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Israel has put a proposal on the table that would end fighting in the Gaza Strip and give the head of Hamas safe passage out of the enclave in exchange for the immediate release of all hostages held in Gaza, the demilitarization of the Strip and the establishment of an alternative governing power there, Kan news reported Thursday.

An Israeli official confirmed the outlines of the report to The Times of Israel and said Gal Hirsch, the government point man on the hostages, had presented the plan to American officials, who were expected to pass it on to unspecified Arab officials.

Hirsch told families of hostages that the proposal had been presented last week in a meeting with US officials from the White House and State Department, Kan said.

But Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad swiftly rejected the offer, telling Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that “the proposal for Sinwar’s exit is ridiculous and indicates the negotiating bankruptcy of the occupation.”

It “confirms the occupation’s denial of what happened throughout eight months of negotiations. Negotiations are stuck due to the intransigence of the Israeli position,” Hamad said.

According to Kan, all 101 hostages still held in the Strip would be returned at once and Israel would end the war under the proposal, which eschews the staged hostage release and incremental troop withdrawal that had been under discussion until now.

Israel would also release an unspecified number of Palestinian inmates from Israeli prison, and allow Sinwar — widely believed to be the mastermind behind the October 7 attack — to leave the Strip along with any other Gazans who wish to leave with him.

No further details were given.

An unnamed official quoted by Kan described the plan as a secondary track alongside the main talks led by Israeli intelligence chiefs David Barnea and Ronen Bar via mediation by the US, Egypt and Qatar.

Relatives of hostages swiftly came out in favor of the reported proposal, and called on the government to back it publicly.

The unnamed official told Kan: “In light of the difficulties in the negotiations and the ticking clock on the lives of the hostages, we want like to propose a secondary plan that would shorten the stages and allow for a faster deal.

“This will happen if Sinwar leaves [Gaza] and brings about an end to the war. This will allow us to to meet the goals of the war, and for the leadership of Hamas in Gaza to leave to a safe place.”

An official in Netanyahu’s office insisted Thursday that the report was “nothing new.”

“The prime minister spoke about this in [his speech to] Congress. He said that the war could end now if Sinwar is exiled, we get the hostages, Hamas is not in power, and there is demilitarization and deradicalization. This means victory, and the end of the war,” the official said.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid confirmed the notion was brought up in talks he held in Washington with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others earlier this week.

“There is a sense, a building realization, among many people, including myself, that the war, at the end of the day, is no longer serving Israel’s interests,” he told the broadcaster.

“And so, if we are ending the war because it is in our interest, we should reach an all-encompassing deal to bring home all the hostages in one go, and not have stages.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah conceded on Thursday that the terror group had suffered a “major and unprecedented” blow this week when thousands of its communications devices suddenly exploded, but vowed that the Lebanon-based terror organization would recover and not lay off its attacks on Israel after months of cross-border fire.

In a televised public address, Nasrallah blamed Israel for the pager and walkie-talkie attacks of Tuesday and Wednesday, which he said constituted “an unprecedented massacre.”

“There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a major security and military blow that is unprecedented in the history of the resistance and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon,” Nasrallah said in his address, filmed at an undisclosed location.

“This type of killing, targeting and crime may be unprecedented in the world,” he said, appearing in front of a featureless red background in his customary black turban.

The attacks “crossed all red lines”, he said. “The enemy went beyond all controls, laws and morals,” he said, adding the attacks “could be considered war crimes or a declaration of war.”

An Israeli report Wednesday said Jerusalem believes the death toll to be higher than reported, with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit hit hard by the attacks.

Claiming that the attacks had been meant to kill thousands, Nasrallah asserted that “the Israeli effort has largely been thwarted.”

He added that the group would probe how the attacks had happened.

Videos posted to social media showed Israeli fighter jets flying low over Beirut and breaking the sound barrier as Nasrallah spoke from an undisclosed location

Israel began moving more troops to its border with Lebanon on Wednesday as a precautionary measure, according to Israeli officials. Israel Defense Forces chief Herzi Halevi held an assessment and approved battle plans for the northern front on Thursday, a short while before Nasrallah’s speech began.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah actually hoped IDF troops would enter southern Lebanon because “what they see as a threat we see as an opportunity.”

He said Hezbollah was using all means to seek out Israeli soldiers and tanks, and this task would be easier “if they come out toward us. Welcome.”

Nasrallah also derided an idea recently put forward by IDF Northern Command head Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin of creating a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, calling the commander an “imbecile.”

“We will not fall, and we will come out stronger. We are preparing to face even worse attacks,” Nasrallah said.

In terms of retaliation, he vowed, “There will be a just punishment. I will not say when, where or how. You will know when the time comes.”

“On Tuesday, Israel intended to kill 4,000 people in one minute by detonating the pagers. Many of them were civilians,” Nasrallah said, though the attacks appeared to have hit only devices used by Hezbollah operatives. “The following day, 1,000 more in one minute. In two minutes, Israel intended to kill 5,000.”

“We have suffered a heavy blow. This is war, this is conflict. We know the enemy, not only Israel, but also the US and NATO, has technological superiority,” he said.

The Shiite terror leader also referenced the upcoming anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught in southern Israel. “Shortly, we will celebrate the one-year anniversary of the blessed Al-Aqsa flood operation,” he said.

“There is no doubt that Hezbollah, since it joined the fight, has registered impressive achievements in the north of Israel,” he said, claiming that the “criminal” attacks against Hezbollah’s portable devices were conducted by Israel to cover up its incapacity to achieve a military breakthrough against Hezbollah in the north, where it is “embroiled in a war of attrition.”

“We say to [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant and the Israeli people: We will not stop our attacks as long as the enemy continues its war in Gaza.”

Nasrallah specifically vowed that the terror group would prevent Israel from realizing its recently added war objective of returning Israeli citizens displaced from northern communities near the Lebanon border to their homes.

“The goal of the resistance is to prevent the enemy from realizing its goals. Its latest objective is to return settlers to their homes in the north of occupied Palestine. Let me tell the Israeli government, the Israeli army and the Israeli people: You will not manage. I tell Prime Minister Netanyahu: You can do what you want, you will not manage,” he said.

“The only solution is to halt the aggression against the people of Gaza. No military escalation, no killings, no total war will return your settlers to the border area. You know it.”

Israel says it killed a top Hezbollah official in a “targeted strike” on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Friday after Hezbollah unleashed an intense barrage of fire across the border following a wave of stunning attacks targeting the group's communication devices.

The IDF claimed later on Friday it killed Ibrahim Aqil in the attack, who the Israeli military described as "the head of the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s operations." The attack also killed 12 people and injured 66 others, according to the Lebanese National News Agency.

The prospect of an all-out war between the U.S. ally and the Iran-backed militant and political group appeared closer than ever, leaving the Middle East on edge as Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed revenge and Israel moved ahead with the "new phase" it said the conflict had entered

Most of those injured were civilians, Lebanon’s health minister said Friday.

The blasts sowed fear and chaos across the nation, overwhelming hospitals and leaving people fearful of using electronic devices.

IDF strikes Beirut, Hezbollah strikes northern Israel
The Israeli military said Friday it had “conducted a targeted strike in Beirut” and later claimed to have eliminated Ibrahim Aqil in the attack.

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the strike also killed about 10 Hezbollah commanders, who he said are responsible for "actions against Israel on a daily basis."

Ten people were killed and over 60 were injured in the strike on a southern suburb of Beirut, according to the Lebanese National News Agency. It's not clear how many of the victims are civilians at this time.

The Lebanese National News Agency also reported that an Israeli warplane launched two missiles, targeting an apartment in the Al-Jamous area in the southern suburb of the capital.

NBC News could not verify those details.

Earlier the IDF had struck southern Lebanon, where its air force hit about 100 Hezbollah launchers and other infrastructure sites late Thursday it said were set to be fired at Israeli territory — one of the heaviest barrages on the area since the two sides began exchanging regular fire in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks and Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah said it responded by bombing an air defense base and military barracks in northern Israel early Friday. The IDF said approximately 140 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with some successfully intercepted.

A former senior Israeli security official told NBC News that the devices were detonated not as part of a strategic decision but because the Israeli military was trying to act while it was still possible to use the explosives.

“It became a kind of use-it-or-lose-it situation,” the former official said. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks or directly commented on them.

The escalation was met with growing calls for restraint, with the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon urging Friday “all actors to immediately de-escalate.”

The U.N. Security Council is due to meet later Friday over the blasts.

Israeli soldiers can be seen throwing apparently lifeless bodies from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank, videos geolocated by NBC News show — an incident the Israeli military said Friday was under review and did not align with its values.

The videos first emerged on social media Thursday and show Israeli soldiers on a rooftop near the town of Qabatiya, west of Jenin, in the north of the West Bank.

In one of the videos, a man in uniform can be seen pushing a body and kicking it several times until it falls off the rooftop and out of view, before all three walk away.

Another video showing more of the incident from a different angle shows three men throwing three bodies from the rooftop, one by one.

NBC News could not verify when the videos were shot. It’s not clear who the dead in the videos were or how they died.

The Associated Press news agency reported that one of its journalists at the scene in Qabatiya witnessed three soldiers push three bodies off the roofs of adjacent multistory buildings.

“This is a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement to NBC News. “The incident is under review.”

Hamas accused Israel in a statement Thursday of throwing the “bodies of martyrs from the roofs of houses” in Qabatiya. Palestinian officials called the incident “a new war crime” Friday.

Jenin Gov. Kamal Abu al-Rub told the Reuters news agency that six Palestinians were killed and 18 others injured by Israeli forces during a military raid in Qabatiya on Thursday. Al-Rub told the news agency that Israeli forces withdrew from Qabatiya after destroying infrastructure in the area.

The Geneva Conventions call for the bodies of the dead in conflicts, including combatants, to be treated with respect.

Each of the devices that exploded on their Hezbollah owners across Lebanon on Tuesday, injuring thousands of the terror group’s operatives, was individually detonated, with the attackers knowing who was being targeted, their location, and whether others were in close proximity, according to a Saturday evening television report.

In a lengthy report quoting Israeli and foreign sources, Channel 12 News said that those behind the attacks were determined to ensure that only the person carrying the pager would be hurt by the blast.

“Each pager had its own arrangements. That’s how it was possible to control who was hit and who wasn’t,” the report quoted an unnamed foreign security source saying.

“They knew who he was with and where he was, so that the vegetable seller in the supermarket would not be hurt” when a pager exploded on a man next to him, the source said, referring to footage from the pager explosions in which a man was apparently blown up by his pager next to a fruit and vegetable stand.

The Channel 12 report added several other new details to what had so far been uncovered regarding the unprecedented attack, for which Israel has not officially taken responsibility.

Quoting an unnamed foreign security source, the report said that “tens of thousands of pagers” were produced and manufactured with the knowledge that they would be checked carefully by the client, Hezbollah.

Interviewed in the report, Ronen Bergman, an investigative reporter for The New York Times and Yedioth Ahronoth, explained that the pagers therefore had to work properly and betray no indication that they had been primed with explosives. Their appearance and weight had to be unchanged, and they needed to be able to pass detection by sniffer dogs.

Bergman said that the whole scheme was dreamed up by a brilliant female intelligence operative, aged less than 30, somewhere in the Middle East.

Whoever was responsible, the report said, decided to set up a factory to build the devices from scratch — so that “it won’t be a device that we will tamper with; it will be a device that we will produce.” The New York Times came to the same conclusion in a report on Thursday.

The ability to supply the device to Hezbollah was helped by the fact that the terror group is not able to make purchases on the open market, because of suppliers’ fears of sanctions from the United States, and therefore must routinely work with intermediary suppliers.

Bergman also said that the operation began during a previous government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under the direction of former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen.

He said that when, on October 10, the Israel Defense Forces and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had pressed for Israel to attack Hezbollah, rather than focus initially on Hamas after its October 7 invasion and massacre, “it is reasonable to assume” that buttons detonating these devices would have been pressed, and very heavy air strikes on Hezbollah would have followed.

The Channel 12 report, which was approved by the Israeli military censor, said that Hezbollah bought more pagers after its military chief Fuad Shukr was killed in a targeted IDF strike in Beirut in July, and thereafter used pagers even more widely because of its growing wariness about using mobile phones. Hezbollah, the report said, long assumed that Israel would be a threat to its cellphone communications in the event of a major escalation, and thus widely integrated the use of pagers.

While Channel 12 repeated the widely reported assessment that the pagers were detonated this week because of a fear that the Trojan Horse devices were about to be exposed by Hezbollah, it also quoted a foreign security source saying this was not the case, and that Israel decided it needed to step up its actions against Hezbollah.

Amos Yadlin, a former IDF intelligence chief, said more broadly that Israel’s goal is to cause Nasrallah to realize that his attacks on the north “are costing him more than he’s gaining,” including in terms of support within Lebanon.

The report said it was regarded as “preferable” that the large number of Hezbollah fighters whose devices exploded be badly injured rather than killed, in part because of the immense strain this placed on health services in Lebanon, and by extension the raised domestic pressure on Hezbollah.

A foreign security source noted that the detonating pagers operation was by no means considered a strategic attack and that Israel has much more dramatic capabilities.

The source added that Israel has spent years developing these far more extensive capabilities for use against Hezbollah and Iran, but not as regards to Hamas — apparently because it underestimated the danger posed by the Palestinian terror group — and that this partly explains the failure to prevent the October 7 catastrophe. The capabilities used thus far in Lebanon are “relatively low-level,” the source said.

After the report aired, Eyal Hulata, a former National Security Adviser, told Channel 12 that thousands of Israelis had been working for years to create capabilities to ensure security for Israel.

“There are more capabilities like these,” he says, referencing the recent events in Lebanon. Hulata, who is also a former head of the Mossad’s technological branch, said that it was important that Israelis know this, given the collapse of public faith in the security establishment after the failure to prevent Hamas’s brutal October 7 massacre.

Hulata echoed IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who warned during a visit to the Northern Command on Wednesday that Israel has “many more capabilities” that have not been used yet in the fight against Hezbollah.

We are very determined to create the security conditions that will bring the residents [of the north] back to their homes, to the towns, with a high level of security, and we are ready to do whatever is required to enable this,” Halevi said in a video released by the IDF.

“The rule is that every time we reach a certain stage, we have already prepared to move ahead forcefully with the next two steps. At each stage, the cost for Hezbollah should be high,” he added.

Israeli troops raided Al Jazeera’s offices in the West Bank early on Sunday and ordered the station to shut down for 45 days.

Al Jazeera reported that “heavily armed and masked Israeli soldiers forcefully entered” the network’s offices in Ramallah and handed the West Bank bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, the closure order, which accused the station of “incitement to and support of terrorism.”

The Qatar-owned channel aired footage of the Israeli troops storming the office.

“Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth,” al-Omari said, Al Jazeera reported.

Israel’s Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi posted about the raid on social media, calling Al Jazeera “the mouthpiece of Hamas and Hezbollah.”
“We will continue to fight enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters,” Karhi said.

U.S. officials are increasingly skeptical of their ability to avert all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, but insist that a diplomatic path remains viable and the only path toward de-escalation.

The current mood in Washington can seemingly be attributed to two issues: the stagnation of the Gaza cease-fire talks, which the Americans have always framed as the best and perhaps only path out of full-on war; and the rapidly escalating situation since last week's pager explosions throughout Lebanon.

Interestingly, U.S. officials now appear to be pivoting. Rather than linking the Israel-Lebanon border conflict to Gaza, they are attempting to downplay the correlation between the two by stressing that the Hezbollah and Hamas conflicts are on two separate tracks.

The shift comes as the White House is increasingly alarmed that the tipping point may be fast approaching – despite both sides managing to lower the flames during previous rounds of fighting that nearly boiled over.

"The risk of escalation is real; it has been since October 7," U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on the sidelines of the Quad summit in Delaware on Saturday. "There are moments where it is more acute than others. I think we are in one of those moments where it is more acute."

Despite growing concern, the Americans are not abandoning the diplomatic route. "We actually believe there is also a distinct avenue to getting to a cessation of hostilities and a durable solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel secure, and we're going to do everything we can to bring that about," Sullivan said.

It should also be noted that despite the lack of U.S. involvement in the escalation, coupled with the absence of Israel giving the U.S. advanced notice regarding specific strikes – including Friday's, which killed more than a dozen senior Hezbollah commanders, including Ibrahim Aqil in southern Beirut – the Biden administration is not voicing criticism of Israel's actions.

"Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed today, was responsible for the Beirut embassy bombing 40 years ago," top U.S. Mideast adviser Brett McGurk said at the Israeli American Council's national summit hours after the strike. "Nobody sheds a tear for him.

"That said, we have disagreements with the Israelis on tactics and how you measure escalation risk. It's something we speak with them about every single day," McGurk added, describing it as "a very concerning situation."

'Reducing tensions'
One area where there is no disagreement, for now, is with Israel's apparent approach of seeking de-escalation through escalation. Senior U.S. officials have, however, spent the weekend in direct contact with their Israeli counterparts stressing that this calibration could rapidly spin out and do more harm than good.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin additionally spoke with his Saudi counterpart Khalid bin Salman on Saturday about "deterring aggression and reducing tensions across the region," according to the Pentagon.

"We do not think a war in Lebanon is the way to achieve the objective to return people to their homes. We also fully stand with Israel in their defense of their people and their territory against Hezbollah," McGurk said at the Israeli American Council.

Further illustrating the concern, the U.S. State Department on Saturday renewed its level-four warning to Americans to avoid travel to Lebanon and urging them to depart while commercial options remain available.

Notwithstanding the escalating Israel-Hezbollah conflict, combined with the stalled cease-fire talks in Gaza, U.S. officials are continuing to work on both tracks at the instruction of U.S. President Joe Biden.

"We're continuing to try to do, and tried from the beginning, to make sure both people in northern Israel, as well as southern Lebanon, are able to go back to their homes. And go back safely," Biden said on Friday. "The secretary of state, the secretary of defense, our whole team is working with the intelligence community, trying to get that done.

"We're going to keep at it until we get it done," he added, acknowledging that "we've got a way to go."

The U.S. president took a similar tone concerning the Gaza cease-fire talks: "If I ever say it's not realistic, then I might as well leave. A lot of things don't look realistic until we get them done. We have to keep at it."

Those comments came shortly after a Wall Street Journal report claimed that U.S. officials have given up on prospects for a Gaza cease-fire before the conclusion of Biden's presidency and the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House.

"Nobody's giving up hope. Nobody's going to stop working toward this," said U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday. "We're still going to keep the shoulders to the wheel. We're still going to keep trying on this. The president has directed his team to continue to try to find a way to see if we can get a proposal that both sides will agree to."

However, Sullivan acknowledged on Saturday that the Americans are "not at a point right now where we're prepared to put something on the table" in regard to Gaza. "We're continuing to work with Qatar and Egypt. They're talking to Hamas. We're talking to Israel. The Qataris and Egyptians are talking to Israel. And when we feel ready to take another step, we'll take another step."

Israel and the Hezbollah militant group exchanged heavy fire across Lebanon’s border on Sunday, fueling fears of a wider conflict in the region as the monthslong war in Gaza continues to rage.

“Dozens of rockets hit Israel which destroyed homes, cars and communities,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said on X.

The IDF said Hezbollah launched roughly 150 rockets, cruise missiles and drones at Israel. While many were intercepted by Israeli air defenses, “there were a small number of cases of hits and interception debris falling on” Israeli territory, it said.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said on X that three people were wounded by shrapnel in the barrage. Another rescue service, United Hatzalah, said it treated 20 people who were injured while heading for shelter.

Later, the IDF said its fighter jets had “struck dozens of Hezbollah terror targets, including launchers and military structures in dozens of areas in southern Lebanon.”

Hezbollah meanwhile, said it had launched dozens of rockets as part of its initial response to Friday’s airstrike on a densely populated suburb of Beirut that killed 45 people including senior leaders of the group. That attack followed the coordinated detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members across Lebanon.

Speaking Sunday at the funeral procession for senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil, who was killed in Friday’s strike, Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, said that the group would not disclose how it would respond to the attack but that “we have entered a new phase defined by an open reckoning.”

Separately, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iraqi militias backed by Iran, said it had also launched drones at Israel on Sunday.

In a video statement Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his military had “inflicted on Hezbollah a sequence of blows that they did not imagine.”

Reiterating his government’s intention to return displaced residents in northern Israel, he said, “No country can tolerate shooting at its residents, shooting at its cities — and we, the state of Israel, will not tolerate it either. We will do everything necessary to restore security.”

The United Nations warned that the region was “on the brink of an imminent catastrophe.” In a statement posted on X, the United Nations’ special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis, said “it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin "reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself" in a call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement.

During a visit to the IDF’s Northern Command, Gallant said the events of the past week were "the most difficult in the history of Hezbollah’s existence."

"We will continue to use all the means at our disposal to achieve our goal — ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes,” he said Sunday.

Further south in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s air force killed seven people wounded several others in a strike on a compound that housed a former school, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Saber Basal said in a Telegram post Sunday. He added that the compound housed “hundreds of displaced people.”

The IDF said in a statement that Hamas was operating from the compound and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.”

The Israel Defense Forces on Monday morning said it launched “widespread” waves of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, as it warned civilians to swiftly move away from homes used by the Iran-backed terror group to store weapons.

The military said it had identified Hezbollah operatives preparing to carry out rocket attacks on Israel.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attended an assessment on the readiness of the home front amid widening fighting, saying, “Ahead of us are days when the public will have to show composure, discipline, and full obedience” to instructions by the Home Front Command.

As of 12:30 a.m., the Israeli Air Force had struck more than 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the IDF said. According to the military, dozens of fighter jets from all of the IAF’s squadrons participated in the strikes.

The official Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) said that the strikes in the eastern Beqaa Valley region killed a “civilian” shepherd, “and wounded two members of his family” and four others.

NNA reported that “enemy warplanes launched… more than 80 airstrikes in half an hour,” targeting south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district. It also reported strikes in the Tyre area.

At the same time, the NNA reported “intense raids in the Beqaa” Valley in the east, deep inside Lebanon near the Syrian border, including in the vicinity of Baalbek and the outskirts of Hermel.

AFP correspondents in the south and east reported the sound of heavy strikes.

A Hezbollah source, requesting anonymity, said strikes in the Beqaa Valley targeted the area from east to west.

IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee said earlier that strikes on houses in Lebanon in which Hezbollah was hiding weapons were “imminent.”

Lebanese civilians were warned to immediately distance themselves from sites used by the Iran-backed terror group to store weapons. The IDF said it sent text messages to residents, as well as phoning them from a Lebanese phone number.

People in south Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley received text messages with warnings from Israel, Lebanon’s NNA confirmed. Lebanese media reported that the warning messages were also broadcast on radio stations.

Gallant says war’s success depends on public remaining calm
“In this new stage that we have entered in the war, our success also depends on the proper conduct of the home front. There are days ahead of us when the public will have to remain calm,” Gallant said.

“The resilience of the home front is the key that allows the IDF to fight, to make achievements, and to harm the enemy, and this has been going on for about a year and has been done in a very impressive way,” he said.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid welcomed the IDF’s widespread strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, declaring that “the time has come.”

A third Lebanon War has already begun in the wake of the significant IDF strikes against Hezbollah deep into Lebanon, a security official estimated on Monday in comments to Ynet.

"I don't think it's too early to refer to these events in the Northern as the 'Third Lebanon War,'" the official said.

The official told Ynet that in the early afternoon, the IDF will launch an attack "on a massive scale" in rural areas of Lebanon.

The source added that Hezbollah's potential response could be larger in scale and involve a broader range of fire than it has engaged in before.

"Hezbollah will certainly respond with large amounts of fire on northern Israel," added the source, "and possibly also on targets in Tel Aviv."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers on Monday that he is weighing the so-called generals’ plan to lay siege to northern Gaza, promoted by a group of senior IDF reservists.

Speaking to members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the prime minister also said that only some half of the 97 hostages abducted on October 7 are alive, Hebrew media reports said and a committee member confirmed to The Times of Israel. “We estimate that about half of the hostages are alive,” he was quoted by Channel 12 as saying.

His statements would indicate that around 50 hostages could be dead. The IDF has only confirmed the deaths of 33 of those still in Gaza.

At the closed-door session, Netanyahu indicated that the plan for a siege on remaining Hamas forces is one of several being examined and which will be brought to the cabinet for further discussion in the coming days.

Presenting the scheme to the committee last week, retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland argued that the plan, which is not backed by the United States, would “change the reality” on the ground in Gaza.

We have to tell the residents of north Gaza that they have one week to evacuate the territory, which then becomes a military zone, [a zone] in which every figure is a target and, most importantly, no supplies enter this territory.

Eiland argued that a siege is not only an effective military tactic but is also compliant with international law. “What matters to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is land and dignity, and with this maneuver, you take away both land and dignity,” he said.

Eiland has been critical of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, telling The Times of Israel last week that as long as Hamas retains control over the distribution of food and fuel, it will be able to replenish its coffers and recruit new fighters.

“You can’t win a war while this is the situation in Gaza,” he said. “The slogan that ‘only military pressure will bring victory’ has no basis whatsoever. The wars of the 21st century are based on something else. The most important parameter is the population, and those who can control the population win the war.”

Netanyahu told the committee that controlling the distribution of humanitarian aid is key to winning in Gaza and that efforts to enlist local tribes had failed. As such, he said enacting a military regime to run affairs in the territory may be necessary for now, even if it is not his goal.

Likud MK Amit Halevi, a member of the committee, welcomed the Eiland plan, saying that it marked “the right direction” for Israeli policy in Gaza.

“In order to defeat Hamas we must control the land and the population. There is no other way to victory,” he told The Times of Israel, arguing that unless Hamas’s civil control is eliminated, the terror group will be able to continue to recruit new fighters.

Such an approach is also “the only chance for a hostage deal” because it will put additional pressure on Sinwar to come to the table and make concessions, he argued.

“If he has food for years and the international pressure is on Israel, why does he need to make a deal?” Halevi said.

Netanyahu predicted that the International Criminal Court (ICC) was likely to soon issue arrest warrants for Gallant and him.

Earlier this month, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan called on the court to issue arrest warrants he requested in May for Netanyahu, Gallant and leaders of Hamas “with utmost urgency.”

Khan is a “political guided missile,” Netanyahu told lawmakers.

He also denied standing in the way of a Gaza hostage deal, insisting that Hamas is the intransigent party, having demanded 29 revisions to a proposed ceasefire outline, while asserting that Israel had accepted all the conditions laid out by American mediators.

Netanyahu has been widely reported to have added new conditions to those proposed by the Americans, including Israel holding on the Gaza-Egypt border in the first stage of a ceasefire and hostage deal. But US officials have also indicated that Hamas demands remain a major stumbling block to an agreement.

According to Hebrew media reports, the prime minister slammed “fake reports” that he was responsible for preventing an agreement and said that Hamas does not currently want a ceasefire deal. “We are doing everything we can to bring out 30 living hostages in the first phase of a deal,” he was quoted as saying.

He also raised a new idea for a deal that he said had come up in internal discussions, under which Israel would agree to a series of brief ceasefires in Gaza, with a small number of hostages to be freed in each, Channel 12 news reported.

He also reportedly argued that putting pressure on Hezbollah in the north could help force Sinwar to the table.

Ongoing battle against Hezbollah
Addressing the current upsurge in hostilities against Hezbollah, he said, “We are talking about distancing Hezbollah from the border and degrading its capabilities. This is not a one-off event. We will continue, but would prefer not to get to all-out war.”

Netanyahu’s remarks at the Knesset came only hours after he released a video statement vowing that the Hezbollah would “get the message” after a series of dramatic operations against the Iran-backed terror group in recent days.

Hezbollah expanded its range of rocket attacks in the early hours of Sunday to hit the greater Haifa area and the Jezreel Valley, putting some two million Israelis in range of its strikes.

The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that some 150 rockets, cruise missiles, and drones had been fired and launched at Israel since Saturday evening.

Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz said he’d asked Netanyahu during the hearing to define the link between operations in Israel’s north and Gaza — and requested to know when the hostages would be returned and the residents of the north able to go back to their homes.

“The prime minister did not answer this question,” he stated.

Air defenses intercepted two cruise missiles and two drones fired from Iraq, none of which hit Israeli territory, the military reported Sunday.

A group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Mid-morning, a suspected drone that entered Israeli airspace from the east was shot down by air defenses over the southern Golan Heights, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Sirens had sounded in several towns due to fears of falling shrapnel, but there were no injuries or damage in the incident.

Earlier, a drone from Iraq was intercepted as it headed toward southern Israel, setting off sirens in Be’er Ora, close to Eilat. It was shot down before it could enter Israeli airspace, according to the military.

Before dawn, two apparent cruise missiles launched from Iraq were shot down by the military as they headed toward the southern Golan Heights. Both targets were also intercepted outside of Israeli airspace, the IDF said.

“The fighters of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq targeted on Sunday morning a strategic location in the occupied territories using drones,” said the Iraqi coalition in a statement on Telegram, referring to Israel, and adding it was carried out “in support of our people in Gaza.”

The Israeli military said on Monday it would launch more air strikes targeting eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and warned residents to move away from Hezbollah sites in the area.

"We are preparing for a large-scale and targeted strike in Bekaa Valley," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a media briefing, adding that residents should "distance themselves" from Hezbollah sites "for your safety and protection".

"Hezbollah stores its strategic weaponry in civilian buildings and uses the population as human shields," Hagari said.

Here are the latest updates from Israel-Hezbollah conflict
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least 100 people killed and more than 400 wounded in Israeli attacks.

Israel says it struck about 300 targets across Lebanon.

Israeli air attacks targeted dozens of towns, including Bint Jbeil, Aitaroun, Majdal Selem, Hula, Toura, Qlaileh, Haris, Nabi Chit, Tarayya, Shmestar, Harbata, Libbaya and Sohmor.

UN Coordinator in Lebanon said diplomatic efforts must be given room to succeed, as the safety of civilians and the stability of the region on both sides are at risk.

‘No way this is calming down’
We saw intense strikes all day. We’ve heard drones and fighter jets. This is not an escalation any more, this is certainly a war all but in name.

They’re using heavy weaponry to attack what they’re calling Hezbollah sites. We’re also hearing from Hezbollah which said it launched dozens of rockets at several Israeli military posts.

We’re getting some figures from the Israeli side as well. Five Israeli people are said to be injured. There is no way this is calming down.

Widespread Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon killed at least 274 people Monday and injured over 1,000 more, Beirut said, as Israel cautioned that strikes against the group would expand and Lebanese civilians were warned to flee areas where the Iran-backed terror group was thought to be hiding weapons.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah fired volley after volley of rocket at Israel, setting off sirens deep into northern Israel and as far south as some West Bank settlements near Tel Aviv. The previous day, the terror group bombarded northern communities with at least 150 rockets in one of its heaviest barrages since fighting broke out on October 8 last year.

In Lebanon, videos shared on social media appeared to show masses fleeing major cities, and authorities began opening schools to shelter thousands of newly displaced.

Speaking from an underground command room at military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was changing the balance of power with Hezbollah, signaling Israel would no longer play defense after months of tit-for-tat cross-border violence.

We do not wait for a threat, we anticipate it. Everywhere, in every theater, at any time,” he said.

At least 274 people were killed in the strikes and another 1,024 were wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said, marking the deadliest day in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing at Israel last year, drawing Israeli counterstrikes.

The dead and wounded included women and children, the ministry said. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah on casualties within the terror group, which has suffered heavy losses in recent days.

On social media, videos showed long lines of traffic as civilians tried to reach safety, and streams of vehicles flowing out of small mountainside towns.

In one video, cars could be seen queued up on a highway lined with Hezbollah and Lebanese flags as black smoke from recent airstrikes billowed in the background.

In the seaside city of Sidon, all eight lanes of Rafic Hariri Boulevard were filled with cars pointed north as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

In Nabatieh, a video showed a number of people in cars trying to leave town being blocked as a massive explosion erupted in front of them.

With airstrikes continuing to pound areas of Lebanon, the health ministry asked hospitals in southern Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa Valley to postpone surgeries that could be done later.

The ministry said in a statement that its request aimed to keep hospitals ready to deal with people wounded by “Israel’s expanding aggression on Lebanon.”

Ahead of the mass exodus, residents of villages in southern Lebanon posted photos on social media of airstrikes and large plumes of smoke.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported airstrikes on different areas, including some far from the border.

The agency said strikes hit a forested area in the central province of Byblos, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, for the first time since Hezbollah began firing at Israel in October. No injuries were reported there. Israel also bombed targets in the northeastern Baalbek and Hermel regions, where a shepherd was killed and two family members were wounded, according to the news agency. It said a total of 30 people were wounded in strikes.

In Israel, sirens sounded in dozens of communities, as Hezbollah targeted the strategic industrial center of Haifa and towns across the north for a second day in a row with over 100 rockets in quick succession, according to the IDF. Sirens also sounded in West Bank settlements northeast of Tel Aviv during a volley of at least 10 rockets, the army said, seemingly marking a rare use of long-range rockets by Hezbollah.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, but some rockets were reported to have caused damage.

Some 80,000 Lebanese were thought to have already fled southern Lebanon over the last 12 months, which have seen near-daily cross-border Hezbollah rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes. Another 60,000 people in northern Israel have been forced to evacuate their homes.

An Israeli military official said Israel is focused on aerial operations and has no immediate plans for a ground operation. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with regulations, said the strikes are aimed at curbing Hezbollah’s ability to launch more strikes into Israel.

he U.S. is sending additional troops to the Middle East during a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said Monday.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. currently has about 40,000 troops in the region.

Am almost surprise that some arab alliance doesnt come to the aide of , what appears to be a War of Slaughter on many of Israeli fronts...
US law makers and the UN need to act on Israel s activities , I feel . In a determined a meaningful way.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the people of Lebanon to leave areas where Israel is targeting Hezbollah. Thousands are fleeing their homes, some after receiving automated calls, text messages and broadcasts urging them to evacuate.

An Israeli official told CNN the security cabinet had agreed to continue to raise the level of military operations every day. The Israeli military has not ruled out the possibility of a ground invasion.

Israel says second wave of strikes on Lebanon have been completed
From CNN's Dana Karni and Vasco Cotovio
Israel says its air force has concluded a “second wave” of strikes on Hezbollah positions, some deep in Lebanon, on Tuesday.

“A short while ago, with the direction of IDF intelligence, the [Israeli Air Force] struck terror targets belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the Beqaa and several areas in southern Lebanon,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday.
“Among the targets struck were buildings in which weapons were stored, command centers, and additional terrorist infrastructure sites,” it claimed, adding that secondary explosions were identified, which indicated “large amounts of weapons were stored in the buildings.”

Lebanon saw its deadliest day in nearly two decades on Monday after Israel launched airstrikes targeting Hezbollah across the country. The nearly 500 people killed on Monday alone, including dozens of children, is roughly half the number of Lebanese killed during the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. It is unclear how many of the casualties were Hezbollah militants.

At least 558 people have been killed in 2 days of Israeli air strikes, Lebanon's health minister says
At least 558 people have been killed, including 50 children and 94 women, by Israeli strikes on Lebanon since Monday, the country’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said.

“We remain in the war and remain in the throes of the attacks. Our responsibilities have not ended,” Abiad added as Israel continued its attacks on Tuesday.

Among those killed were four first responders, Abiad said, adding that 14 ambulances and firetrucks had been hit by Israeli forces.

In total, 1,835 people were wounded by the strikes.

Israeli strikes have also forced thousands of people to flee their homes, especially in southern Lebanon. The number of people displaced in the country over the last 24 hours, from areas affected by Israeli strikes, has reached 16,500, Nasser Yassine, the Lebanese coordinator of government’s emergency preparedness, told CNN Tuesday.

Yassine said 150 schools are being used to house displaced people across Lebanon.

The US believes Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah in strikes over the last week but is still working feverishly behind the scenes to try to convince it not to escalate further and launch a ground incursion into Lebanon over concerns the intensified fighting could spark a broader conflict engulfing the wider Middle East, officials told CNN.

“We are the closest we’ve been to spiraling to a regional war” since Hamas’ October 7 attack, one of the officials said.

Hezbollah began launching drone and rocket attacks against Israel one day later, sparking months of hostilities across what had been Israel’s quietest border for years. The situation escalated last week when Israel carried out covert attacks that detonated Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies. Israel followed up by pounding Beirut and southern Lebanon with airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians and Hezbollah leaders in recent days. The group has responded with rocket attacks targeting Israeli sites including Ramat David air base east of Haifa.

The US assesses that neither Israel nor Hezbollah are interested in a full-scale war, officials said. But a senior State Department official expressed skepticism to reporters Monday about Israel’s “escalate to de-escalate” strategy.

“I can’t recall, at least in recent memory, a period in which an escalation or intensification led to a fundamental de-escalation and led to profound stabilization of the situation,” the State Department official told reporters Monday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The biggest concern right now is that Iran, which is a key backer of Hezbollah, will get involved, the first official said. Tehran has not intervened yet, but they will if they believe they are about to lose their most powerful proxy force, Hezbollah, the official added.

On Monday, Nasser Kanaani, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, warned of “dangerous consequences” following Israel’s strikes.

Israel has already seriously degraded the militant group over the last week, the first official said, killing several senior commanders and significantly impacting Hezbollah’s command and control structure, multiple officials said.

“They’ve probably been taken 20 years backwards,” another official said of the combined effects of Israel’s operations against Hezbollah.

The Pentagon announced Monday that the US is deploying more troops to the Middle East “out of an abundance of caution” as tensions have continued to rise in the region.

The crisis increases the stakes of President Joe Biden’s speech to General Assembly on Tuesday, but expectations he can ratchet down tensions are likely to be low, especially considering the US efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have floundered.

Allies scrambling for ‘concrete ideas’
llies at the global gathering in New York are scrambling to come up with “concrete ideas” to de-escalate the situation that threatens to destabilize the region. The senior State Department official did not say if the US expects Israel to carry out a ground incursion in Lebanon if those de-escalation efforts fail but noted that it is “important for everyone to take Israeli preparations seriously.”

“I would not infer from the pace or intensity of Israeli strikes on a given day, the success or failure of our efforts to get them to act with a degree of restraint,” the State Department official added.

Israel has told the US that a full-scale war is not the intent of its strikes, according to an Israeli official. Instead, Israel’s goal is to return 70,000 citizens, displaced since Hezbollah began launching rockets and drones on October 8, to their homes near the border with Lebanon. The goal is a diplomatic solution through escalation, the Israeli official said.

But the IDF would not rule out the possibility of a ground incursion, an enormous operation that would likely require the call up a significant number of reserves and the relocation of Israeli forces to the border with Lebanon.

“Is the army prepared?” Hagari asked rhetorically at a press briefing Monday. “Yes, the army is in full readiness and we will do whatever is necessary to bring back home all our citizens to the northern border safely.”

The operation which caused the pagers and walkie-talkies to explode, carried out by the Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), rattled Hezbollah’s ability to communicate, officials said, especially after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged the militant organization in February to avoid cell phones.

But even after suffering a major blow, Hezbollah remains a more formidable foe to Israel than Hamas in Gaza, with a pre-war arsenal estimated at 150,000 rockets and missiles, a stockpile built and improved with the help of Iran.

Israel’s cabinet declared a “special situation” across the entire country, allowing it to impose drastic restrictions on civilian life. Those restrictions, including school closures and limits on public gatherings, are currently limited to northern Israel and near Gaza. In a sign of how seriously the government views the situation, hospitals in northern Israel were ordered to move their patients to fortified areas.

Meanwhile, officials are waiting to see how Iran will react. Tehran is yet to respond militarily to the July assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian promised Monday that his country would still seek revenge.

Aviva Siegel, an Israeli woman who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 and held for more than 50 days until she was freed during a temporary cease-fire, told NBC News she is determined to keep “shouting and screaming for the hostages to come home” — including her husband, Keith, who is believed to be alive.

“I have been talking about those tunnels,” Siegel told NBC News’ Lester Holt on Tuesday during a trip to New York amid the start of the United Nations General Assembly, referring to where she was held captive before her release in November.

“Keith and I nearly died in the tunnel because there was no oxygen, and I’ve been talking about it over and over and over — hard stories. But I want to just tell everybody, we’re not going to stop,” she said in an interview alongside other people whose loved ones were taken captive in Hamas’ terror attack in Israel.

Siegel, 63, recalled some of the conditions inside the vast network of tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip. She described hostages thrown to the ground on “filthy, dirty mattresses,” forbidden from speaking or moving, confined to dark spaces. She recounted the physical agony of being starved for “24 hours or even more.”

“I was there in those same conditions,” Siegel added, “and I thought that I’m going to die all the time.”

The group that spoke to NBC News on Tuesday also included Jonathan Dekel Chen, the father of Sagui Dekel-Chen; Orna Neutra, the mother of Omer Neutra; Yael Alexander, the mother of Edan Alexander; Mika Alexander, Edan’s sister; Andrea Weinstein, sister of Judy Weinstein and sister-in-law of Gadi Haggai; and Ruby and Hagit Chen, the parents of Itay Chen.

Officials confirmed late last year that Judy Weinstein and Haggai had most likely been killed on Oct. 7, and their bodies are now being held in Gaza. Israeli military officials told Ruby and Hagit Chen in early March that Itay was believed to have been killed on Oct. 7.

Itay’s parents are still holding out hope that he might be alive. “We are not mourning yet,” Hagit Chen said. “We have no physical evidence that Itay’s not alive.”

Orna Neutra said she feels the hostage families are “fighting this war for attention” against a chaotic backdrop that includes Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza, the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinian civilians, and the worsening conflict between the Israeli military and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“The events in the Middle East have been shifting constantly and we’re here today again … to bring this issue [and] make sure that it is kept front and center,” Orna Neutra said. She added that she is pleading for “de-escalation,” an immediate hostage release and greater protections for “innocents” in the conflict, including the citizens of Gaza.

“The only way to stop this, we hope, is by arriving now at a negotiated settlement between Israel and Hamas,” Jonathan Dekel-Chen said.

One might think based on Israels international behaviour, would behoove any Peace commission in the Area require the disarmement of Israks defense forces. And strict UN intervention as a Peace comission . imho