Saturday in other locations.

“The families of the hostages urge the public to continue supporting the struggle and to join the rally in Carmei Gat or Sha’ar HaNegev, or at protest points throughout the country,” the forum said.

The rallies have been held regularly throughout the year, with demonstrators calling for the return of hostages in Gaza through a negotiated deal.

Around 160,000 people have crossed the border from Lebanon to Syria since the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon last month, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Thursday.

The rate of those crossing into Syria slowed on Wednesday after a steady stream of arrivals since Israel launched its air campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 23, UNHCR said in an update.

UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh previously told CNN on Monday that around 100,000 people had crossed the border.

Of the thousands now believed to have made the journey, about 70% — around 112,000 people — are Syrians. The remainder are Lebanese nationals.

The vast majority of people are leaving Lebanon in the east, toward the Syrian capital of Damascus.

As Israel’s strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon continue, elsewhere, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported 99 new deaths and 169 injuries in the past 24 hours due to Israeli airstrikes on the territory.

With today’s numbers, the total death toll since October 7 of last year has risen to 41,788, with 96,794 injured, the ministry said in a Thursday statement.

Additionally, it noted that many victims remain trapped under rubble, with emergency teams unable to reach them. The ministry does not distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths.

For context: Since October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel, there has been regular cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military, prior to the latest escalation. Hezbollah first fired at Israel to protest the war in Gaza, demanding a ceasefire there as a condition to end its attacks.

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday, October 2.

Israel’s aerial campaign in Lebanon is being conducted at an intensity comparable only to the first weeks of its bombardment in?Gaza last year, an air warfare expert told CNN.

Emily Tripp, the director of the UK-based aerial warfare monitoring group Airwars, told CNN’s Eleni Giokos?that both the Lebanon and Gaza campaigns are occurring at “a level and intensity that Israel’s own allies just simply would not have carried out in the last 20 years.”

“It’s only really comparable to those first weeks in Gaza,” Tripp said of the campaign in Lebanon.

“The reality is war is messy and complicated and militants embed themselves in civilian neighborhoods that inherently endangers civilians. This is not an easy operating environment,” Tripp added.

“I think it’s quite easy to blame a fog of war and say that this is just a very complicated environment, but it’s not,” Tripp said.

President Joe Biden speaks to the press as he prepares to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on October 3, in Washington, D.C.

US President Joe Biden fielded questions on the ongoing Middle East conflict before departing the White House for Florida and Georgia Thursday.

Asked if he would support Israel striking Iran’s oil reserves in retaliation for the massive Tuesday missile strike against Israel, Biden left the door open, telling reporters, “We’re in discussions of that” but “there’s nothing going to happen today; we’ll talk about that later.”

Yesterday, Biden made clear he does not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

The president declined to outline what sanctions the US is considering against Iran, telling one reporter, “I’ll tell them before I tell you.”

He added that there was no update to share on the hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza.

Forty ambulance and firefighting staff have been killed in the past three days across Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad said Thursday.

Abiad said 97 paramedics and firefighters in the country have been killed by Israeli strikes since October 8 last year, as the death toll across the country from the same date climbed to 1,974, of whom 127 are children and 261 are women.

Overnight, seven medics working for Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Authority were killed by an Israeli strike on central Beirut.

“We know that there are international laws protecting medical institutions, ambulances and health care workers,” the health minister said.

Israel’s military says its air force struck Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut on Thursday.

“The Intelligence Corps is Hezbollah’s primary intelligence body and is responsible for aggregating intelligence about the IDF and the State of Israel,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

Earlier, Hezbollah told reporters its media office was targeted in strikes in southern Beirut.

Smoke rises over Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, on October 3.

Three Israeli airstrikes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut Thursday afternoon local time, “one of which targeted (the neighborhood of) Haret Hreik,” Lebanese state media NNA reports.

Hezbollah announced shortly after the blasts that its media office was targeted, on a WhatsApp group it shares with reporters.

Several large blasts were heard by CNN teams in west Beirut.

CNN teams?there saw large plumes of smoke rising from the southern suburbs of the city, and are hearing the sound of drones in the skies overhead.

This post has been updated with additional details.

The groundbreaking ceremony of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, held in Bushehr, Iran, on November 10, 2019.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton — who has called for Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the wake of Iran’s ballistic missile attacks this week — criticized President Joe Biden for urging Israel to exercise restraint in retaliating against the attack.

Bolton added that Biden’s “position itself is wrong” and argued that Israel must respond “disproportionately” to actually deter Iran by targeting its nuclear proliferation program.

“I think the administration is paralyzed by this fear of wider war … the wider war is already here,” he added.

Bolton continued, “Can you assure Israel that the next time Iran fires a ballistic missile from its territory, that under the nose cone of that missile there’s not going to be a nuclear weapon? … Is the threat of nuclear extinction a bigger or a smaller threat than a wider war?”

A Lebanese soldier was killed while carrying out a rescue and evacuation mission with the country’s Red Cross on Thursday, the Lebanese army said.

The soldier was killed and another was injured during the operation in the southern town of Taybeh.

Israeli army tanks manoeuvre in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, on October 1.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has issued evacuation orders for an additional 25 villages in southern Lebanon, signaling a broadening of its ground incursion?in the country.

A total of 76 villages in southern Lebanon have now been issued IDF evacuation notices since Tuesday.

IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee listed the names of the 25 new villages Thursday, which are in areas that now extend deeper into Lebanon, reaching up to 45 kilometers (28 miles) inside the country.

He warned Lebanese citizens “for your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move to the north of the Awali River.”

“Save your lives,” he added.

On Wednesday, the IDF announced it was sending an additional division to participate in its ground war in Lebanon, having reiterated that the campaign is “limited, localized, targeted.”

Hezbollah says it repelled an attempt by Israeli forces to advance at the Lebanese border on Thursday,?where the two sides have been clashing since Israel launched a ground attack.

The militant group said they stopped an attempted advance by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the Fatima Gate border crossing by firing artillery at advancing soldiers. They also said they halted an Israeli attack near the town of Maroun Al-Ras.

Hezbollah also announced it had fired more rockets on Israel, targeting an Israeli settlement in the country’s north as well as a military outpost, saying the attacks were in support of Palestinians in Gaza and “in response to the brutal Israeli aggression.”

CNN has approached the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.

Smoke billows over Beirut, after overnight Israeli air strikes, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon, on October 3.

The death toll from an Israeli airstrike on central Beirut early Thursday morning has risen to nine, the Lebanese health ministry says.

The strike hit the neighborhood of Bashoura, near the city’s downtown, CNN confirmed, through geolocating the area.

An update from Lebanon’s health ministry later on Thursday said the death toll had risen to nine “martyrs.” In addition, 14 people were injured. DNA tests are underway to determine the identity of some of the remains.

Of the nine killed, seven were medics working for the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Authority. The authority had an office on one floor of the building which was hit during a wave of strikes on the Lebanese capital. CNN Turk found the building badly damaged, with rubble in the street.

CNN previously reported that at least six people had been killed in the strike.

It marks the first time Israel has struck the area since 2006. Israel’s strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon and displaced about 1 million residents since it escalated its war with Hezbollah.

A man walks amid the rubble of a building destroyed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs on October 3.

At least two people have been reported killed after?Israel carried out strikes on?several parts of Lebanon overnight, continuing its heaviest bombardment of the country in nearly two decades.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF)?said Thursday it struck around 200 Hezbollah targets overnight in Lebanese territory, including on the militant group’s infrastructure sites, weapons storage facilities and observation posts in southern Lebanon.

The IDF said the Israeli Air Force “precisely struck” a municipality building in Bint Jbeil, southern Lebanon, which it said Hezbollah militants were operating and where “large quantities of Hezbollah weapons” were stored in the building. It said it killed 15 Hezbollah fighters.

Lebanon’s state-run NNA said two Ethiopian nationals were killed in Israeli strikes on the western coastal district of Tyre; it also said Bint Jbeil was targeted.

More than a dozen airstrikes were also reported on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which was targeted by “aerial aggression” and “hostile warplanes,” NNA said. The Israeli military in recent days has repeatedly bombed the capital’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

It comes as about 25 projectiles, and two drones crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon on Thursday morning, according to the IDF. No injuries were reported, it said.

Families of Israeli hostages in Gaza left empty chairs at the dinner table to highlight their absence as they welcomed the start of the Jewish New Year on Wednesday.

Celebrations for Rosh Hashanah, which began at sunset on Wednesday and ends at nightfall Friday, have been overshadowed this year by the escalation of regional conflict?as the first anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel draws nearer.

Images of symbolic empty spaces?were posted online by Instagram account @bringthemhome23, which campaigns for the hostages’ release.

Some family members held an open-air banquet Wednesday to mark the holiday and call for the release of their loved ones.

About 100 people kidnapped by Hamas are believed to remain in Gaza, though it is unclear how many?are still alive.

Israeli’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 people in the Palestinian enclave and has sparked a?humanitarian catastrophe.

The conflict has widened in recent weeks, as Israel strikes Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and weighs up its response to an unprecedented Iranian missile attack that has brought the region to the precipice of all-out war.

Iran has reopened its airspace to commercial flights after ordering it closed on Tuesday evening following its ballistic missile attack on Israel.

The organization had announced late Tuesday that all flights nationwide would be canceled until Wednesday morning, which it later extended until Thursday morning.

A firefighter stands in front of an apartment hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 3, 2024.

Devastating Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon have given Israel the upper hand as it edges toward a direct confrontation with the militant group’s backers in Iran, a regional expert said on Thursday.

After killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and launching a ground incursion in southern Lebanon, Israel was likely to target Iran directly in response to Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack, said Paul Salem, vice president for international engagement at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Israel’s assassination of?Nasrallah and multiple heavy hits to Hezbollah over the past two weeks signaled a “tectonic shift” in regional power dynamics, he added.

“Before Israel decapitated Hezbollah and greatly degraded it, Israel used to worry about Hezbollah much more when it contemplated hitting Iran,” Salem said.

“Now, they feel Hezbollah?is not a major threat and now Israel is focused on going after Iran itself. And that tectonic shift is a shift in which Iran no longer has the balance of power or balance of deterrence between Iran and Israel.”

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed to have launched a drone attack on the Tel Aviv area overnight, according to a statement on Thursday.

The Iran-backed militant group claimed it struck a target in the Israeli city, without providing specific information.

Earlier, the Israeli military said it had identified two drones after warning sirens sounded in the coastal city of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv.

One drone was intercepted by the Israeli air force over the sea and the second fell in an open area, with no injuries reported, the military said.

On Wednesday night, a CNN team in Tel Aviv saw what appeared to be intercepts in the sky over the Mediterranean Sea.

The White House’s ability to control Israel’s military strategy is “quite limited,” a CNN security analyst told CNN, as US officials call for a de-escalation in Israel’s growing conflict with Iran, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Juliette Kayyem, a national security, intelligence and terrorism analyst, told CNN’s Lynda Kinkade it is difficult to predict Israel’s response at this stage, saying the United States’ influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military strategy had lessened since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.

The United States is Israel’s most important ally and biggest supplier of arms. But its “ability to control Israel in terms of its military strategy is showing itself to be quite limited,” Kayyem said.

Israel’s continuing attacks in Gaza show that concerns from the US on hindrances to? humanitarian aid have gone unheeded by Israeli authorities, she added.

Asked whether Israel would listen to US President Joe Biden’s message that Iranian nuclear sites should not be targeted, Kayyem noted that Israel has vowed to launch a “very public and forceful” response to Iran’s major missile attack and is “keeping its options open.”

A flight takes off from Beirut airport on October 2, 2024 in Beirut, Lebanon.

Several countries are ramping up efforts to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon and urging those remaining to leave amid the escalating situation as Israel wages a ground offensive in the south of the country.

While no country has launched a large-scale military evacuation yet, some governments have organized charter flights and others have helped secure seats on commercial flights out of Lebanon, with many looking to Cyprus and Turkey as transit points.

Here’s a look at what some countries have done:

Lev Kreitman is interviewed by CNN affilaite Kan News

An Israeli military reservist who survived the Nova festival massacre has been?hailed as a “hero”?by the country’s security minister for confronting two men behind Tuesday’s shooting and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv.

Seven people were killed and 16 wounded in the attack on Jerusalem Boulevard in Jaffa, a port neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv, according to Israeli Police.

Video posted online showed Lev Kreitman, who served six months as a reservist with the Israeli military in Gaza, firing a gun at an unknown target before running away. The footage was filmed from a nearby building in Jaffa and appears to show Kreitman wearing a pink shirt, white shorts and flip flops.

In another video, Kreitman was seen walking in the background among Israeli soldiers who were at the scene of the attack.

Speaking to CNN affiliate Channel 11, Kreitman said he had been carrying his personal handgun after his time with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Recalling Tuesday’s incident, he said he had spotted what he described as “two terrorists,” one moving toward him.

Police said Wednesday that two gunmen had begun their “killing spree” by opening fire on passengers aboard a light rail car that had stopped at a station in Jaffa. They had then continued their attack on foot on Jerusalem Boulevard, according to police.

Read the full story.

Lebanese citizen Ali Abdul Hassan arrives at Larnaca International Airport, as many people seek refuge abroad due to ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Larnaca, Cyprus, on October 2, 2024.

Thousands of people are fleeing Lebanon as Israel carries out its heaviest bombardment of the country since 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel’s military fought a devastating war.

On Wednesday, flights carrying Lebanese citizens escaping the Israeli airstrikes arrived in Cyprus after the Israeli military launched a?ground operation?into southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.

“It was terrible situation, really terrible situation,” Lebanese national Ali Abdul Hassan told Reuters news agency, after arriving in the capital Larnaca late on Wednesday night.

The 49-year-old said he fled Beirut after an airstrike hit his neighborhood near the capital and left his house seriously damaged. He said a building that was struck had been housing Lebanese families who had already fled southern Lebanon.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the country in recent weeks amid the latest conflict, including more than 100,000 people, mostly Lebanese and Syrians, who have fled across the border into Syria, according to the United Nations.

Smoke rises over rubble left after an Israeli strike in the suburbs of Beirtu on Wednesday, October 2.

Israel’s war cabinet is weighing its response after Iran launched its?largest-ever attack?on the country. Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN that retaliation “will be soon.”

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi warned that?Israel has the means to “strike?any target in the Middle East.”?

While Iran does not seek war, it will deliver a “stronger response” if Israel retaliates, said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

US President Joe Biden said Israel?“has a right to respond. It should be a proportional response.” While he said?he did not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites, he noted the US would discuss with the Israelis how they might respond to Iran’s missile attack.

Here are the latest developments in the region:

Israel’s war cabinet is weighing its options and “will not sit idly by” after Iran launched its?largest-ever attack on?the country, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

Iran launched a salvo of about 200 ballistic missiles at Israeli military targets, sending sirens blaring across Israel and activating the country’s sophisticated defense systems.

“I think they know that we have the capabilities to reach any destination in the Middle East and it’s up to us to decide how to do it and what to target.”

Asked whether Israel is heeding US President Joe Biden’s message that Iran’s nuclear site should not be targeted in?Israel’s looming response, Danon said: “It should be the responsibility of the US and other Western democracies to block Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities, otherwise it will be too late.”

Danon said Israel doesn’t want to see escalation or war but insisted it will retaliate against Iran’s large-scale rocket launches.

Supporters of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah carry his pictures as they gather in Sidon, Lebanon, following his killing in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 28, 2024.

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told CNN that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire just days before he was?assassinated by Israel.

The temporary ceasefire was called for by US President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and other allies during last week’s UN General Assembly.

“He [Nasrallah] agreed, he agreed,” Habib told Christiane Amanpour in an interview aired on Wednesday.

White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein was then set to go to Lebanon to negotiate the ceasefire, Habib continued.

“They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that and you know what happened since then,” Habib continued.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut.

A day earlier, a joint statement issued by the United States, France, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar?called for a 21-day ceasefire, “to give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations across the border.”

In response to a question on the United States’ diminishing influence in the region, Habib said Washington was “always important in this regard.”

“I don’t think we have an alternative. We need the United States’ help. Whether we get it or not, we’re not sure yet, but [the] United States is very important, vital for the ceasefire to happen,” said Habib.

Lebanon is appealing for hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to address an internal refugee crisis sparked by Israeli military strikes on?the country.

The country, gripped by an economic crisis since 2019,?says it urgently needs $427 million for United Nations-backed shelter and relief efforts over the next three months after Israeli airstrikes forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting?Wednesday, Information Minister Ziad Makary said Lebanese officials had discussed a response to the crisis with UN organizations and ambassadors from donor countries.

“All aid will pass through a transparent mechanism via the United Nations, with implementation coordinated with the Lebanese state,”?Makary said, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).

An estimated 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced in recent weeks, thousands of them sheltering in the capital Beirut, including in schools on the edges of the city’s southern suburbs.

An Israeli airstrike on central Beirut hit a building that housed the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Authority, a resident of the neighborhood told CNN.

The authority had an office on one floor of the building which was hit during a wave of strikes on the Lebanese capital in the early hours of Thursday morning local time.

A CNN team heard a loud bang followed by a plume of smoke rising from the Bashoura area in Beirut. Video showed families leaving the neighborhood amid the wreckage left behind by the attack. The residential area that was hit is known to be dominated by Hezbollah’s Shia allies, Amal.

It was the first time Israel struck the heart of the capital since the last all-out war between the two countries in 2006.

The death toll from the strike in central Beirut rose to six people when “three of the wounded died from their serious injuries,” the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said all?seven of the wounded are?still being treated in the hospitals where?they transferred to. The ministry initially reported at least?two?people were?killed?and 11 were wounded.

A CNN team in Beirut heard loud explosions and saw smoke rising above central Beirut just after midnight local time on Thursday.

A frame from a CNN video shows a pssible interception over Tel Aviv.

A CNN team in Tel Aviv saw what appeared to be intercepts in the sky over the sea.

The Israeli military confirmed it intercepted an aerial target over central Israel.

A central Beirut neighborhood was hit in a strike in the early hours of Thursday local time, CNN confirmed through geolocating the area.

CNN has verified imagery showing the impact of the strike that hit the Lebanese capital.

In response to the strike in the southern suburbs, the Israeli military said it conducted a precise strike in Beirut. When asked about the strike in central Beirut, the military referred CNN to its previous statement.

The strike hit Beirut’s Bashoura?neighborhood, near the city’s downtown.

Watch video of the moment the strike hit Beirut’s Bashoura?neighborhood:

- Source: CNN " data-fave-thumbnails="{"big": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/videothumbnails/11057603-39581969-generated-thumbnail.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" }, "small": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/videothumbnails/11057603-39581969-generated-thumbnail.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" } }" data-vr-video="false" data-show-html="" data-byline-html="

By Sarah Jorgensen, CNN

" data-timestamp-html="

Updated 12:23 AM EDT, Fri October 4, 2024

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See moment strike hits Beirut’s Bachoura?neighborhood

00:06 - Source: CNN

Important context:?Israeli strikes in central Beirut are rare. The Thursday morning attack is the first Israeli strike to hit the heart of the capital since the last all-out war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006. Even then, Israel rarely targeted the city center. This is the second strike since 2006 to hit within Beirut city limits, with the first being near Cola intersection early Monday morning local time.

Just before the strike on central Beirut, a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs — a?Hezbollah stronghold — destroyed a multi-story building in the residential Haret Hreik neighborhood, images geolocated by CNN appear to show.