[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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US long-range B-2 stealth bombers launched airstrikes early Thursday morning targeting underground bunkers used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what damage was done in the strikes.

However, there are no previous reports of the B-2 Spirit being used in the strikes targeting the Houthis, who have been attacking ships for months in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, as well as launching direct attacks on Israel.

The Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel reported airstrikes around Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which the group has held since 2014. They also reported strikes around the Houthi stronghold of Saada. They offered no immediate information on damage or casualties.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the B-2 bombers targeted “five hardened underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.”

The strike also appeared to be an indirect warning to Iran, the Houthis’ main benefactor, which has targeted Israel with ballistic missile attacks twice over the past year.

The B-2 would be used in any American attack on hardened Iranian nuclear facilities like Natanz or Fordo given it is the only aircraft in service that can drop the GBU-57, known as the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator.”

“This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” Austin said.

Austin and the US military’s Central Command offered no immediate assessment of the damage done. However, Central Command said in a statement that initial assessments suggested no civilians had been killed.

The batteries inside the weaponized pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an alleged Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles’ heel.

The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.

To overcome the weakness – the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product – they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.

A thin, square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic explosive was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells, according to the Lebanese source and photos.

The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the photos but was occupied by a strip of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator, the source said.

This three-layer sandwich was inserted in a black plastic sleeve, and encapsulated in a metal casing roughly the size of a matchbox, the photos showed.

The assembly was unusual because it did not rely on a standard miniaturized detonator, typically a metallic cylinder, the source and two bomb experts said. All three spoke on conditions of anonymity.

Without any metal components, the material used to trigger detonation had an edge: like the plastic explosives, it was not detected by X-ray.

Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah looked for the presence of explosives, two people familiar with the matter said, putting them through airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms. Nothing suspicious was reported.

The devices were likely set up to generate a spark within the battery pack, enough to light the detonating material and trigger the sheet of PETN to explode, said the two bomb experts, to whom Reuters showed the pager-bomb design.

Since explosives and wrapping took about a third of the volume, the battery pack carried a fraction of the power consistent with its 35-gram weight, two battery experts said.

“There is a significant amount of unaccounted-for mass,” said Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium batteries at Britain’s Newcastle University.

At some point, Hezbollah noticed the battery was draining faster than expected, the Lebanese source said. However, the issue did not appear to raise major security concerns – the group was still handing its members the pagers hours before the attack

Two Western security sources said Israeli intelligence agency Mossad spearheaded the pager and walkie-talkie attacks.

Reuters could not establish where the devices were manufactured.

The weak link
From the outside, the pager’s power source looked like a standard lithium-ion battery pack used in thousands of consumer electronics goods.

And yet, the battery, labeled LI-BT783, had a problem: Like the pager, it did not exist on the market.

So Israel’s agents created a backstory from scratch.

Hezbollah has serious procurement procedures to check what they buy, a former Israeli intelligence officer, who was not involved in the pager operation, told Reuters.

“You want to make sure that if they look, they find something,” the former spy said, requesting not to be named. “Not finding anything is not good.”

Creating backstories, or “legends,” for undercover agents has long been a core skill of spy agencies. What made the pager plot unusual is that those skills appear to have been applied to ubiquitous consumer electronics products.

For the pagers, the agents deceived Hezbollah by selling the custom-created model, AR-924, under an existing, renowned Taiwanese brand, Gold Apollo.

Gold Apollo’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters a day after the pager attack that he was approached about three years ago by a former employee, Teresa Wu, and her “big boss, called Tom” to discuss a license agreement.

Hsu said he had scant information about Wu’s superior, but he granted them the right to design their own products and market them under the widely distributed Gold Apollo brand.

Reuters could not establish the identity of the manager, nor whether the person or Wu knowingly worked with Israeli intelligence.

The chairman said he was not impressed by the AR-924 when he saw it, but still added photos and a description of the product to his company’s website, helping give it both visibility and credibility. There was no way to directly buy the AR-924 from his website.

Hsu said he knew nothing about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the broader operation to attack Hezbollah. He described his company as a victim of the plot.

Gold Apollo declined to provide further comment. Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered. She has not given a statement to the media since the attacks.

’I know this product’
In September 2023, webpages and images featuring the AR-924 and its battery were added to apollosystemshk.com, a website that said it had a license to distribute Gold Apollo products, as well as the rugged pager and its bulky power source, according to a Reuters review of internet records and metadata.

The website gave an address in Hong Kong for a company called Apollo Systems HK. No company by that name exists at the address or in Hong Kong Corporate records.

However, the website was listed by Wu, the Taiwanese businesswoman, on her Facebook page as well as in public incorporation records when she registered a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year.

A section of the apollosystemshk.com site devoted to the LI-BT783 put emphasis on the battery’s outstanding performance. Unlike the disposable batteries that powered older generation pagers, it boasted 85 days of autonomy and could be recharged via a USB cable, according to the website and a 90-second promotional video on YouTube.

In late 2023, two battery stores came online with the LI-BT783 listed in their catalogs, Reuters found. And in two online forums devoted to batteries, participants discussed the power source, despite its lack of commercial availability: “I know this product,” a user with the handle Mikevog wrote in April 2023. “It’s got a great datasheet and a great performance.”

Reuters could not establish the identity of Mikevog.

The website, the online stores, and the forum discussions bear the hallmark of a deception effort, the former Israeli intelligence officer and two Western security officers told Reuters. The websites have been scrubbed from the web since the pager bombs wreaked havoc in Lebanon, but archived and cached copies are still viewable.

Ruing the day they bought the pagers, Hezbollah leaders said they had launched internal investigations to understand how the security breach could happen and identify possible moles.

The group had shifted to pagers at the start of the year after realizing that cellphone communications were compromised by Israeli eavesdropping, Reuters previously reported.

Hezbollah’s investigations have helped uncover how Israeli agents used an aggressive sales tactic to make sure Hezbollah’s procurement manager chose the AR-924, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

The salesperson who conveyed the offer made a very inexpensive proposition for the pagers “and kept bringing the price down until he was pulled in,” the person said.

Hezbollah’s internal investigation into the pager attack, still underway, suffered a setback on September 28: Eleven days after the devices exploded, the senior Hezbollah official tasked with leading the procurement probe, Nabil Kaouk, was himself killed by an Israeli airstrike

Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that Hamas' top leader and long-time commander in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by troops during an operation in the decimated Palestinian territory.

In a message the Israeli government said was shared with dozens of other foreign ministers around the world, Katz said Sinwar, "who is responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7, was killed today by IDF soldiers."

"This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel and victory for the free world in everything against the evil axis of extreme Islam led by Iran," said Katz in the statement, sent to CBS News by the Israeli foreign ministry.

The Israeli military said in a subsequent statement that Sinwar was killed "in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip" on Wednesday, without providing any further detail. Reports in Israeli media had said for hours before his killing was confirmed that Sinwar was killed by troops conducting a routine patrol near the southern Gaza city of Rafah. According to the unconfirmed reports, troops spotted several armed men and opened fire at them, realizing only after the fact that Sinwar was among the dead.

U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement that "justice has been served to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar," adding that it was his hope the killing would "result in further progress toward the release of all hostages still held in Gaza, as well as to a ceasefire for Palestinians who have suffered under Hamas' grip for far too long."

A photo circulating on social media showed a man resembling the Hamas commander laying dead on a pile of rubble with a gaping head wound, but CBS News could not immediately verify the image.

Who was Yahya Sinwar?
Sinwar, 61, was accused by Israel of orchestrating the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. He had remained in hiding in Gaza since that massacre was carried out.

Sinwar was named the overall leader of Hamas in August, following the assassination of its former political chief Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Iran. Before that he had led the group as its top commander in Gaza since 2017. He was considered a ruthless militant commander with close ties to Hamas' biggest benefactor, Iran.

According to CBS News' partner network BBC News, Sinwar was born in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. His parents had lived in Ashkelon, which is now southern Israel, but they were among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced in the war that followed Israel's founding in 1948.

Okay, this breaking news. It appears that Yayha Sinwar is dead. I only hope that war will slow down and end now if it's true.

Glorification and praise
One notable trend was an endeavor to glorify Sinwar’s death in an attempt to cloak his assassination with an aura of majesty. Many of these attempts focused on the fact that Sinwar was killed in a building and not in a tunnel, a fact used by many to portray him as “fighting in the front with his soldiers and dying during armed clashes with the enemy.” One pro-Hamas commenter named Nawras wrote, “Military quiver, ground engagement, and martyrdom. Just as he wanted. Martyrdom of leader Yahya Sinwar after clashing with enemies of God in Rafah.”

Hafid Derradji, a popular Algerian journalist with almost 3.5 million followers, tweeted: “If the news of the martyrdom of the leader Yahya Sinwar is true, then congratulations to him for the martyrdom that only the honorable attain. If it is not so, then we ask God to prolong his life and grant him martyrdom. We always remember the men’s saying: ‘When a master is absent, a master rises. The resistance is not diminished by the martyr who departs,’ because all of our people are potential martyrs. Welcome to God’s will and destiny.”

One anonymous blogger tweeted a viral post that reached hundreds of thousands of users, adding: “News about the martyrdom of Yahya Sinwar, Allah willing, in a clash with the Israeli army. If this news is true, then it is enough honor for him that he butted heads with the enemy and did not hide in a tunnel as was the case with the deceased Hassan Nasrallah.”

One user added: “Allahu Akbar. If Yahya Sinwar is alive, he will remain the symbolic leader, the hero who fights in the field with the heroic mujahideen (religious fighters). And if he is killed, God will increase his honor with martyrdom, so that he may be killed as a martyr in the trench of battle, not in hotels abroad or hiding in tunnels. He was martyred on the battlefield, defending Islam, land, and honor.”

Disbelief and rejection
Some replied with disbelief to the news of Sinwar’s death, with Hamas-affiliated outlets warning users against believing the news.

Hamas-affiliated outlet Gaza Now posted: “Warning, the news that spoke about the assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is completely false, and the occupation’s publication and circulation of this news is an attempt to collect intelligence information, and it did previously with leader Muhammad al-Deif. Please be careful.”

Another user posted: “Sinwar is alive, God willing, unless Hamas issues a statement about his martyrdom.”

Yet another posted the photo of a person resembling Sinwar and was arrested by the IDF in Gaza several months ago, adding: “Focus, guys. Everyone in the pictures here looks like Sinwar, and it’s natural that all Palestinians look like Sinwar because he’s Palestinian, not Russian. In any case, the resistance has previously said that it is the only one that announces the martyrdom of its leaders. Wait,”

Celebrations and exhilaration
Adhwan Al-Ahmari, a journalist at Independent Arabia, wrote, “Nasrallah is finished, Sinwar followed him after they left Beirut, and Gaza destroyed and caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands and left them homeless. Iran was paying the salaries, and it was the one who gave the orders. There was no destruction in Tehran, but the destructive tools exploited the name of Jerusalem, so the Golan and northern Gaza were lost. Palestine was not liberated, and no state was established.”

Some users referred to older videos circulating of Gazans cursing Sinwar. A blogger named Zahran added, “Our joy at the death of Sinwar is due to religious, humanitarian, and moral motives, thank Allah. I congratulate this bereaved woman (in the video) and millions of other victims. May God curse all the (Muslim) Brotherhood, living and dead.”

Likewise, a Saudi user, showing another video of a woman slamming Sinwar, wrote, “Tell this honorable Palestinian old woman that the head of the treasonous (Muslim) Brotherhood movement Hamas, the Zoroastrian Brotherhood member, the impure Yahya Al-Sinwar, has been annihilated, and the (Iranian) agent has gone to the dustbin of history.”

A third Saudi user named Abdullah wrote, “I ask you by God, O people of Gaza: Tell her, Tell her, Tell her. Give this poor bereaved woman the good news that Allah has taken revenge for her on the rat Yahya Sinwar.”

Amjad Taha, an Emirati peace activist and blogger, added, “Congratulations to humanity on the death of the terrorist, rapist of women, kidnapper of children, and despicable Yahya Sinwar. To hell and a miserable fate.”

Khaled Bin Thani, another Emirati writer, wrote, “I do not rejoice at the killing of anyone, whether Sinwar, Nasrallah, Haniyeh, or others. Rather, I feel sorry for them because they lived deceived by an illusion, like millions of Arab and Muslim people. They are the sons of this environment. The only difference between them and these millions is that they have found the opportunity for leadership and command with the temptations of money and power.”

Likewise, another Saudi user named Abdullatif tweeted: “Our joy today is very great with the death of Sinwar. Congratulations to every Arab and Muslim in the East and West of the Earth.”

Hani Mashour, also from the Gulf, added, “We congratulate the people of Gaza and the beloved people of Palestine on getting rid of Yahya Sinwar.”

Likewise, Lebanese blogger Raymond Hakim wrote, “He for whom Lebanon was destroyed has died.”

Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has “settled its account” with Sinwar but “war is not yet ended.”
Netanyahu said in televised remarks that “light is prevailing over darkness” in the region and that Sinwar’s death is an “important landmark” in the decline of the group.

Hamas will no longer rule Gaza, he said.

Meanwhile, foreign Minister Israel Katz called Sinwar’s killing a “military and moral achievement for the Israeli army,” while Benny Gantz, chairman of Israel’s National Unity Party, congratulated the Israeli military.

“This is an important achievement with a clear message – we will pursue our enemies to the end, anytime and anywhere,” Gantz wrote on the social platform X.

He said the Israeli military “will continue to operate in the Gaza Strip for years to come, and now the series of achievements and the elimination of Sinwar must be taken advantage of to bring about the return of the abductees and the replacement of Hamas’s rule.”

Families of Israeli captives
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum welcomed the Israeli army’s statement, saying Sinwar’s death should help “secure” the release of captives still in Gaza.

The Forum “welcomes Yahya Sinwar’s elimination and urges leveraging this major achievement to secure hostages’ return,” it said in a statement.

United States
US President Joe Biden said Sinwar’s death marks a moment of relief for Israelis while providing the opportunity for a “day after” in Gaza without the group in power.

“Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals. That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us,” Biden said in a statement.

“I will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people,” Biden said.

Vice President Kamala Harris hailed Sinwar’s death and said it’s a chance to “finally end the war in Gaza.”

“Justice has been served,” Harris told reporters. “Sinwar was responsible for the killing of thousands of innocent people, including the victims of October 7 and hostages killed in Gaza.”

“Today I can only hope that the families of the victims of Hamas feel a sense and measure of relief,” she added.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives in the US, Israel’s top military and diplomatic ally, also applauded Israel’s claim that Sinwar has been killed, saying his death had brought “relief” to the people of Israel.

“Sinwar’s life was the embodiment of evil and marked by hatred for all that is good in the world,” Mike Johnson said in a statement. “His death brings hope for all those who seek to live in freedom, and relief to Israelis he has sought to oppress.”

US Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sinwar’s “beliefs and actions have caused so much pain to the Israeli and Palestinian people.”

“I pray that his elimination from the scene will clear a path to urgently and immediately bring home all the hostages – including the seven Americans – and negotiate an end to hostilities that will ensure the security of the Israeli people and provide full humanitarian relief and a new path forward for the people of Gaza.”

Germany
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, in a statement, branded Sinwar “a cruel murderer and a terrorist.”

She said Hamas should “immediately release all the hostages” it seized during its October 7 attack on Israel “and lay down its arms.”

France
President Emmanuel Macron called for the release of “all hostages” held by Hamas in Gaza after Israel said it had killed Sinwar.

“Yahya Sinwar was the main person responsible for the terrorist attacks and barbaric acts of October 7,” Macron posted on X. “France demands the release of all hostages still held by Hamas.”

NATO
NATO chief Mark Rutte told reporters at a Brussels news conference that “if he has died, I personally will not miss him,” referring to Sinwar.

Italy
Foreign [/b]Minister Antonio Tajani said: “It seems that the military leader of Hamas has been killed and I believe that from this point of view Israel may have carried out its self-defence against the Hamas terrorists.”

He added: “I hope that the disappearance of the Hamas leader will lead to a ceasefire in Gaza.”

United Kingdom
John Healey, the United Kingdom’s defence secretary, said: “I, for one, will not mourn the death of a terror leader like Sinwar, someone who was responsible for the terror attack on October the 7th.”

He said Israel’s attack on southern Israel last year “triggered not just the darkest, deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Second World War, but it’s triggered since more than a year of conflict and an intolerable level of civilian Palestinian casualties as well.”

Are we conflaying jewisj peoples and Jewish religion once more .?

What is the evidence, so far, that he is in fact dead? Can we rule out mistaken identity?

The body of Hamas leader and chief terrorist Yahya Sinwar was discovered in the rubble of a building in Gaza. A glance at his dental structure was enough to suggest the body belonged to the notorious terrorist, but DNA testing was required for absolute certainty. So, what exactly is DNA, and how did the police carry out the test?

The end of the terrorist leader came through the identification of genetic material: Sinwar’s body was found among the ruins in Gaza, and photos of his remains clearly showed a dental structure matching his unique set of teeth, which included severe deformities like crookedness and gaps in both the upper and lower jaws. However, a definitive body identification typically relies on one method: comparing hereditary material, DNA.

Shortly after the body was found, parts of it—such as a single hair from his beard—were transferred to the forensic department of the Israel Police. Sinwar had been imprisoned for many years, meaning security forces had records of his fingerprints as well as his genetic material. With advanced technology, it is possible to identify genetic material months or even years after an event.

Identifying Sinwar
In Israel, DNA testing is conducted in two labs: the forensic identification lab of the Israel Police, which examines DNA from living people, and the forensic institute in Abu Kabir, part of the Health Ministry, which analyzes samples from deceased individuals.

Here’s how the meticulous process works: biological samples—such as bloodstains, hair, semen, skin cells, or saliva—are collected from the scene in sterile containers and sent to the lab.

Theoretically, any biological tissue can be tested, but the conditions in which the sample was found are critical. The drier the sample, the more accurate the results. Wet environments can degrade the sample due to bacteria and fungi, whose enzymes break down the DNA.

Next comes the demanding laboratory work: the samples undergo PCR testing, a process that amplifies DNA segments up to billions of times, allowing them to be compared with other genetic samples. Samples from the scene are compared with those taken from relatives. Samples from living individuals are collected via a cheek swab, which gathers cells containing hereditary material.

Since each person’s genetic material is a 50% combination from their mother and 50% from their father, a genetic profile can be created using 15 DNA regions, reflecting the parent’s combination. By comparing the genetic profile of the deceased with their parents, identification is possible. DNA comparisons can also be made with siblings, though this method is less accurate.

DNA analysis typically takes about eight hours, but with new methods, results can be obtained in as little as two hours. Indeed, the Israel Police confirmed Sinwar’s identity approximately three hours after the body was found.

Immediately after the body was identified, Maariv published the opinion of orthodontic experts who confirmed that Sinwar’s dental structure matched that in the photos of the body. According to these experts, there were several unique characteristics matching the jaw structure of both the body and Sinwar. Teeth are classified according to their unique numbers. According to the experts, tooth number 31 was significantly tilted, and there was a gap, known as a “diastema,” between teeth 31 and 32. A similar gap was found between teeth 11 and 21. Additionally, tooth number 21 displayed a characteristic fracture known as a “nutcracker” fracture. Moreover, tooth number 41 was higher than the bite plane.

A drone fired from Lebanon that exploded in the central seaside town of Caesarea early on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private home, his office said. The premier and his wife were not present and no injuries were reported.

The short statement from Netanyahu’s office came after the IDF said that “a building had been hit” in the upscale town famous for its swanky villas and Roman ruins and amphitheater.

It was not immediately clear if the home suffered any damage.

The IDF said the drone was one of three launched from Lebanon, the other two were shot down.

The military said it was investigating the incident that apparently saw several failures of Israel’s warning system.

No warning sirens were sounded in Caesarea ahead of the drone impact and explosion. Footage posted to social media appeared to show attack helicopters in the air that were apparently hunting the drone further to the north.

However, sirens did sound in Glilot north of Tel Aviv, which houses a major IDF intelligence base and the Mossad headquarters. Those sirens were not accompanied by warnings on the Home Front Command’s app or other platforms.

The drones and the interceptions also triggered warning sirens down Israel’s coast in the minutes ahead of the impact.

In a pair of videos posted in Hebrew and English to social media after his home in Caesarea was targeted, Netanyahu insisted that “nothing will deter” him, and that Israel is “going to win this war.”

The rare video statements, released on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, did not directly mention the drone attack.

In addition to the drone attacks, Hezbollah also fired rockets at towns and cities across northern Israel overnight Friday and on Saturday morning.

The attack on Netanyahu’s home, the most high-profile target targeted by the terror group since the start of the fighting, came a day after it said it was entering a new phase in its fight against Israeli troops, adding that it had introduced new weapons over the past few days. A statement from the group’s operations room said Hezbollah’s fighters had used new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones for the first time.

It said its fighters were working according to “plans prepared in advance” to battle invading Israeli troops in several parts of south Lebanon.

Israel’s military chief said Friday that at least 1,500 Hezbollah operatives are believed to have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict there, while adding that the numbers could be higher.

“We have taken out their entire command layer,” IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi told commanders of the Golani Brigade, referring to airstrikes that killed terror leader Hassan Nasrallah and many other top leaders. “And you are taking out the local command structure.”

Hezbollah “continues to shrink and shrink,” he said.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and seen internationally as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, expressed its condolences Friday on the “martyrdom” of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, calling him a “great national leader” and urging Palestinian national unity.

Some of the PLO’s constituent factions also expressed condolences for the terror chief’s demise, including Abbas’s secularist Fatah party, which said Israel’s “killing and terrorism will not succeed in breaking the will of our people.”

Among the condolences quoted by WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, were messages from the Palestinian National Initiative and the Palestinian Democratic Union, left-wing members of the PLO which, like Fatah, have expressed opposition to armed struggle against Israel.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held talks on Friday with representatives of Hamas and expressed condolences over the death of Sinwar, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

During the meeting, Fidan said that Turkey will “use all diplomatic means to mobilize the international community against the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” the ministry said.

US President Joe Biden said Friday that he has a good understanding of how and when Israel plans to respond to Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack.

Pressed by reporters during a visit to Germany, Biden declined to share any details regarding Israel’s planned response to the October 1 attack missile attack, though his remarks appeared to mark the first time the US indicated it has reached an understanding with Israel on the nature of the retaliation.

Asked by reporters about the prospects of “Middle East peace,” Biden said he sees an “opportunity…that we can probably deal with Israel and Iran in a way that ends the conflict for a while… stops the back and forth.”

“We think that there’s a possibility of working for a ceasefire in Lebanon. It’s going to be harder in Gaza, but we agree that there has to be an outcome, what happens in the day after,” the president added, without elaborating why he thought this way.

According to reports this week, Israel has decided on the targets it could potentially strike in Iran.

Channel 12 said the military presented a list of targets to Netanyahu and Gallant as it finalizes preparations, which include “sensitive coordination” with other countries in the region.

A report by the Kan public broadcaster said “the political echelon” had decided on the targets, while ABC News quoted an Israeli source as saying Netanyahu had approved a set of targets.

“The targets are clear. Now it’s a matter of time,” an Israeli source told Kan.

The broadcaster also said that Israel had described its general attack plans to the US but had yet to give an update on specific targets, while quoting a source familiar with the matter acknowledging “the targets could also change at the 11th hour.”

On the one hand, most Westerners are comfortable with the notion of Hezbollah being a "Terrorist Organization", but had this succeeded, many of those proudly civilized Westerners would have loudly celebrated.

Israeli strikes in northern Gaza killed scores of people this weekend, according to local officials, with the bloodshed in the enclave and continued attacks in Lebanon dimming hopes that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar might breathe new life into cease-fire talks that have been stalled for months.

Meanwhile, a drone strike launched Saturday toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in the town of Caesarea, north of Tel Aviv, threatened to further inflame hostilities in the region as Israel plans an attack on Iran in response to strikes launched over the assassinations of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.

In an initial assessment, the Israel Defense Forces said the drone, which struck a nearby building, was launched from Lebanon. Netanyahu blamed “Iran’s proxy Hezbollah” on X for the attack, which he described as an assassination attempt, saying any actors who try to harm other citizens of Israel “will pay a heavy price.”

The Israeli security Cabinet was expected to meet Sunday afternoon to discuss plans for a strike on Iran, an Israeli official told NBC News.

Even as Israel appeared to pin blame for the attack on Iran, Iran’s mission to the United Nations denied involvement, saying “the action in question has been carried out by Hezbollah in Lebanon.” As of early Sunday, Hezbollah had not claimed responsibility for the failed attack.

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi further suggested that Iran was not seeking war. “For us, America is an ally of the Zionists,” he said, referring to Israel, “and if a major war breaks out in the region, America will be dragged into it, which is something we do not want.”

In northern Gaza, where Israel had sent additional troops Friday after it renewed widespread operations this month, the local Health Ministry said Sunday that at least 87 people were killed in overnight Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Beit Lahia. More than 40 others were injured. The ministry suggested the death toll could grow, with some still missing under the rubble.

The IDF disputed an initial death toll of at least 73 people issued by Gaza’s government media office Saturday as “exaggerated,” saying it did not align with the information it held or with “the precise munitions used and the accuracy of the strike” on what it said was a Hamas target. Still, it noted that the “area in question” was “an active war zone” and did not provide an alternative estimate for the strikes’ death toll.

Asked by NBC News to expand on exactly what information it has about the death toll related to its strikes, the IDF said it would not offer further comment. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the updated death toll provided by Gaza’s Health Ministry.

In a separate statement early Sunday, the IDF said its air force had struck about 175 targets across Gaza and Lebanon “over the past day” alone.

Videos and photos emerging out of northern Gaza showed devastating scenes. NBC News’ crew on the ground captured people being rushed to a hospital after a strike in the Jabalia refugee camp, about 1.5 miles from Beit Lahia. Children were among the injured. Some appeared shell-shocked, lying wide-eyed and still on blood-streaked hospital beds attached to IV drips and wrapped in bandages.

Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense agency, said at least five people were killed in that strike, including a baby who was less 3 months old. On the cement floor of the hospital, the NBC News crew saw what appeared to be the small form of an infant wrapped in a white shroud.

Basal said the area had fallen under “intense bombing,” and he accused Israeli forces of “targeting homes in a very intense way.”

The scene of carnage in northern Lebanon showed heartbreaking snippets of everyday family life.

A dead baby inside a destroyed pickup truck; a child’s severed arm buried in nearby rubble; toddler clothing and books shredded; flies swarming as officials collected body parts, some too small for body bags ending up in clear ziplock bags.

Pervading everything, the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh mixed with concrete dust at the scene where 23 people including two children were killed, according to local officials.

This was the aftermath of an airstrike Monday on the Lebanese Christian village of Aitou that Israel said had targeted a position held by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.

Until then, this region of hilly olive groves and winding, sea-view roads had been a relative haven, one that felt far away from the war dominating Beirut and the country’s south.

Just last week, the area “was calm; everything was quiet,” Illy Edwan told NBC News as he surveyed the wreckage of his villa, which was reduced to rubble in the blast, its insulation and inner structure ripped to pieces, an adjacent vehicle twisted open like a burnt pretzel.

“My house used to be three-story, but look at it today,” he added.

Surrounding homes had glass and twisted metal strewn across their patios. Some nearby olive trees, laden with fruit ahead of the upcoming harvest, were also destroyed, their green leaves covered in gray soot from the explosion.

Hezbollah doesn’t usually have a presence here. But Edwan, who was not at home at the time of the bombing, said an official from the group had been visiting houses donating money to displaced people, some of whom had fled from southern Lebanon to escape the Israeli invasion, and asking about their concerns.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had struck “a target belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in northern Lebanon,” and that the reports of civilian casualties were “under review” and “being examined.”

Calling for “a prompt, independent and thorough investigation,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said Tuesday that his organization had “real concerns” about the strike with respect to the “laws of war and principles of distinction, proportion and proportionality.”

Lebanese people are “fleeing with almost nothing,” said Rema Jamous Imseis, Middle East director of the U.N.’s refugee office, adding that they were “being forced out into the open, they’re sleeping under the skies as they try to find their way towards safety and support.”

Some are choosing an unlikely route.

The port of Tripoli, 10 miles from Aitou, isn’t known for its beauty, much less its accommodations for civilian passengers. The grimy industrial hub is soundtracked by the banging of heavy machinery and creaking 40-foot containers being unloaded from ships docked here.

Still, hundreds of people are now turning to the city as one of the only ways to escape their homeland. Since Sept. 20, this previously passengerless terminal has launched seven ships to the southern Turkish port of Mersin, each vessel carrying up to 300 passengers paying $350 a head.

“People are scared, so they leave the airports and come to us, to the ships here,” said Mohamed Youssef, 57, the owner of a ship. “Everyone is exhausted, and the situation is very complicated,” he added. “So whoever can afford it travels. They travel however they can. If they can’t, they will remain in Lebanon.”

t is a diverse exodus, evidenced by dusty vehicles from the 1990s alongside shiny Range Rovers and Porsches. While some wore smiles while completing their bureaucratic stamp work, for others the reality of their impending journey began to set in.

U.S. officials are investigating the apparent leak of two top-secret U.S. documents that show American spy agencies tracking possible Israeli preparations for conducting an attack on Iran, three U.S. officials said.

The region has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to an Iranian missile barrage launched on Oct. 1, which Iran said was in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the assassination of its allies, including Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah’s powerful leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut.

Two U.S. officials said that the leaked documents appear to be authentic. The damage to national security appears to be limited in scope though the assessment is still ongoing, according to a U.S. official.

U.S. intelligence agencies declined to comment on the documents, which were posted on the social media app Telegram on Friday.

Both documents have markings on them that say they are “Top Secret.” The heading on one of the documents reads, “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran and Conducts a Second Large-Force Employment Exercise 15-16 October 2024.”

The second document is labeled “National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency,” the name of the American spy agency that specializes in analyzing satellite imagery and other sources of intelligence.

The heading on the document states, “Israeli Defense Forces Continued Key Munitions Preparations and Covert UAV Activity Almost Certainly for a Strike on Iran, 16 October 2024,” referring to unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.

The text of the documents says, “We cannot definitively predict the scale and scope of a strike on Iran, and such a strike can occur with no further GEOINT warning.”

It also states that Israel appears to have dispersed its medium-range ballistic missiles, or MRBMs, as a defensive measure to protect them from Iranian attack and that there are no indications that Israel plans to carry out a nuclear attack on Iran.

“MRBM dispersal is almost certainly defensive,” the document says. “We have not observed indications that Israel intends to use a nuclear weapon.”

The Israeli military hit bank branches across Lebanon overnight to target Hezbollah‘s finances, expanding its offensive in an assault that sparked panic as the United States launched a new push for a diplomatic solution to the intensifying regional conflict.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to travel to the Middle East on Monday for a trip that will focus on talks to end the U.S. ally’s conflict with Iran-backed militant groups in Lebanon and Gaza after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — and amid mounting outrage over Israel's deadly renewed assault on the north of the Palestinian enclave, where the United Nations said life had been made "impossible.

But it also comes as Israel prepares an attack against Iran itself.

An advanced anti-missile system sent by the U.S. was now in place in Israel, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said early Monday, boosting its defenses while the U.S. was investigating an apparent leak of top secret documents showing American spy agencies tracking possible Israeli preparations for the strike.

Israel targets bank branches across Lebanon
Hundreds of residents of Lebanon's capital and surrounding suburbs were forced to suddenly flee their homes Sunday night after the Israel Defense Forces issued a string of evacuation orders, with blasts ringing out shortly afterward.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari warned the evacuation orders for residents of Beirut and other areas of Lebanon were ahead of strikes targeting buildings he said were being "used to finance Hezbollah's terror activities."

Hagari did not name the institutions being targeted, but over the course of the night a string of branches belonging to the Al-Qard Al-Hassan bank were hit in a volley of airstrikes. The U.S. and Israel have linked the bank to the Iran-backed militant and political group.

An NBC News crew in Beirut heard the blasts ring out as Lebanese national media reported strikes on bank branches in the city's southern suburbs. Video shared on social media and geolocated by NBC News showed buildings on fire and collapsing after apparent airstrikes.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis described "widespread panic" across the country after the evacuation orders. In a post on X on Sunday, she said there was only a "brief window to escape to safety" before "intense blasts" hit.

"I can’t describe the panic," Beirut resident Wafaa Ezeldinne told NBC News after fleeing her home before returning hours later. "Everybody was on the streets. Even displaced people left locations that were close to Al-Qard Al-Hassan. Streets at night were jammed with cars, people."

Ranim Halawani, who works with the Development for People and Nature Association, or DPNA, in the coastal town of Saida, told NBC News that she and others also fled their homes after hearing about the evacuation orders. In the end, she said, "we didn’t have an attack in Saida, but people were afraid and they left." She said many had since returned to their homes.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan, or AQAH, has been under U.S. sanctions since 2007, with the Treasury Department describing the bank as being used by Hezbollah "as a cover to manage the terrorist group's financial activities" and to "gain access to the international financial system."

In the years since, Treasury officials have continued to accuse Hezbollah of using the bank to "abuse the Lebanese financial sector and drain Lebanon's financial resources at an already dire time" in a country grappling with protracted economic and political crises.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which translates to "the good loan," has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, according to local media, with many based in the Shiite-majority southern suburbs of Beirut and at least some appearing to have been connected to residential buildings.

Israel's strikes on the bank marked an expansion of its war against Hezbollah beyond what the IDF has described as the targeting of the group's military sites.

The IDF said Monday that Israeli soldiers also continued to launch ground raids into southern Lebanon and had dismantled "large quantities of Hezbollah's weapons," while also killing Hezbollah members, including "tactical-level commanders."

At least 2,464 people, including 127 children, have been killed in Lebanon since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began to escalate last year following Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack, according to the Lebanese health ministry, while an estimated 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes.

In an interview with Al Arabiya on Monday, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he believed there would be "no solution except through diplomacy" to bring fighting in the region to an end but that he'd had no direct contact with Hezbollah since the middle of last month.

Israeli military making life 'impossible' in northern Gaza, U.N. says
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued a deadly offensive in northern Gaza, where dozens of people were killed over the weekend in Israeli airstrikes in the areas of Beit Lahia and the nearby Jabalia refugee camp, according to local health officials.

The IDF said Monday that troops had killed militants and continued to dismantle militant infrastructure and tunnel shafts in the area of the Jabalia refugee camp over the past day. The military said troops were also operating across southern and central Gaza.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said in a statement that it was "increasingly concerned that the manner in which the Israeli military is conducting hostilities in north Gaza" may be "causing the destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza’s northernmost governate through death and displacement."

It said this appeared to be the case particularly in areas including Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun.

Over the past two weeks, it said, "the Israeli military has taken measures that make life in north Gaza impossible for Palestinians while repeatedly ordering the displacement of the entire governorate."