Iran will attack Israel again if necessary, supreme leader says in rare speech

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

Hezbollah has said it repelled an Israeli incursion near the town of Adaisseh in southern Lebanon with clashes following a second?ongoing, according to two statements on Saturday

The militant group said Israeli infantry first attempted to advance toward the town at 11:00 p.m. on Friday.

The second statement said Israeli soldiers had advanced again toward Adaisseh at 1:50 a.m. on Saturday.

The statement said its fighters “confronted the attempt to advance, and clashes are ongoing.”

CNN has contacted the Israeli military for comment on the reported confrontations.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday that two of its soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed in “northern Israel” in a drone attack that came from the east.

The IDF didn’t specify who it suspects of carrying out the attack but it happened on Wednesday, the same day the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of several Iran-backed militias, said it conducted drone attacks on three targets in what it called ?“separate operations north of our occupied territories.”

Hamas praised the group for their support of Palestinian people, saying the Iraqi Islamic Resistance’s drone operation targeted Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the northeast, “resulting in deaths and injuries.”

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq also said it conducted three other drone attacks on Friday in the Golan Heights and Tiberias.

The Golan Heights is a strategic plateau that Israel seized from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967, before formally annexing it in 1981. It remains under Israeli government control and is considered to be occupied territory by much of the international community.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced nearly $157 million in US humanitarian assistance Friday to “support populations affected by conflict in Lebanon and the region,” as the country continues to voice support for the “limited” Israeli military campaign in Lebanon that has triggered mass displacement.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the country in recent weeks as Israel has ratcheted up its military campaign against Hezbollah, including more than 100,000 people, mostly Lebanese and Syrians, who have fled across the border into Syria, according to the United Nations.

US officials say they support Israel’s military campaign, but note they have concerns about the humanitarian impact.

“We?do think it’s appropriate that Israel, at this point, is bringing terrorists to justice and trying to push – trying – and launching these limited?incursions, what at least at this point are limited?incursions, trying to push Hezbollah back from the border,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Thursday.

“Ultimately our goal is a diplomatic resolution,” he said.

Peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol near the Blue Line in Kafarkila, Lebanon, on August 16.

The United Nations refused a request from Israel to move some its peacekeepers near the Lebanese border just days before Israel began its ground operation earlier this week.

United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL), the UN’s peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, received a request from the Israeli military to “vacate” several positions near the Blue Line — the demarcation zone between Israel and Lebanon that has been the center of intense fighting in recent months, according to Jean-Pierre Lacroix, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations.

The UN already anticipated the prospect of Israel carrying out “targeted ground operations” in Lebanon and decided to stay put in such an instance, Lacroix told a briefing Thursday.

Some context: UN peacekeepers have been stationed along the roughly 120 kilometer Blue Line since it was drawn up by the UN in 2000 to ensure Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon. UN peacekeepers were drawn from armies of several nations to monitor the situation along the Blue Line which separates the two states.

Israel has not given assurances to the Biden administration that targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities is off the table in retaliation to the Iranian ballistic missile strikes earlier this week, a top US State Department official told CNN on Friday.

The official added that it is “really hard to tell” if Israel will use the anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attacks to retaliate.

Earlier this week, President Joe Biden said the US would not support Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

US officials also do not yet have clarity as to when Israel’s response will be decided upon, or enacted.

Asked whether Israel would use the one year anniversary of the Hamas attack to retaliate against Iran, the official said?“it is really hard to tell.”

The US has been working for almost a year to prevent the conflict from turning into a bigger war — and has so far done so, the official said. Right now,?“this is on the edge,” the official added.

A man looks at smoke billowing from building rubble at the site of overnight Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday.

Israel has continued its extensive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, where CNN teams heard blasts in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday.

Data from a conflict monitoring group?shows that Israel, which is at war with the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, is carrying out the “most intense aerial campaign” outside of Gaza in the last two decades.

To put it into context: Over the course of two days, on September 24 and September 25, the Israel military said it used 2,000 munitions and carried out 3,000 strikes. In comparison, for most of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, the US carried out less than 3,000 strikes a year, barring the first year of the invasion, according to data from Airwars analyzed by CNN.

Here’s what else has happened so far Friday:

Israeli airstrike on Lebanon-Syria border: The strike, an official said, destroyed the road leading to the Masnaa crossing with Syria, a major transport link that tens of thousands of people have used to flee the escalation of hostilities. Israel also struck the Masnaa crossing area in its last all-out war with Hezbollah?in 2006. The Israel Defense Forces said it had struck a tunnel used for smuggling weapons into Lebanon, but the country’s economic minister said most weapon smuggling takes place through “illegal channels, illegal roads” and not the main crossing. Taking out the only land border entry point into Syria has left Lebanon more isolated, adding “another layer of desperation” for those fleeing and seeking shelter, Amin Salam told CNN’s Isa Soares.

Meanwhile in Iran: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led a rare commemoration service for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as part of Friday prayers in Tehran. Khamenei said Iran will strike Israel further if necessary, after launching its?largest-ever attack?on its regional adversary Tuesday. Thousands of people gathered at Tehran’s Grand Mosque for the prayer service, according to the broadcast from state media outlet IRIB.

No public funeral yet for Nasrallah: A source close to Hezbollah told CNN “nothing has been decided” about the time and place of Nasrallah’s burial, as Israel’s intensive bombing campaign has battered many Shia-majority neighborhoods and towns in Lebanon, leaving no conceivably safe place to hold it.

Hezbollah attack: Israeli police reported heavy damage in northern Israel following a?Hezbollah rocket barrage?on Friday. Several fires broke out but no injuries were reported. Hezbollah said it had targeted the city of Kiryat Shmona and surrounding areas with a rocket barrage “in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli assaults on cities, villages, and civilians.”

Israel tells more Lebanese residents to evacuate: Residents of more than 30 villages in southern Lebanon were asked to leave their homes and move north on Friday. Some of the villages listed in the new order had been included in previous Israeli warnings. The IDF would notify residents when it was safe to return to their homes, Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X. About 1 million?displaced?people in Lebanon have sought shelter from the fighting.

More Hezbollah members killed: The IDF said it killed the head of Hezbollah’s communication unit in strikes on southern Beirut on Thursday afternoon local time. Hezbollah has not yet made any announcements about casualties. The IDF says it has killed “approximately 250” Hezbollah militants since launching its ground offensive in southern Lebanon earlier this week.

Health care “under attack”: Dozens of medical workers were killed over a 24-hour period of Israeli bombardment in Lebanon, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday. At least 37 health facilities have closed in southern Lebanon and several Beirut hospitals have evacuated staff and patients, with health and humanitarian workers struggling to provide care?with limited supplies. “Health care continues to come under attack,” he said at a briefing in Geneva.

The Israeli military said it killed at least seven militants, including a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative, in Thursday’s strike on the West Bank’s Tulkarem area, using at least one fighter jet.

Israel described Ghaith Radwan as “a key operative” in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad operation in Tulkarem. The group’s military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, confirmed Radwan’s death, calling him one of the leaders of the Tulkarem Battalion in the occupied West Bank.

The strike killed other Islamic Jihad members as well as operatives of Hamas, the Israeli military said, alleging the militants were gathering to carry out a terror attack against Israel in the “immediate future.”

Hamas confirmed on Friday that one of its commanders, Zahi Yaser Oufi, was among eight members killed in the attack. Israel said Oufi was the leader of Hamas’ network in the Tulkarem area.

At least 18 people were killed in the strike, the Palestinian health ministry said Thursday.

Germany, an ally of Israel, said the high number of civilian victims is shocking.

“In the fight against terror, the Israeli army is committed to the protection of civilians in the West Bank. Palestinians, like the Israelis, have the right to a life of safety,” the German Foreign Office posted to X on Friday.

Earlier this week, CNN asked followers on social media if they had questions?about the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

From your responses, we picked some of the most-asked topics and put the key question to CNN’s diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson.

After Iran’s attack on Israel earlier this week, some followers asked how the situation in the region could escalate and what Israel might do next.

Watch Robertson’s answers to your questions:

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Updated 6:29 PM EDT, Sat October 5, 2024

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CNN's Nic Robertson answers your questions on the conflict in the Middle East

04:23 - Source: CNN

Alaa says he and his family walked for four days to reach Sidon.

What Alaa’s family needs more than anything are toilets.

“Our women hold it in until the night and then go relieve themselves behind the cars for privacy,” Alaa says. “It’s a matter of dignity. We care about our dignity, just like you.”

His is one of dozens of Syrian families camped out in a parking lot in the heart of Sidon, southern Lebanon’s largest city.?Due to widespread discrimination against migrant workers and refugees, they are cut off from the dwindling resources of a city already struggling to house thousands of people fleeing the Israeli bombardment further south.

The nearby mosque prevents them from using its toilets, and they are barred from entering the schools-turned-shelters dedicated to displaced Lebanese.?They are constantly harassed by citizens and city officials, Alaa says.

This parking lot in Sidon has turned into a makeshift camp for Syrian IDPs buzzing with children.

After delivering an angry tirade, Alaa sits on the pavement next to his family. A couple of blankets hanging between two poles grants them a bit of privacy. Around them, families rest on straw mats and mattresses recently provided by the United Nations refugee agency.

The people here constantly move their children and belongings to wherever the surrounding tin roofs might cast some shade from the punishing sun. It looks like an encampment in a state of flux.

Many families have approached CNN journalists thinking we are representatives of an aid agency, asking to be registered so they can receive food and medication for their children and elderly.

“Some NGOs donate a meal every now and then, but we mainly rely on the money we have to buy food for everyone,” says Ibrahim, a Syrian agricultural worker.

A still from a social media video geolocated by CNN shows billowing grey smoke in northern Hodeidah, a Houthi-controlled port city in western Yemen, on Friday. The footage was captured from a vantage point along the Red Sea.

The US military said Friday that it carried out strikes on 15 targets belonging to the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The attack, which included strikes targeting the group’s military capabilities, was carried out to “protect freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea following weeks of Houthi attacks on ships bound for Israel, the US said.

The Iran-backed Houthis accused the US and UK of carrying out airstrikes in four cities across Yemen on Friday. Seven of those strikes targeted the Hodeidah Airport and the Katheeb area in Hodeidah, the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported.

The British defense ministry said the UK was not involved in strikes on Yemen today, and Israel’s military said it isn’t aware of the strikes.

Footage geolocated by CNN shows billowing grey smoke in northern Hodeidah, a Houthi-controlled port city in western Yemen. The video was captured from a vantage point along the Red Sea.

How the Houthis fit in to the region’s conflicts: The Houthis, like Hezbollah and Hamas, are?among the Iranian proxy groups?aligned against Israel.

Clashes with the Iran-backed groups have intensified since Hamas’ October 7 attacks and the ensuing Israeli military offensive in Gaza, with the Houthis saying their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea are made in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Israel’s escalating war with Hezbollah has only deepened?fears of a wider regional war?involving Iran and the various militant groups.

The Israeli military urged medical teams in Lebanon to avoid cooperating with Hezbollah, warning that it would take “appropriate measures” if their rescue vehicles are used by the militant group.

The Israel Defense Forces has accused Hezbollah of “exploiting” such rescue vehicles to transport what it described as terrorists and weapons.

“Any vehicle proven to be used by an armed terrorist for terrorist purposes, regardless of its type, will be subject to appropriate measures to prevent its military use,” IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah gives a televised address in Lebanon on September 19.

Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last Friday has driven the Iran-backed group even deeper underground.?A successor has not yet been named. And perhaps most unusually, a funeral — at least a public one — has not yet been held.

Why this matters: According to Islamic norms, the dead must be laid to rest at the soonest opportunity, normally within 24 hours. That is especially true for Muslims slain by an enemy state. Questions swirled and reports emerged on Friday morning that the late leader had been buried in secret. But a source close to Hezbollah told CNN this was not true. “Nothing has been decided,” the source said, about the time and place of the burial.

Coupled with the lack of a clear successor, this has shrouded the group in more secrecy. For a week, Hezbollah’s public statements have been cursory at best. This strikes a sharp contrast with the Iran-backed Shia group’s practice of shoring up community support with public gatherings, and Nasrallah’s long and rousing speeches.

More background: On Friday, Iran’s Supreme Leader?Ayatollah Ali Khamenei commemorated Nasrallah in Friday prayers, which, in a rare move, he led. Yet there was no public gathering to mark this in Lebanon.

There are security reasons for that, as well as for the lack of a public funeral. Israel’s intensive bombing campaign has battered many Shia-majority neighborhoods and towns, so there is no conceivably safe place to hold it.

Israel’s airstrikes have decimated its command and control and have also killed a large number of civilians, according to the Ministry of Health, and displaced over a million. More than 100 children have been killed in Israeli strikes in the last 11 days alone, according to UNICEF.

Still, this all underscores the fact that this is a very different war. During the last all-out war with Israel in 2006, Nasrallah gave televised speeches nearly?every day. The leadership is operating more clandestinely than ever before, after having been confronted?by the most extensive Israeli infiltration of its ranks in its history.

Lebanon’s Minister of Economy and Trade said most weapon smuggling does not take place through the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, which Israel struck on Thursday.

The Israel Defense Forces said it hit an “underground tunnel crossing” at that location to prevent weapons from being smuggled into Lebanon. Amin Salam told CNN’s Isa Soares on Friday that Lebanon intends to inspect the site after the rubble is cleared but that most smuggling takes place through illegal channels rather than the official entry point at Masnaa.

The Masnaa border crossing lies in the Bekaa Valley on the Beirut-Damascus international highway, a major transport link for people and goods between Lebanon and Syria. Tens of thousands of people have used the highway to flee Israeli bombardment in recent days.

Salam said that taking out the crossing — the only land border entry point into Syria — has left Lebanon more isolated. It will make moving goods and people between the two countries more difficult, he said.

“It only adds another layer of desperation for people that are moving or running away, seeking shelter from Lebanon to Syria,” Salam said.

Smoke billows from an Israeli airstrike in Khiam, Lebanon, on October 3.

Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon is heavier than the height of the United States’ fight against ISIS, data from a conflict monitoring group shows.

Israel has pummeled Lebanon with an unprecedented airstrike campaign in less than three weeks, killing more than 1,400 people, injuring nearly 7,500?others and?displacing more than one million people?from their homes, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

To put that into context, over the course of two days, on September 24 and September 25, the Israel military said it used 2,000 munitions and carried out 3,000 strikes.

In comparison, for most of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, the US carried out less than 3,000 strikes a year, barring the first year of the invasion, where around 6,500 strikes were carried out, according to data from Airwars analyzed by CNN.

Israel’s bombardment, which Israel says is targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the country, marks the world’s “most intense aerial campaign” outside of Gaza in the last two decades, Airwars said.

The majority of the fire exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of the war has come from Israeli strikes, drones, shelling and missiles on Lebanese territory, according to data from ACLED?(Armed Conflict Location and Event Data), an organization that collects data on violent conflict.

Israel has launched nearly 9,000 attacks into Lebanon since October 8 and Hezbollah launched 1,500 attacks in that same time frame, according to the ACLED data.

Ali Fadavi, Deputy Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), delivers a speech in the Iranian capital Tehran in 2019.

Israel’s power plants and gas refineries could be hit in response to an attack on Iran, the deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said, according to local media.

Fadavi said Iran will target all energy sites if Israel makes “a mistake.”

Remember: Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles on Israeli cities Tuesday in response to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last week. The strikes caused minimal damage.

In Beirut, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi also warned of a “harsh response” if Israel attacks, saying so far his country had only attacked Israeli security and military sites.

His comments echoed an earlier statement from the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said earlier today that Tuesday’s Iranian attack on Israel was the “least punishment” and that Iran will attack Israel again “if needs be.”

Araghchi was speaking to reporters in the Lebanese capital of Beirut after meeting Lebanese parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri — a Hezbollah ally and a key figure in negotiations for a ceasefire with Israel.

One of Lebanon’s southernmost hospitals went out of service Friday after Israeli strikes hit close to the facility,?the hospital’s director, Dr. Mones Kalakish, told CNN.

The strike killed seven people outside the entrance of the Marjayoun Governmental?Hospital, according to Kalakish.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment.

Medical workers in dire conditions: Thirty-seven heath facilities have closed in southern Lebanon since the start of Israel’s current bombardment campaign nearly two weeks ago, according to the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. On Thursday, 28 health workers were killed by Israeli strikes, Ghebreyesus said.

Israeli forces have rained down bombs on the country’s southernmost territory in recent days as they prepare for potentially further ground operations in Lebanon.?Tens of thousands of people have fled the area out of fear for their safety.

Residents run for cover following an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday.

Israel’s military says it has killed “approximately 250” Hezbollah militants since launching a ground offensive in southern Lebanon earlier this week.

About 100 of the Iran-backed group’s fighters have been killed in the last 24 hours, the Israel Defense Forces said in a briefing Friday.

Israel has described its operations in southern Lebanon as “limited, localized and targeted.”

In response to a CNN question about the disparity between such statements and the large number of southern Lebanese villages being asked the evacuate, Shoshani said, “Sadly, Hezbollah has embedded widely and deeply into Lebanon.”

Another US organized flight departed from Lebanon on Thursday and arrived in Germany on Friday morning local time, according to a State Department spokesperson.

The flight was only about a third full. According to the spokesperson, it had the capacity to carry 300 passengers, but departed with just 97 passengers onboard.

Two other government organized flights have left from Beirut. Those carriers went to Istanbul.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Thursday that the agency is “going to continue to organize those flights as long as the security situation is challenging, as long as there aren’t sufficient commercial options available, and as long as there’s demand.”

Hashem Safieddine, center, attends the funeral ceremony of Hezbollah military commander Mohamed Naim Nasser in Beirut, in July.

The fate of a possible successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is unclear following an?Israeli?airstrike on Beirut.

An Israeli official?told CNN?that Hashem?Safieddine was the target of the strike, but it is unclear if he was killed.

Safieddine is a maternal cousin of Nasrallah – the two studied in Iran together in the early 1980s. Just like Nasrallah, Safieddine is a staunch critic of Israel and the West, with deep alliances with the Iranian leadership.

Safieddine served as head of Hezbollah’s executive council and, until his predecessor’s?death, was seen as one of the most likely heirs?to the organization’s highest-ranking seat. The group has yet to name a successor to Nasrallah.

Read more about Hashem Safieddine.

Oil producing Gulf Arab states are likely concerned about implications of an Israeli retaliation against Iran, especially if Israel targets Iran’s oil installations, a regional expert told CNN.

Such an attack would cause significant economic damage, threaten other oil facilities in the region, and create an ecological disaster, with oil potentially spilling into the Persian Gulf from damaged Iranian pipelines, said Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow for Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Concern of a wider war that could involve the targeting of the region’s oil facilities has already sparked a jolt in oil prices.

Iran has signaled in the past that if it can’t sell its oil, then no one else in the region can either, Alhasan said, raising questions about the safety of Gulf Arab oil installations if Iran’s are hit by Israel.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met with Gulf Arab ministers in Qatar’s capital Doha on Thursday.

“Our neighbors are our priority,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X. “#StrongRegion our goal—#Dialogue is a must,” he said.

A UAE official told CNN that regional discussions are focused on “the necessity of concerted regional and international efforts to halt the escalation and prevent further loss of life.”

Pezeshkian said he told the Qatari ruler in Doha that the “troubles” brought upon the region by Israel are “due to the existence of differences and factions among us,” according to the state news agency IRNA.

CNN teams heard blasts in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Smoke was seen rising from the area.

Israel has been striking the neighborhood for over a week.

Israel’s military says it struck an “underground tunnel crossing” on the Lebanese-Syrian border on Thursday to “prevent weapons from being smuggled into Lebanese territories”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the tunnel’s operations were led by “the 4400 Unit, the unit responsible for the transportation of weapons from Iran and its proxies to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

“Additionally, infrastructure sites adjacent to the Masnaa border crossing between Syria and Lebanon were struck last night,” the IDF added in its statement on Friday.

An Israeli airstrike near the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing halted traffic in both directions, a Lebanese official said on Friday.

The strike, late on Thursday, destroyed the road leading to the Masnaa crossing with Syria, Public Works Minister Ali Hamie told CNN, adding the checkpoint “has been cut off.”

The Masnaa border crossing lies in the Beqaa valley on the Beirut-Damascus international highway, a major transport link for people and goods between the two countries.

The highway has been used by tens of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardment in recent days.

Gazans have described their panic as an Israeli airstrike hit a UNRWA school in the besieged enclave’s central Nuseirat camp.

The grandmother of a baby injured in the attack told CNN: “Suddenly a rocket hit and everyone was gone.

Another grandmother was seen cradling the body of her 11-month-old granddaughter, who was killed while sheltering in a school.

Several schools turned into makeshift shelters were hit by Israeli airstrikes this week. Israel claims Hamas uses schools as command and control center and civilians as human shields, a tactic Hamas has denied.

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Updated 6:29 PM EDT, Sat October 5, 2024

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'A rocket hit and everyone was gone': Gazans grieve their children after strike on UN school

02:20 - Source: CNN

CNN’s Mohammad Al Sawalhi and Abeer Salman contributed reporting to this post.

Israel’s military said it killed the head of Hezbollah’s communication unit in strikes on southern Beirut Thursday afternoon local time.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, said Mohammad Rashid Skaafi had been leading the group’s communications since 2000.

Hezbollah has not yet made any announcements about casualties following Thursday’s Israeli strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Some background: Israel’s barrage of strikes across Lebanon on Thursday killed at least?37 people and wounded 151, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israeli military said Thursday it had hit Hezbollah’s?intelligence headquarters?in Beirut.

The IDF has pledged to?continue to strike?Hezbollah targets in Beirut, the Bekaa valley and southern Lebanon.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left, meets with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 4.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Friday for meetings with government officials, a week after the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Araghchi?met Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and expressed Iran’s commitment to Lebanon and “its support in the face of Israeli aggression,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Iran’s top diplomat said his country “will launch a diplomatic campaign to support Lebanon and request a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.”

It is unclear if Araghchi will meet Hezbollah officials during his visit.

Remember: Nasrallah was assassinated in Beirut by Israel last Friday. His killing marked a major escalation in the?long-running Israel-Gaza conflict and deepens?fears of a wider regional war.

The UAE believes that sectarian militias in the Middle East have cost the Arab world and hopes the future of the region is an Arab project that is “reconciled with its surroundings,” a top official said.

“The era of militias with its sectarian and regional dimensions has cost the Arabs dearly and burdened the region,” he added, in an apparent reference to Iran-backed Shiite militias in the region.

He also said that the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict “remains the cornerstone to stop the series of recurring crises.”

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, second right, Judiciary Chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei, right, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, second left, and President Masoud Pezeshkian read the Quran in a ceremony commemorating slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in Tehran on Friday.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Tuesday’s Iranian attack on Israel was the “least punishment.”

Iran will attack Israel again “if needs be,” he said in a Friday speech in Tehran.

Keeping with Iranian Friday prayer traditions, he delivered his speech with what appeared to be the barrel of a rifle next to him.

Khamenei dedicated a large part of his speech to Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel in Beirut last Friday.

He also praised Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and described it as “legitimate.”

The second part of his sermon was delivered in Arabic, to appeal to Lebanese and Palestinian audiences, he said.?“Israel will never defeat Hamas and Hezbollah,” Khamenei said.

Remember: Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel on Tuesday in what it said was a response to the?killing of Hezbollah leader?Hassan?Nasrallah?and others.

In late September, as Israel’s nearly year-long war widened and its credit rating was downgraded yet again, the country’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said that, while Israel’s economy was under strain, it was resilient.

“Israel’s economy bears the burden of the longest and most expensive war in the country’s history,” Smotrich said on September 28, a day after Israeli airstrikes killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, ratcheting fears that tensions with the militant group would turn into a full-blown conflict.

“The Israeli economy is a strong economy that even today attracts investments.”

Almost a year after Hamas’ deadly attack on October 7, Israel is pushing forward on multiple fronts: launching a ground incursion against Hezbollah in Lebanon, carrying out airstrikes in Gaza and?Beirut, and threatening retaliation for Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this week.

As the conflict?spills over into the wider region, the economic costs will spiral too, both for Israel and other countries in the Middle East.

Read the full analysis.

Israeli police reported heavy damage in northern Israel following a Hezbollah rocket barrage on Friday.

Earlier on Friday, the Israeli military said nearly two dozen projectiles were identified crossing into Israeli territory from Lebanon.

Police officials said they had received reports about several areas impacted by rocket fire across Kiryat Shmona and the Lower Galilee, with heavy damage reported.

Fire and rescue teams attend to a fire in Kiryat Shmona

Several fires broke out but no injuries were reported.

Police officers and bomb disposal teams were at the scenes of the strikes.

Firefighting teams were working to extinguish a fire that broke out after a direct hit on a garage in Kiryat Shmona, according to a statement from the Fire and Rescue Services.

The strikes followed warning sirens in Kiryat Shmona and nearby communities.

Hezbollah said it had targeted Kiryat Shmona with a rocket barrage “in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli assaults on cities, villages, and civilians.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader?Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?leads Friday prayers on October 4.

Iran’s Supreme Leader?Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?is leading a rare Friday prayer sermon in Tehran?to commemorate the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The last time Khamenei led Friday prayers was nearly five years ago to commemorate the death of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was killed by the US in an airstrike at Baghdad International Airport.

On Tuesday, Khamenei ordered a missile attack on Israel, partly in response to Nasrallah’s killing in an Israeli airstrike last Friday.

Thousands of people?gathered at Tehran’s Grand Mosque for the sermon. A large poster of Nasrallah stood among the worshippers with crowds waving?Lebanese and Palestinian flags. State television showed women and men chanting, with some people waving Hezbollah flags and holding posters of both Nasrallah and Soleimani.

The Lebanese army said its personnel responded after one of its soldiers was killed by an Israeli attack on a military facility in southern Lebanon on Thursday.

The soldier was killed “as a result of the Israeli enemy targeting an army center in the Bint Jbeil area - South, and the post personnel responded to the sources of fire,” the Lebanese Armed Forces said Friday.

CNN has contacted the Israeli military for comment.

Another Lebanese soldier was killed in a separate incident Thursday while carrying out a rescue and evacuation mission with the country’s Red Cross, according to the army.

Thousands of people have gathered at Tehran’s Grand Mosque ahead of a Friday prayer service due to be led by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to visuals broadcast by state media outlet IRIB.

Khamenei is also expected to lead a commemoration service for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last Friday.

Ahead of the service, a number of speakers recited prayers and poetry, with some describing Nasrallah’s death as martyrdom, an act?deemed holy in Islam.

Several Lebanese and Palestinian flags could be seen in the crowd.

Khamenei last led Friday prayers in January 2020 after Iran fired missiles at a US army base in Iraq in response to the US assassination of Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani.

Smoke billows after an Israeli Air Force air strike on a village in southern Lebanon, on October 4.

Israel’s military ordered residents of more than 30 villages in southern Lebanon to leave their homes and move north on Friday as it battles Hezbollah fighters in a cross-border ground incursion.

Some of the villages listed in the new order had been included in previous Israeli warnings to move north.

“For your safety, evacuate your homes immediately and move to the north of the Al-Awali River. Save your lives,” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X.

The Israeli military would notify residents when it was safe to return to their homes, Adraee added.

About 1 million?displaced?people in Lebanon have sought shelter from the fighting.

Nearly half of the people in Lebanon’s emergency shelters for displaced people are children, and the facilities are operating beyond capacity, Michael Adams, the Lebanon country director at humanitarian agency CARE International, told CNN on Thursday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attends a meeting in New York, United States on September 27.

Iran’s foreign minister has arrived in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency.

The visit comes at a time of spiraling regional tensions, with Israel launching sustained attacks in Lebanon over the past week and a recent Iranian missile strike on military targets in Israel.

Iron Dome intercepts rocket attack on Israel’s Haifa on Friday morning.

The Israeli military said nearly two dozen projectiles were identified crossing into Israeli territory from Lebanon after sirens sounded in the northern city of Haifa and the Galilee region.

Reuters video showed rockets being intercepted by Israel’s defense systems over the Haifa skyline around sunrise Friday morning.

The Israel Defense Forces said about 20 projectiles were identified after sirens sounded between 7:01 a.m. and 7:04 a.m. local time in the Haifa Bay and Western Galilee areas. Most were intercepted and “the rest fell in open areas,” it said.

Israel Police said some interception shrapnel fell in the area, mostly in Kiryat Yam, just north of Haifa. Property was damaged, but no injuries reported.

“Multiple projectiles” were also identified crossing from Lebanon after sirens sounded at 7:23 a.m. local time in the Upper Galilee area, the military said.

“Some of the projectiles were successfully intercepted and the rest fell in open areas,” it said.

The extent of the impact is unclear.

An Israeli airstrike near the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing has halted traffic in both directions, a Lebanese official said.

The strike destroyed the road leading to the Masnaa crossing with Syria, Public Works Minister Ali Hamie told CNN on Friday, adding the checkpoint “has been cut off.”

CNN has contacted the Israeli military for comment on the strike.

The Masnaa border crossing lies in the Beqaa valley on the Beirut-Damascus international highway, a major transport link for people and goods between the two countries. The highway has been used by tens of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardment in recent days.

On Thursday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said?about 160,000 people had crossed the border from Lebanon to Syria since the escalation of hostilities.

Israel struck the Masnaa crossing area in its last all-out war with Hezbollah?in 2006.

This screen grab obtained from a social media video released on October 3, shows Yazidi woman Fawzia Sido, who was kidnapped by Islamic State in Iraq and was freed from Gaza this week, meeting her relatives at an unknown location.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had rescued a 21-year-old Yazidi woman who had been held captive by Hamas in Gaza for more than a decade after being trafficked by ISIS, in a “complex operation” coordinated with the United States and other international actors.

The woman, Fawzia Amin Sido, told CNN that she was kidnapped by ISIS as a child in August 2014, when the group captured the city of Sinjar in northern Iraq. ISIS executed Yazidi?men and boys and committed acts of sexual violence and rape against women and girls,?among other crimes, as CNN has reported.

Sido said she was then trafficked to different locations across several countries over the next few years.

She told CNN that she stayed in Rafah in southern Gaza for a year, where life was “unbearable,” moving around frequently since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October 2023 until Tuesday, when she said an NGO rescued her.

“Hamas constantly harassed me due to my?Yazidi?background and contact with my family, even going so far as to format my phone during their investigations,” she said.

“Upon her entry into Israel, she continued to Jordan through the Allenby Bridge Crossing and from there- returned to her family in Iraq.”

The IDF said her captor was killed, “presumably during IDF strikes” in Gaza, allowing her to flee to a hideout.

Fawzia did not mention a strike when she spoke to CNN, saying only that she was rescued in Rafah by an NGO, which she couldn’t recall the name of. “From there, American officials took me and helped return me to Baghdad,” she said.

The United States and Iraq confirmed they had coordinated to help evacuate Sido out of Gaza.

“We were contacted by the Iraqi government, who was made aware of the fact that she escaped, that she was alive, and that she wanted to come home to her family, ” State spokesperson Matthew Miller said Thursday.

Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Sido was freed after more than four months of efforts from Iraqi government agencies working with American and Jordanian authorities.

An Israeli diplomat, David Saranga,?released a video of Sido reuniting with her family members. Saranga said her captor was “a Palestinian Hamas-ISIS member.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is expected to lead a commemoration service for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as part of Friday prayers in Tehran, according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency.

Nasrallah was killed a week ago in an Israeli strike on the militant group’s underground headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

A senior commander from Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Abbas Nilforoushan, was killed alongside Nasrallah and other Hezbollah commanders. His death will also be marked at Friday’s prayers.

Khamenei last led Friday prayers in January 2020 after Iran fired missiles at a US army base in Iraq, in response to a strike that killed revered Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani.

The ceremony is scheduled to begin on Friday morning local time (2.30 a.m. ET), at the Grand Mosque in Tehran.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivers his speech in Geneva on May 27.

Dozens of medical workers were killed over a 24-hour period in Lebanon, the head of the United Nations’ health agency said Thursday, as he outlined the “difficult and dangerous” conditions in parts of the country under Israeli bombardment.

World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 37 health facilities had closed in southern Lebanon and several Beirut hospitals had evacuated staff and patients, with health and humanitarian workers struggling to provide care?with limited supplies.

Many health workers were not reporting for duty after being displaced by ongoing Israeli strikes, “severely limiting the provision of mass trauma management and continuity of health services,” Tedros said.

A near-shutdown at Beirut’s airport had also prevented the WHO from delivering a large shipment of trauma and medical supplies to Lebanon on Friday, he added.

WHO’s representative in Lebanon, Abdunasir Abubakar, joined the briefing from Beirut and warned that much of the country’s health infrastructure was nearing its limit.

Though most hospitals were still functioning as they dealt with mass casualties, “the question is how long they can function if… the escalation continues,”?he said.

On Thursday, Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said 40 ambulance and firefighting staff had been killed in the previous three days.

Abiad said 97 paramedics and firefighters in the country had been killed by Israeli strikes since October 8 last year, as the death toll across the country during the same period climbed to 1,974, including 261 women and 127 children.

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

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 Israe, 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.

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 attempted 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.

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.

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.