Netanyahu orders ‘full force’ in Lebanon despite U.S. push for cease-fire

Four people have been questioned so far over the pager explosions that tore across Lebanon last week. The devices carried a Taiwanese brand, prosecutors confirmed to NBC News.

Taiwan-based Gold Apollo said it did not manufacture the devices used in the attack, and Taiwan’s government said the pagers were not made in the country.

A spokesperson for the Shilin District Prosecutors Office in Taipei, which has been leading the probe into Gold Apollo, said this morning that the “investigation is proceeding swiftly and rigorously.”

In addition to two people questioned last week, two current or former employees of the company were also interviewed as witnesses, the prosecutor’s office said.

Israel’s ability to assassinate senior Hezbollah officials shows that the group is “exposed to Israeli intelligence to an unprecedented level.” That’s according to Filippo Dionigi, an international relations scholar and Hezbollah specialist at England’s University of Bristol.

Israel has taken out numerous high-ranking Hezbollah figures, including the chief of its elite Radwan forces, Ibrahim Aqil, and some of his deputies. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this week that the strikes have left Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah isolated.

This “certainly has an impact” on the group’s “morale and partly on their capacity to operate under the stress of constant surveillance from the enemy,” Dionigi told NBC News. However, the 40-year-old organization “has had all the time to recruit and train new generations of fighters.”

“This means that ‘decapitating’ the military leadership of Hezbollah will have an impact that is more limited compared to younger and less long-lasting organizations, such as Islamic State, for example,” he added. “Hezbollah is likely to have sufficient trained personnel to replace its losses.”

The number of people officially registered as being displaced in Lebanon has reached at least 70,100, Lebanon’s interior minister said in a news conference in Beirut.

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said the tens of thousands of people were seeking refuge across 533 shelter centers as he called for more aid to help respond to the mounting crisis.

The official total only reflects those staying in shelters, so the total number of people displaced by Israeli strikes in Lebanon will be much higher. Many are staying in hotels or with family, while thousands have also fled to Syria, in hopes of finding relative safety in the country still in the midst of a civil war.

The United Nations has said nearly 200,000 people in Lebanon have been internally displaced since nearly a year of hostilities began between Israel and Hezbollah following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, while in northern Israel roughly 60,000 people have been displaced.

Farmers in parts of southern Lebanon are afraid to leave their land, worried that without it, they will have no way of making a living, a local official told NBC News.

Nazih Yahya, a member of the municipality of Kfarchouba in the Nabatieh Governorate, said that even before Israel began ramping up its strikes, many families in the village were already struggling to get access to basic commodities.

“We live in exile,” Yahya said. He noted that many people fled Kfarchouba earlier this year as hostilities mounted between Israel and Hezbollah, but that dozens of families remained in the village and other areas nearby.

“Most of the residents are farmers, and they don’t want to leave their land, because they have no other alternative to make their living,” he said. Asked how they were getting by, he said residents received “some donations” from humanitarian organizations, politicians and local officials.

Ultraorthodox Jewish students play soccer as they attend lessons inside a bomb shelter in Israel’s northern city of Safed.

There is currently “no official mediation process in place to work toward a cease-fire in Lebanon,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majid bin Mohammed Al-Ansari said in a media briefing.

“We are unaware of any direct link between the cease-fire proposal for Lebanon and the cease-fire proposal for Gaza,” he said, adding that Qatar had “warned from the first day of the danger of the war extending beyond the Gaza Strip.”

The IDF says its soldiers are carrying out an exercise “simulating maneuvers in Lebanon” this morning, despite rising calls from the international community for a cease-fire to prevent further escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

The IDF said the training exercise took place a few kilometers from the Lebanese border and made it clear that troops were preparing for the possibility of ground operations in Lebanon.

During the exercise, troops “enhanced their operational and logistical readiness for various combat scenarios in enemy territory on the northern front,” the IDF said.

The IDF did not say where exactly it is launching the strikes on the Lebanese capital.

The Lebanese National News Agency has reported a loud explosion in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

For Imad Komeiha, Monday, Sept. 23, the day Israel ramped up its deadly strikes in Lebanon, will always be known as “Black Monday.”

“There are no words that can describe the fear and anger,” Komeiha, a journalist and activist, told NBC News. He, his wife and four childrem fled from their home in Kfar Sir in southern Lebanon to Chiah, a southern suburb of Beirut, though Israel’s strikes have hit near this area too.

His wife and four children fled first, Komeiha said. He followed after his neighbor was killed during heavy bombing in Kfar Sir. The journey to Chiah was gutwrenching, he said. “It breaks your heart, to see all those villages empty and destroyed.”

Komeiha said he wanted to see United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which set out the terms for a cease-fire in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, applied. The U.S. and other nations put have forward a proposal for a 21-day cease-fire that would allow for negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah, which neither side has so far accepted.

Israeli fighter jets struck an area along the Syria-Lebanon border that the IDF said was being used by Hezbollah as a route to transfer weapons.

Lebanese transport minister Ali Hamieh told news agency Reuters that the Israeli strike hit the Syrian side of a small bridge that crossed into Lebanon. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was killed or injured in the strike.

The United Nations refugee agency has warned of a mounting humanitarian crisis at the border between Lebanon and Syria, as some of the tens of thousands of dispalced people escaping Israeli airstrikes amassed there. Hundreds have been killed by the strikes in recent days.

Video and photos shared by the agency showed roadways filled with vehicles, their rooftops loaded with bedding and other possessions. Crowds of others, including children, arrived at the border on foot. UNHCR said many arrived after fleeing “dire conditions, with some carrying nothing but plastic bags filled with their belongings.”

“Today we have seen literally thousands of families of Syrian and also Lebanese crossing into Syria, UNHCR representative Gonzalo Vargas Llosa said, speaking from the Syrian side of the border in a video shared online last night. “They are fleeing the escalating violence in Lebanon,” he said.

Many of the Syrians now seeking refuge in their home country are people who have already been displaced by a brutal conflict — survivors of Syria’s own ongoing civil war, which began in 2011. Now, they find themselves returning, displaced once again by the threat of violence.

“It is yet another ordeal for families who previously fled war in Syria only now to be bombed in the country where they sought shelter,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees in a statement shared by UNHCR. “We must avoid replaying these scenes of despair and devastation. The Middle East cannot afford a new displacement crisis. Let us not create one by forcing more people to abandon their homes. Protecting civilian lives must be the priority.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged the U.N. Security Council to “work in lock-step” to end mounting hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah as he warned that “hell is breaking loose in Lebanon” amid Israeli airstrikes that have killed hundreds and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Noting that exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah had “expanded in scope, depth and intensity,” Guterres said yesterday that residents who have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border “must be able to return to their homes and live in safety and security without fear.”

According to the U.N., nearly 200,000 people in Lebanon had been internally displaced as of yesterday, while more than 60,000 people in northern Israel have also been displaced from their homes.

“I implore the Council to work in lock-step to help put out this fire”, the U.N. chief told ambassadors as he warned that an all-out war “must be avoided at all costs” and “would surely be an all-out catastrophe.”

Netanyahu is expected to arrive in New York this morning, with the Israeli leader set to address the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow, Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters last night.

The Israeli prime minister could be seen in photos and videos shared by his office boarding a flight bound for New York alongside his wife, Sara Netanyahu, early this morning, local time.

Israel continued to strike targets across Lebanon today even as the U.S. and allies call for a 21-day ceasefire.

The office of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati has denied reports that he signed a cease-fire proposal put forward by the U.S., despite the leader expressing optimism for a truce that would allow for negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah.

Mikati’s office said reports he had signed an agreement were “absolutely incorrect.”

Lebanon’s PM had expressed hopes that a cease-fire deal could be reached to halt mounting violence that has killed hundreds in Lebanon and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

Asked if a cease-fire could be secured soon, Mikati told news agency Reuters: “Hopefully, yes.” But, welcoming calls for a truce, he said the key to a cease-fire being implemented was whether Israel would be committed to enforcing international solutions.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X this morning there would be “no cease-fire in the north.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has said there will be “no cease-fire in the north.”

“We will continue to fight against the terrorist organization Hezbollah with all our might until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” he said in a post on X this morning.

Netanyahu’s office said earlier that the Israeli prime minister had not yet responded to the U.S.-led proposal for a 21-day cease-fire that would allow negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah to take place.

More than 100 reporters have been killed in Gaza, according to the International Federation of Journalists. In addition to the dangers, the media is facing increasing crackdowns.

NBC News’ Hala Gorani provides an in-depth report on journalists caught in the crossfire as the conflict between Israel and Lebanon escalates.

Right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government have struck out at calls for a 21-day cease-fire to curb mounting hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a post on X this morning that Hezbollah must “not be given time to recover” and that the only way to see Israeli residents who have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel and secure the area was “the surrender of Hezbollah or war.”

He said he believed Israel’s operations should only “end in one scenario — crushing Hezbollah and denying its ability to harm residents in the north,” using wording similar to that used to describe Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza, where more than 41,400 people have been killed, according to local health officials, since Israeli forces launched their offensive following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid suggested that Israeli leadership should agree to a cease-fire, but only for 7 days “in order not to allow Hezbollah to restore its command and control systems,” adding: “We will not accept any proposal that does not include removing Hezbollah from our northern border.”

Netanyahu’s office this morning shut down a report suggesting a cease-fire could soon be announced, saying the news was “incorrect.”

“This is an American-French proposal, to which the prime minister did not even respond,” his office said of the 21-day cease-fire deal proposed by the U.S. and allies.

Netanyahu’s office further said reports about a “supposed directive to moderate the fighting in the north” was “also the opposite of the truth.”

“The Prime Minister instructed the IDF to continue the fighting with full force, and according to the plans presented to him,” it said, amid mounting hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. “Also, the fighting in Gaza will continue until all the goals of the war are achieved,” it added.

The statement from the Israeli leader’s office, came as Netanyahu himself is aboard a flight to New York where he will address the UNGA.

After sirens and sounds of blasts rang out in northern Israel, the IDF said around 45 “projectiles” had been identified crossing from Lebanon. It said some were intercepted, while the rest fell in open areas.

The IDF also said it was continuing to strike targets in Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah military sites and weapons storage facilities were among the sites hit. It also said “a number of” militants were hit in the area of Kfarchouba in southern Lebanon, but did not provide further information.

Israel says its campaign is targeting Hezbollah, but Lebanese officials have reported more than 600 people killed.

Images taken this morning show destruction in the Masaken neighborhood near the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, following an Israeli airstrike.

Blasts could be heard ringing out near the northern Israeli port city of Haifa this morning, NBC News’ team on the ground said, as sirens sounded in the area.

The IDF said in a post on Telegram around 8:45 a.m. local time (1:45 a.m. ET) that sirens were sounding in parts of the Upper Galilee area in northern Israel. It had yet to issue any further statement on possible aerial attacks targeting the area.

Israel has a robust aerial defense system, though rockets and missiles fired by Hezbollah can and do get through.

Israel continued to hammer southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley with airstrikes overnight into Thursday, with the Israeli military saying it hit around 75 targets, all of which it said belonged to Hezbollah.

The Israel Defense Forces said “weapons storage facilities, ready-to-fire launchers, terrorists, and terrorist infrastructure” were among the targets hit as the military said it continued its operation in a bid to “dismantle and degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities” and infrastructure.

Israel’s strikes have had a deadly toll in Lebnaon, with more than 600 people, including dozens of children, killed since Monday, about half the number of people killed over the 34 days of fighting during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from southern Lebanon, fueling fears of a developing humanitarian crisis in a nation that has been hard hit by economic and political crisis, as well as the impacts of the Port of Beirut explosion and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The U.S., European Union and nearly a dozen other nations have called for an immediate 21-day cease-fire in order for negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah to prevent the possibility of an all-out war in the region.

President Joe Biden warned yesterday that the feared outcome was possible, but that there was an “opportunity” for “a settlement that could fundamentally change the whole region,” as Israel also continues its deadly offensive in Gaza nearly a year after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, with Israel continuing to hammer parts of the Bekaa Valley and the south with airstrikes overnight.