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Middle East crisis live: Hamas says its leader in Lebanon has been killed; Israel accused of attack on central Beirut | Lebanon

Israel is accused of a rare attack on central Beirut

A Palestinian militant group said three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli strike on central Beirut early Monday. This would be the first attack by the Israeli military on the center of the Lebanese capital since 2006.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group involved in the fight against Israel, said three senior figures were killed in the attack in Beirut. Initial footage from the crime scene showed two floors of a residential building completely destroyed, and onlookers running toward the building.

Security personnel stand next to buildings damaged in an apparent Israeli attack in Beirut. Photo: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters

Two bodies could be seen lying in the street on a car in front of the building, seemingly thrown out by the force of the explosion. The sound of the explosion was heard throughout the city.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The attack in Beirut, carried out with a drone, occurred near the Kola intersection, a popular reference point in the city where taxis and buses congregate to pick up passengers, according to a source cited by Agence France-Presse.

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Important events

Israeli media outlet Haaretz reports that families of those held hostage by Hamas in Gaza have gathered to protest Jerusalem in front of the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding a ceasefire agreement and their release.

On October 7, 2023, approximately 250 people were arrested and taken hostage in southern Israel. Almost a year later, Israeli authorities believe that around 100 of them are still trapped in Gaza.

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Hamas says its leader in Lebanon has been killed

Hamas said on Monday that its leader in Lebanon had been killed in an airstrike in the south of the country, as official media reported an attack on a Palestinian refugee camp.

“Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, the leader of Hamas … in Lebanon and a member of the movement's leadership abroad,” was killed in an attack on his “home in Al-Bass camp in southern Lebanon,” a Hamas statement said. Explanation.

Lebanon's National News Agency reported an airstrike on the camp near the southern city of Tyre.

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Israel is accused of a rare attack on central Beirut

A Palestinian militant group said three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli strike on central Beirut early Monday. This would be the first attack by the Israeli military on the center of the Lebanese capital since 2006.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group involved in the fight against Israel, said three senior figures were killed in the attack in Beirut. Initial footage from the crime scene showed two floors of a residential building completely destroyed, and onlookers running toward the building.

Security personnel stand next to buildings damaged in an apparent Israeli attack in Beirut. Photo: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters

Two bodies could be seen lying in the street on a car in front of the building, seemingly thrown out by the force of the explosion. The sound of the explosion was heard throughout the city.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The attack in Beirut, carried out with a drone, occurred near the Kola intersection, a popular reference point in the city where taxis and buses congregate to pick up passengers, according to a source cited by Agence France-Presse.

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Dan Sabbagh

Dan Sabbagh

A hundred munitions – believed to include US-made 2,000-pound bombs – were used by the Israeli Air Force in the stunning airstrike Friday evening that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah at a hidden underground complex in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh.

Nasrallah, who was cautious to the point of paranoia with his security precautions and rarely appeared in public, would have taken little notice of his plan to make the fateful trip to the meeting.

But Hezbollah's intelligence penetration was so deep that Israel knew that Nasrallah and other surviving members of Hezbollah's already decimated leadership would meet at the supposedly secret location – and that an order to bomb them could be given.

Benjamin Netanyahu had to give permission for the attack from New York, where the Israeli prime minister had given a bellicose speech to the UN General Assembly. There was probably hardly any time to wait.

According to an unfounded report in the French newspaper Le Parisien, the mole who informed the Israelis that Nasrallah was on his way to the bunker was an Iranian. If true, that would be eye-catching considering Iran is Hezbollah's main backer.

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian's ongoing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

Palestinian militant group Hamas has said that its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed along with some of his family members in an Israeli attack in the south of the country.

It comes like another Palestinian The group announced that three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli attack on the center Beirutwhich, if confirmed, would be the first attack within the Lebanese capital's city limits since 2006.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said the three leaders were killed in an attack in Beirut's Kola district. The strike hit the upper floor of an apartment building in the Kola district Lebanon capital, Reuters witnesses said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

More on that in a moment. Here you will first find a summary of the other main events of the day.

  • Israeli attacks killed more than 100 people across Lebanon on Sunday, according to the country's health ministry. It said more than 1,000 Lebanese had been killed and 6,000 injured in the past two weeks, without saying how many of them were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – had fled their homes.

  • Israel said it bombed Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday. Israel said the airstrikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah were in response to Houthi rocket attacks on Israel in recent days. The Houthi-run health ministry said at least four people were killed and 29 injured. Images from Hodeidah showed parts of the city covered in a huge cloud of dust and huge explosions in the distance.

  • Hezbollah confirmed that Nabil Kaouk, the deputy chairman of the militant group's Central Council, was killed on SaturdayThis makes him the seventh senior Hezbollah leader to be killed in Israeli strikes in just over a week. The group also confirmed that Ali Karaki, another senior commander, died in Friday's airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah denied claims that Abu Ali Rida, the commander of the group's Bader unit in southern Lebanon, was killed. Rida is the last living commander of Hezbollah.

  • White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon had “obliterated” Hezbollah's command structure.but he warned that the group would work quickly to rebuild it. President Joe Biden said Sunday he will speak soon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and believes an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided.

  • Israel vowed on Sunday to continue its attack. “We must continue to hit Hezbollah hard,” said Israel’s military chief of staff Herzi Halevi. The Israeli military said it hit dozens of targets in Lebanon, including launchers and weapons caches, and intercepted eight projectiles from the direction of Lebanon and one from the Red Sea. It also said dozens of Israeli planes had attacked power plants and the ports of Ras Issa and Hodeidah in Yemen, accusing the Houthis of operating under Iranian leadership and in collaboration with Iraqi militias.

  • Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has broken his silence on Israel's killing of Hassan Nasrallah. On Sunday, Syrian state broadcaster Sana quoted Assad as saying: “We are sure that the Lebanese national resistance will continue the path of struggle and justice in the face of the occupation and will continue to support the Palestinian people in their fight for their just cause.” “

  • Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel should not allow countries in the Iran-allied “Axis of Resistance” to attack one after another. Pezeshkian said in comments carried by state media: Lebanon should be supported. A deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in the attack that killed Nasrallah in Beirut. Pezeshkian said: “We cannot accept such measures and they will not go unanswered. “A decisive response is necessary.”

  • Saudi Arabia has stressed the “need to preserve Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” In a statement released on Sunday amid Israel's deadly airstrikes, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said it was “following developments in Lebanon with great concern.”

  • Israeli opposition lawmaker Gideon Saar rejoined Netanyahu's government on Sunday, a move that is likely to strengthen the Israeli prime minister politically. According to Israeli media, Saar, who has been one of Netanyahu's harshest critics in recent years, will serve as a minister without portfolio and be given a seat in the prime minister's security cabinet. Expanding Saar's government strengthens Netanyahu by making him less dependent on other members of his ruling coalition, which has struggled in the polls.

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