October 16, 2024 news on the wars in the Middle East

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

Both US Air Force and Navy assets were involved in the multiple airstrikes on underground Houthi storage facilities, according to a US Central Command news release.

While CENTCOM said the battle damage assessment is ongoing, initial indications do not show civilian casualties, according to the release.

The facilities targeted housed “missiles, weapons components, and other munitions used to target military and civilian vessels” in the Middle East, the release read.

The US targeted five “hardened underground weapons storage locations” in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen in a series of strikes by B-2 stealth bombers, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday evening, Thursday morning local time.

“The employment of US Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate U.S. global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”

Austin said he authorized the strikes at the direction of President Joe Biden in order to “further degrade” the Houthis’ ability after more than a year of attacks by the Houthis on US and international vessels in the region. The facilities were holding “various weapons components” of weapons used to target vessels in the Middle East.

The risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is “very high,” the World Health Organization warned Wednesday, after a case of the deadly disease was detected in the country’s north.

Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO’s representative in Lebanon, said the organization has been concerned for months about the risk of cholera due to the “deteriorating water and sanitation situations” for refugees and in high-risk areas.

Lebanon suffered its first cholera outbreak in 30 years between 2022 and 2023, mainly in the north.

With the mass displacement of more than a million people caused by the Israel-Hezbollah war, Abubakar?highlighted concern, in particular, for communities in southern Lebanon and the Beirut area that have not built up cholera immunity for decades.

WHO Director-General Tedros?Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the country’s Ministry of Public Health activated emergency protocols to strengthen surveillance and contact tracing after detecting the case.

In August,?the ministry launched a cholera vaccination campaign targeting 350,000 people living in high-risk areas, but the campaign was “interrupted by the escalation in violence,” the WHO chief said.

Some background: Cholera, which spreads primarily through contaminated water and food, causes severe diarrhea and dehydration. People who live in areas with shortages of safe drinking water or inadequate sanitation are vulnerable to the disease, which can result from consuming bacteria-contaminated food or water.

Airstrikes were carried out targeting Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa and the city of Saada early on Thursday, Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported, according to Reuters.

CNN reported earlier that the US carried out?a round of?strikes in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthis, according to three US defense officials, targeting weapons storage facilities, including underground facilities.

The strikes were carried out by B-2 Spirit bombers, according to one of the officials, marking the first time the US has used the strategic stealth bomber to attack the Houthis in Yemen since the beginning of the US campaign.

The US carried out?strikes in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthis on Thursday, according to three US defense officials, targeting weapons storage facilities, including underground facilities.

The facilities housed advanced conventional weapons used to target military and civilian vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the officials said.

The strikes were carried out by B-2 Spirit bombers, according to one of the officials, marking the first time the US has used the strategic stealth bomber to attack the Houthis in Yemen since the beginning of the US campaign. The B-2 is a much larger platform than the fighter jets that have been used so far to target Houthi facilities and weapons, capable of carrying a far heavier load of bombs.

The attack?on the Iran-backed proxy group?comes at a time of huge tension in the region. Israel is expected to retaliate to Iran’s?recent missile barrage?before the November 5 US election?and its wars with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza are ongoing.

The strike is the latest in a series of back-and-forth attacks by the Houthis and the US, as the Houthis have carried out regular attacks on commercial shipping and military assets in the region for months.

It also comes as US service members have begun arriving in Israel after the US announced the deployment of?an advanced anti-missile system?to help protect Israel following Iran’s missile barrage.

Read the full story.

Israeli forces fired at a United Nations peacekeeping position in the village of?Kfar Kela?in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, damaging a watchtower, according to the United Nations.

In a statement on X, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers “observed an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Merkava tank firing at their watchtower. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged.”

It came as Israel’s foreign minister said the country has “no intention” of harming the United Nations’?peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon. He accused Hezbollah of using UNIFIL personnel as human shields, “deliberately firing at IDF soldiers from locations near UNIFIL positions in order to create friction.”

The UN has said the Israeli military has fired on its peacekeepers multiple times, forcibly entered a base, stopped a critical logistical movement, and injured more than a dozen of its troops in southern Lebanon in recent weeks.

“We remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN premises?at?all?times,” the UNIFIL statement read.

This US military file photo shows a US Army Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) launching station in Israel on March 4, 2019.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke Wednesday about Israel’s operations in Lebanon and the deployment of a US-supplied THAAD battery to Israel.

“Secretary Austin and Minister Gallant discussed the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel,” Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.

Austin also “encouraged the Government of Israel to continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation, noting the recent action by Israel to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance entering Gaza,” Ryder’s statement read..

The call comes a day after it was reported Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts over the weekend, suggesting US military aid to Israel could be jeopardized if Israel did not work to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Remember: The THAAD defense system is one of the US military’s most powerful anti-missile weapons, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles at ranges of 150 to 200 kilometers?(93 to 124 miles) and with a?near-perfect?success rate in testing. It is the only US missile defense system that can engage and destroy short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles both inside or outside the atmosphere during their terminal phase of flight — or dive on their target.

Approximately 400,000 children are among the 1.2 million people displaced as a result of the conflict in Lebanon, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said in a?statement on Wednesday.

The UNICEF official pointed to the toll the strikes in Lebanon have taken on children so far, with 100 killed and more than 800 injured in the past three weeks — and pointed out the challenges that lay ahead, as temperatures drop.

“Winter is coming, it is getting cold here, it will get cold in Beirut soon enough and we need to be ready to support families as it gets cold,” he said.

Plummeting temperatures have proven fatal for displaced children in the region over the past few years, such as in Syria where children died following heavy winter storms in 2022.

Rescuers at an emergency services center react as smoke billows during Israeli airstrikes in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh on Wednesday, October 16.

Israel’s plan to respond to Iran’s October 1 attack is ready, a source told CNN, while Israeli strikes continue in Lebanon and Gaza.

US officials expect Israel will retaliate before November 5, sources told CNN — a timeline that would thrust the growing volatility in the Middle East squarely into public view within days of the US presidential election.

Here’s what else you need to know:

In Lebanon:

In Gaza:

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani adresses a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, October 16.

There have been no negotiations for a hostage release and ceasefire deal for almost a month, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.

A close ally of the United States, Qatar has been coordinating with Washington and Egypt to secure the release of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, as well as end?Israel’s war?in the territory.

Al Thani’s comments come just days after a deadly Israeli strike hit the Al Aqsa hospital where thousands of displaced civilians were sheltering. Flames engulfed the camp, burning some civilians alive.?The Israeli military said it was targeting a Hamas command and control center embedded in the hospital complex.

While calls for a hostage release and ceasefire deal for Gaza continue, US officials told CNN last month that US President Joe Biden’s national security advisers have no imminent plans to present him with?an updated proposal?in the Israel-Hamas war?ceasefire negotiations.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Representative of the United States to the UN, speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, on Wednesday, October 16.

The United States is watching to ensure Israel doesn’t enact a “policy of starvation” in Gaza, according to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations.

“The Government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this statement,” she said.

Thomas-Greenfield did note that several dozen aid trucks entered northern Gaza for the first time in several weeks, but stressed that is not enough.

“Many, many more deliveries are needed, and we will continue to push for that,” she said.

Her remarks to the UN Security Council on Wednesday follow a letter from the Biden administration to Israel that suggested US military aid could be in jeopardy if Israel does not act to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within the next 30 days.

Israel is working with the World Food Programme (WFP) to improve humanitarian infrastructure across the strip, Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that UN convoys will be able to use a new route into southern Gaza. The UN envoy said food supplies need to be surged into Gaza immediately and called for a humanitarian pause across the enclave to allow for vaccinations and aid distribution.

Last week, the WFP warned that no food had entered northern?Gaza?since the start of October, putting?1 million people?at risk of starvation.

Ahmad Al Dalu brought his family to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital Complex in Gaza last October because he thought it would be the safest place to shelter. On Sunday, an Israeli strike on the site engulfed his family in fire, killing his wife Alaa and son Shaaban.

Footage of the aftermath of the strike shows Shaaban lying inside the burning tent, with the outline of his arm visible amid the flames and smoke. The teenager was sleeping on the family’s bed after being injured in a strike on the Al Aqsa Martyrs Mosque earlier this month. His father was sleeping on a chair, while Alaa, 37, and their younger children were sleeping on the floor of their tent.

“Suddenly, a lightning strike hit us – a mass of flames. My son remained on the bed, and I fell backward onto the chair. Nothing hit me, but when I saw the flames consuming my children, I went back into the fire,” he told CNN Wednesday, adding he saved three of his children.

Mohammad, Shaaban’s brother, said he tried to help too, but someone held him back for his own safety. “My father’s face and right hand were completely burned, so he couldn’t get my mother or my brother out,” Mohammad said.

His mother, he said, was motionless and did not react to the fire — as if asleep.

“It was incredibly difficult to see my mother and brother burning, but thank God my mother fell asleep and woke up in paradise,” Mohammad said.

The Israel Defense Forces has said it had conducted a “precise strike” on a Hamas command center embedded in the hospital, but has provided no evidence of Hamas’ presence in the complex. It took steps to limit the harm to civilians, the IDF statement also said.

At least seven medical nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been informed that they will no longer be permitted to enter the Palestinian enclave, according to two sources familiar with the matter. This comes just days after the United States warned Israel that it needs to do more to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk losing military assistance.

The groups, which include FAJR, Glia, the Palestinian American Medical Association and at least four others — all with a long history of operating in the Palestinian territories — were told by the World Health Organization that they had been banned by Israel, the sources said. Members of the now-banned organizations who are already inside Gaza will not be permitted re-entry after they leave, the sources added.

Dorotea Gucciardo, director of development for Glia, confirmed it is among the banned medical aid groups. “Banning healthcare workers from entering Gaza is going to further cripple any ability to provide life-giving and life-saving care to Palestinians, who have already been suffering under the weight of a nearly 20-year military siege,” she told CNN.

CNN has reached out to Fajr, the Palestinian American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, Gaza’s Ministry of Health and Israel’s office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories for comment.

Two paramedics were injured by shrapnel while responding to a prior Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross?posted on X Wednesday.

The medics arrived in the town of Jouaiyya in coordination with UNIFIL, the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, to respond to a previous Israeli strike. The area was then targeted again, injuring the paramedics, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. The aid group said the paramedics were taken to the hospital and that their condition “is not worrisome.”

The peacekeeping force “informs the IDF of logistic and humanitarian movements in the area of operations to deconflict activities and mitigate risks. However, we do not receive assurances from the IDF regarding the safety of the convoys,” said Andrea Tenenti, UNIFIL’s spokesperson, without commenting on the specific incident.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

State Department spokesperson Matt Miller speaks during a press briefing on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

Israel has taken steps to improve the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza after top Biden administration officials sent a letter laying out specific demands on more aid for the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said.

Miller pointed to the following actions:

But Miller did not say that the steps taken thus far are adequate enough.

Israel’s commitment will be determined by forthcoming actions, he said.

Fifty humanitarian trucks went into Gaza from Jordan yesterday, Miller said. The administration is pushing for at least 350 humanitarian trucks to be allowed into Gaza daily, according to the letter recently sent to Israeli officials.

The Israeli airstrikes in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh killed 16 people and injured another 52, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said on X.

The attack included at least 10 airstrikes and created what “resembled a fire belt,” Nabatiyeh Gov. Howaida Turk told Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed TV in a video interview.

Nabatiyeh Mayor Ahmad Kahil and his colleagues were among those killed. The city officials were at a daily crisis management meeting in the city’s municipal building when Israel struck it on Wednesday morning.

The strikes also hit local markets, residential buildings and a university, according to Lebanese state news agency NNA. historic sites including a mosque were also hit, Turk said.

“We condemn the attack that targeted a government building which had been welcoming and providing aid to displaced people,” Turk said.

The Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday that it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh to dismantle what it claims was “underground infrastructure used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces.”

United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeping forces from the Spanish contingent conduct an early morning patrol in the southern Lebanese village of Qliyaa on October 11.

Israel has “no intention” of harming the United Nations’ peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), Foreign Minister Israel Katz?said.

Katz said that Israel “places great importance on the activities of (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) and has no intention of harming the organization or its personnel,” in a post on social media.

The UN has said that the Israeli military has fired on its peacekeepers, forcibly entered a base, stopped a critical logistical movement, and injured more than a dozen of its troops in southern Lebanon in recent weeks.

The European Union’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said Monday that attacking UN troops was “completely unacceptable.”

Katz alleged Wednesday that Hezbollah is using UNIFIL personnel as human shields, “deliberately firing at IDF soldiers from locations near UNIFIL positions in order to create friction.”

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer departs 10 Downing Street, London, to attend Prime Minister's Questions at the Houses of Parliament, on October 16.

The United Kingdom is considering placing sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Wednesday.

The government is “looking at” sanctions against Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Starmer told the House of Commons.

Starmer was responding to a question from Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey, who pointed to a comment from Smotrich that “starving two million people in Gaza?might be justified and moral,” and another from Ben-Gvir, who Davey said “called settlers who killed a 19-year-old on the West Bank ‘heroes.’”

“Will the prime minister now sanction the ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich?” Davey asked.

The prime minister said the UK and France have also called an urgent United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes and provide the UN humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively,” Starmer said.

Israeli ministers condemn Starmer: In a statement, Ben-Gvir said that the British “must realize that the days of the mandate are over,” referring to the period of British administration in the area after World War I. “Just as before the establishment of the Jewish state, the British worked to prevent it, now they continue to do so after its establishment in the midst of a war of existence,” he said.

Smotrich also invoked Britain’s past involvement in the region, saying that while it’s over, “the one-sidedness and hypocrisy remained the same one-sidedness and hypocrisy.”

This post has been updated with responses from Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.

The United States has warned Israel?it may stop supplying the country with weapons?unless the humanitarian situation in Gaza improves.

This is not the first time Israel’s major ally has threatened to turn off supplies. In May, US President Joe Biden said he would halt some shipments of weapons to Israel if a major invasion of the southern city of Rafah went ahead. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed on with the campaign — and the flow of US weapons continued.

Palestinian children carry an empty US ammunition container in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on May 16.

The United States is overwhelmingly the biggest supplier of arms to Israel. In 2023, 69% of Israel’s arm imports came from the US, according to a report on international arms transfers by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Germany was the second largest, providing 30%, followed by Italy with 0.9%. The UK, France and Spain were among other minor contributors.

The US-imported weapons?“have played a major role in Israel’s military actions against Hamas and Hezbollah,”?according to the think tank, noting that at the end of 2023, thousands of guided bombs and missiles were delivered from the US to Israel. F-35 and F-15 fighter jets were also delivered to Israel from the US in January 2024.

Read more about who provides Israel with weapons.

Rescuers at an emergency services center react as smoke billows during an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh on October 16.

The Israeli attack on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh struck a municipal council meeting focused on emergency relief in the area, the Lebanese prime minister’s office said on X, adding that the meeting was “intentionally targeted.”

At least six people were killed in that strike, including the city’s mayor, according to state media.

The Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday that it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh to dismantle what it claims was “underground infrastructure used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces.”

The death toll from Israeli airstrikes on a municipality building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh has risen to six, with 43 injured, according to the Lebanese ministry of health.

Rescue workers continue to remove debris from the attack, the ministry said. The attack also killed the city’s mayor.

Walid Al-Hashash, director of the operations unit of Lebanon’s civil defense force, said a civil defense worker was among those killed in the strikes.

Alexy Nehma, director of emergency medical services at the Lebanese Red Cross, told CNN that responders struggled to reach people in need due to repeated strikes and had to withdraw their team from the area.

Ahmad Kahil, the mayor of Nabatiyeh, was killed in the strike, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported earlier.

Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets after Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, on October 1.

American officials expect Israel will retaliate against this month’s Iranian attack before November 5, sources tell CNN — a timeline that would thrust the growing volatility in the Middle East squarely into public view within days of the US presidential election.

The timeline and parameters of Israel’s retaliation against Iran have been subject to intense debate inside Israel’s government and are not directly related to the timing of the US election, the sources said.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — described by senior US administration officials as deeply attuned to American politics — appears highly sensitive to any potential political ramifications of Israel’s actions in the US, they said.

The growing conflict in the Middle East has emerged as persistent issue in the American election. President Joe Biden, and by extension Vice President Kamala Harris, have faced pressure from progressives for their handling of the situation. Meanwhile, Republicans — including former President Donald Trump — have accused the administration of bungling the crisis and sending the world into chaos.

As the election nears, the administration has begun applying new pressure on Israel to improve humanitarian conditions inside Gaza. In a stern letter revealed this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel a failure to deliver more aid to the enclave could trigger a cutoff of military assistance.

But in a sign of the fraught political dynamics, the letter was not signed from the president or the vice president, neither of whom has publicly threatened to cut off aid to Israel, despite pressure from the left. Its deadline for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza falls after the election. And the warning came the same week some military personnel and components of the advanced air defense system the US is providing to Israel arrived in the country.

Read more about the possible political implications.

In one of Gaza’s last standing hospitals, Tamara Al-Maarouf’s eyes well up with tears as she stands helplessly by her baby boy’s hospital bed. A tumor, now removed, has been compressing the 4-month-old’s tiny heart and he desperately needs treatment abroad.

Meanwhile, 84-year-old Oded Lifschitz, who was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 last year by Hamas militants, is still being held hostage in the enclave. His family is still desperately trying to bring him home.

The stories of two lives, those of a Palestinian infant and an elderly Israeli man, tell the tragic tale of the countless innocent lives trapped in a war they did not choose. Their fates are now tied up in politics and negotiations that have all but failed.

Read more about their stories here.

Ahmad Kahil, the mayor of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, was killed in an Israeli strike on the city’s municipality building Wednesday morning, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Several municipal workers, including the municipality’s media officer, Mohammad Salim Bitar, were also killed, NNA said.

The Lebanese health ministry said in a statement earlier that at least five people were killed after an Israeli airstrike hit the municipality building.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later said it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the city to dismantle what it claims was “underground infrastructure used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces.”

Smoke billows following Israeli airstrikes in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, on October 16.

At least five people were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a municipality building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Israel struck the Nabatiyeh Municipality building on Wednesday morning, the ministry said, adding that debris removal operations are ongoing.

A video shared on social media and geolocated by CNN showed plumes of smoke rising from various areas in Nabatiyeh. CNN was unable to verify when the video was filmed.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike hit Hezbollah targets and dismantled what it claimed was “underground infrastructure used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces.”

“The tunnel network was embedded in the heart of a town, beneath the homes of Lebanese civilians,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that Hezbollah is “exploiting the civilian population as a human shield.”

Israelis take cover as projectiles launched from Iran are intercepted in the skies over Rosh HaAyin, Israel, on October 1, 2024.

Israel’s plan to respond to Iran’s October 1 attack is ready, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, without providing further information.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli ministry of defense for comment.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have assured the US that a?counterstrike?on Iran would be limited to military targets rather than oil or nuclear facilities, according to a source.

Iran launched dozens of missiles toward Israel in retaliation for the?killing of Hezbollah leader?Hassan?Nasrallah, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh?and others.

Netanyahu had vowed that Iran would “pay” for the attack.

Hezbollah said it sent “barrages” of rockets into several areas of northern Israel overnight, while the Israeli military said it had identified dozens of projectiles launched from Lebanon.

About 50 “projectiles” were identified crossing into Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The IDF did not report any injuries. The extent of the damage is unclear.

The attack comes a day after Hezbollah’s?Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem?called on Israelis to accept a ceasefire in Lebanon or face “pain” as the group changes its strategy to strike harder and deeper into Israel.

Israel is opposed to a “unilateral ceasefire” in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel is opposed to a “unilateral ceasefire” in its war with Hezbollah, the country’s leader told his French counterpart, claiming it would only return the security situation in Lebanon “to what it was before.”

The call between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron?on Tuesday comes as tensions have escalated between?the two leaders following calls by Macron to end arms exports to Israel and reach a ceasefire in?Lebanon and Gaza.

Netanyahu made clear to Macron “that Israel will not accept any arrangement” that stops it from operating against Hezbollah to prevent threats to residents of northern Israel, his office said.

Some background: Hezbollah and Israel have been in conflict for decades – but the two have ramped up their cross-border attacks on each other since last October, when Israel’s war in Gaza began following the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel.

The leaders’ call also comes after France summoned Israel’s ambassador to protest Israeli troops firing at UN peacekeeping positions in southern Lebanon, Reuters reported. The Israeli military has accused Hezbollah of operating in areas near UNIFIL posts.

In the call, Macron also condemned those incidents and said France would continue to work?with other countries to fully implement the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission.

Paris conference: Later this month, France is set to hold an international meeting to rally support for the Lebanese people and strengthen the country’s security situation.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it had killed a Hamas commander who led the militant group’s drone operations in northern Gaza.

It said Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had directed drone attacks towards Israeli territory and troops.

For more than a week, the Israeli military has been carrying out an intense offensive in the north of the Palestinian enclave after it launched a new ground operation, citing signs of Hamas rebuilding.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “eliminated” 50 militants in “close-quarters encounters and aerial strikes” in Jabalya in northern Gaza over the past day.

Elsewhere, in the southern Rafah area, an “armed terrorist cell planning to attack IDF troops was eliminated using drones,” the military said.

The UN has warned that Israel is effectively sealing off northern Gaza and may be carrying out a “large-scale forced transfer” of civilians, which it said would amount to a war crime. It comes as Israel has?blocked all food from entering northern Gaza?since the beginning of the month, according to the World Food Programme.

The Israeli military said Wednesday its strikes hit “strategic weapons” belonging to Hezbollah in an underground storage facility in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The Israel Defense Forces said the strikes were conducted “with the direction of precise IDF intelligence,” and that “numerous steps” were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.

The IDF issued evacuation warnings beforehand to residents near a building in the Haret Hreik area of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Lebanese state media?reported the strikes Wednesday in the capital’s southern suburbs, the first to hit the area in several days.

They came only hours after the?US expressed concern over the scope of Israel’s bombing campaign in Beirut and the “civilian toll” of the strikes.

CNN reported earlier this week there had been a reprieve of Israeli strikes on Beirut in recent days amid growing “understandings” between US and Israeli officials, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaks during a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Fouad Hussein, in Baghdad, Iraq, on October 13, 2024.

Iran’s foreign minister will visit Jordan, Egypt and Turkey in a bid to establish “regional peace and stability,” Tehran’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Abbas Araghchi will visit the three countries “as part of our diplomatic reach-out to countries of the region to end genocide, atrocity and aggression,” according to a ministry spokesperson.

They did not say when the visit will happen.

In the weeks since Iran launched its largest-ever attack on Israel with a barrage of missiles, Iran has engaged in urgent diplomatic efforts with countries across?the?Middle East?to gauge whether it can reduce the?scale of Israel’s?response?and –?if that fails?–?help protect Tehran,?sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Iran’s anxiety stems from uncertainty about whether the United States can convince Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites and oil facilities, the sources said. Prime Minister Benjamin?Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have assured the US that a counterstrike?will be limited to military targets, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

A strike on oil fields could send energy prices soaring, while hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities could trigger the full-blown regional war that US President Joe Biden has desperately sought to avoid.

The US demand that Israel improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza lays bare a tension between the two countries’ governments and growing frustration in Washington, an Israeli expert told CNN.

The continued operations of the Israel Defense Forces in the enclave’s north complicate efforts to deliver humanitarian aid, Yaakov Katz, a senior columnist at the Jerusalem Post, told CNN’s Lynda Kinkade.

Earlier, CNN reported the Biden administration?sent a letter to Israel demanding it acts to improve the?humanitarian situation in Gaza?within the next 30 days or risk?violating?US laws governing foreign military assistance,?suggesting US military aid could be in jeopardy.

The Israeli government is reviewing the letter, CNN analyst Barak Ravid and Reuters reported.

“This is just part of that growing frustration as America nears its general election in just a couple of weeks. They want this war behind them,” Katz said,

Israel still perceives the war as “existential,” according to Katz. He said the conflict appears to be going “quite well” for Israel compared with the days following Hamas’ October 7 attack a year ago, which took Israel by surprise.

On Hezbollah, Katz said Israel decided last month to change the equation, as seen in its pager and walkie-talkie attacks, the killing of top leadership?within the Iran-backed organization, and the impairment of their long-range missile capabilities.

A screengrab taken from a video shows smoke rising from Beirut's southern suburbs on October 16, 2024.

Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday morning, according to Lebanese state media, the first attack to target the area in several days.

The bombardment came shortly after the Israeli military issued new evacuation warnings to residents near a building in the Haret Hreik area of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.

A live feed of the southern Beirut skyline?from?the AFP news agency showed smoke rising from the area.

Earlier this week, CNN reported there had been a reprieve of Israeli strikes on Beirut in recent days amid growing “understandings” between US and Israeli officials, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later vowed that Israel would strike Hezbollah everywhere in Lebanon “without mercy,” including in Beirut.

Since escalating its war against the Iran-backed militant group, Israel has been pounding the Lebanese capital and other areas in the south of the country at an unprecedented intensity.

The strikes have often targeted crowded areas, leveling residential buildings, killing more than 1,500 people and displacing over 1 million others, according to the Lebanese government.

A torn plush bear doll is strewn among debris and rubble at the site of a Israeli air strike, in the village of Aito in northern Lebanon, on October 15, 2024.

The United Nations has called for an investigation into an Israeli strike on a village in northern Lebanon which killed at least 21 people.

Monday’s strike?on the village of Aitou destroyed an entire building housing people?who fled the bombardment in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said 12 women and two children were among those killed.

The UN has “real concerns with respect to (International Humanitarian Law), so the laws of war and principles of distinction, proportion and proportionality,” OHCHR?spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said on Tuesday.

He added that the agency was calling “for a prompt, independent and thorough investigation into this incident.”

More context: Aitou, about 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) north of Beirut, sits in the Zgharta district with a predominantly Christian population. It’s the first time the village has been struck since the?current war began a year ago, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).

Photos from after the strike show damaged cars and houses reduced to rubble.

Later on Monday, the?Israel Defense Forces (IDF)?said it had struck what it claimed?was a Hezbollah target in the area, adding that “the claim that Lebanese civilians were killed as a result of the strike is under review.”

Palestinians live in the rubble of their destroyed house in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 15, 2024.

US President Joe Biden’s administration?wrote a letter to the Israeli government?demanding action on the humanitarian situation in Gaza because aid has “fallen by over 50% from where it was at its peak,” according to the State Department.

Biden’s administration demanded the Israeli government improve the?humanitarian situation in Gaza?within the next 30 days or risk?violating?US laws governing foreign military assistance,?suggesting US military aid could be in jeopardy.

The Israeli government is reviewing the administration’s letter, saying it “takes this matter seriously and intends to address the concerns raised,” CNN analyst Barak Ravid and Reuters reported.

Here are the latest developments: