[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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Stay safe Boo.

It is, to say the least, remarkable -- if true -- that they managed to carry out that many raids over that many months and keep them all a secret for so long.

I can't help but wonder if the IDF might be exaggerating here, just to make themselves look more competent and even more formidable than they really are, given their massive and embarrassing failure on October 7 of last year.

On the other hand, IF indeed the IDF truly managed to accomplish what it claimed above, then it is all the more inexcusable that they weren't able to be similarly surgical in Gaza and that the war in Gaza has gone on for so long and killed so many civilians, given that Hamas is/was much less well-armed than Hezbollah.

Iran did not give adequate warning to commerical airlines flying into and out of Europe and UK

Alarming footage taken from the cockpit of a British Airways flight over the Middle East captured Iranian-launched missiles soaring nearby — suggesting Iran failed to make sure the airways were clear of international civilian flights before they filled the sky with hundreds of explosives.

The clip was filmed by the pilot of the Dubai-bound BA flight Tuesday evening and showed what is clearly a volley of recently fired ballistic missiles rising into the night sky on their way to Israel.

Just off the main road, in sight of southern Lebanon, builders tap away at concrete blocks of a half-built house, the sun merciless as it beats down.

Equipped with its very own bomb shelter, a young family was preparing to move into the home in Kibbutz Matzuva, northern Israel. But Ishay Efroni, head of security for the regional council covering the kibbutz, told Newsweek: "When they move here, I'm not going to sleep."

Jewish and Arab strangers united to save two girls amid Hamas 10/7 attackRead moreJewish and Arab strangers united to save two girls amid Hamas 10/7 attack
A few months ago, Efroni had given the builders permission to resume work on the property, just a mile-and-a-half from the Lebanese border. The family should move in within two months, Efroni said when Newsweek visited in mid-September.

Although deeply worried for their safety, Efroni said, he is anxious to get residents back to the north after nearly a year away from their homes.

Weeks after Newsweek's tour of the kibbutz, the prospect of them unpacking their belongings in northern Israel seems more distant than ever.

Matzuva and its roughly 1,000 residents were evacuated shortly after Gaza-based Palestinian militant group Hamas launched its October 7 attacks, killing around 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages. Israel then launched its war in Gaza, vowing to eradicate Hamas.

The bombardment and ground operations have devastated Gaza. Hamas-run health authorities there say over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's campaign, and the international community has sounded alarm bells over humanitarian emergencies facing displaced Gazans.

Israel's military has also exchanged fire with Lebanon-based, Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah almost the entire time, with Hezbollah saying it was acting in solidarity with Hamas.

As of September 26, near-constant firing across Israel's northern border had displaced an estimated 200,000 people in southern Lebanon and upward of 60,000 people in northern Israel. Officials there say the current situation cannot go on.

"Eleven months, nearly a year—what changed?" Efroni said. "Nothing."

There has, however, been a "major change" in the mentality of Israelis in the north over the past 12 months, said Sarit Zehavi, a former intelligence officer and retired lieutenant colonel in Israel's military who now runs the Alma Center, a research organization focused on Israel's northern border.

With Hezbollah just 6 miles away—the range of the group's lethal anti-tank guided missiles—and tensions rising, they fear a repeat of October 7 but in the north. "Can you tell them to live next to Hezbollah now?" Zehavi said, speaking to journalists at the center, some seven miles from the border.

"There is no reason that we would take the chance that there will be another massacre."

Pushing For Return of Israel's Hostages
October 7 hangs heavy in the air across Israel, relegating any kind of social recovery there, and with its neighbors, far out of reach. "We are still in the trauma," Michael Milshtein, expert in Palestinian studies at Tel Aviv University and retired head of the Palestinian Affairs department of the Israel Defense Forces' military intelligence body, told Newsweek. "I don't think we are able to cure ourselves, or think about reconstruction or coexistence."

This is certainly true for the families of the hostages. At the time of writing, 101 remain in Gaza. More than 100 were brought back during a brief ceasefire in November last year, and Israeli military operations have sporadically rescued a handful of hostages or recovered bodies of those killed in captivity.

Nobody involved in trying to get them released thought the process would last more than a few weeks, said Daniel Shek, a former Israeli diplomat and part of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum—a civilian, volunteer-led effort to return the hostages.

A year on, "the worst enemy of these people are obviously the captors, who are keeping them in the tunnels of Hamas," Shek told reporters at the organization's headquarters in Tel Aviv. "But the second worst enemy is forgetfulness. We will not allow these people to be forgotten."

"It's been almost a year, and I cannot describe what the families are going through," said Colette Avital, a former Israeli ambassador to Portugal and member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, who is also involved with the Forum. "We need to put as much pressure as possible. Because time is running out. We don't know honestly how many of them are still alive."

Suffering Across Israel and Gaza's Borders
While the fates of the remaining hostages are unknown, aid organizations are clear: the picture inside the Gaza Strip for the millions of displaced Gazans is bleak.

"There is no single word that can describe the past year," Sondos Alashqar, a program assistant with the U.K.-based Medical Aid for Palestinians organization—which is working with emergency medical teams inside Gaza—told Newsweek.

Gaza has been largely destroyed by IDF strikes that Israel said aimed to take out Hamas' infrastructure and commanders. "I'm not entirely sure that people grasp or understand the level of destruction that Gaza has endured over the past one year," Juliette Touma, communications director for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, told Newsweek.

Humanitarian bodies have consistently reported a debilitating lack of water, food, medical care, vital hygiene supplies and other essentials reaching the territory's uprooted population, many of whom have been forced to relocate several times.

During at least one point in the war, people in Gaza had no choice but to eat animal feed to survive, said Alashqar. Israeli officials have said repeatedly that aid is flowing into Gaza and have dismissed reports of hunger in the territory.

"People leave everything behind and just go and have to start from scratch over and over again," Touma said. Rain from mid-September caused flooding, meaning tents many are forced to live in were swept away. Residents of Gaza then become more vulnerable to seasonal diseases that there is scant medicine to treat, Touma added.

"We sleep in tents—an experience we never dreamed of, not even for fun," said Alashqar, who is sheltering in central Gaza after fleeing Gaza City. A heavily pregnant colleague, Alashqar recounted, gave birth amid an evacuation from southern Gaza, then returned with an hours-old child "to a tent while it was raining heavily, instead of a secure home."

"The past year has been nothing short of catastrophic for Palestinians in both human and political terms," Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of its Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, told Newsweek.

"It is impossible to overstate the scale [of] death and destruction in Gaza, which is at once the deadliest event and the largest forced displacement of Palestinians in their modern history."

At one point, UNRWA was housing more than one million people in schools, clinics and warehouses not designed for humans to live in, Touma said. "This war has been like nothing we've ever seen in the history of this United Nations agency," Touma said. "It's a place not fit for humans."

Aid agencies operating in the region described crippling difficulties in planning the provision of aid and maintaining logistics chains for funneling aid into Gaza. They said areas have become difficult or impossible to reach at various points in the past year.

The organizations also point to the high number of deaths of humanitarian workers, many of whom hail from communities directly impacted by the fighting, or attacks on their facilities and convoys. Sigrid Kaag, the U.N.'s senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told the BBC in mid-September that Gaza was "the most unsafe place in the world to work."

"It has been a year of suffering," said Tommaso Della Longa of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which includes nearly 200 smaller organizations. "We think that we see the worst, and the day after, there is something even worse," Della Longa told Newsweek.

Organizations operating under the IFRC across the region have lost at least 27 members since last October, Della Longa said.

According to Touma, at least 224 UNRWA staff have been killed. It is "beyond sad," Touma said, and "very hard to overcome as an agency, because we lost emergency workers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, logisticians, security personnel, teachers, social workers."

UNRWA came under fire after the U.N. said it had investigated 19 cases where its staff were accused of being involved in the October 7 attacks. In early August, the U.N. said it had fired nine staff members where "the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the 7 October attacks." Touma told Newsweek the nine sackings had "no impact on our work" as a team of 30,000 people.

Aid organizations stress that the priorities are an immediate ceasefire, the return of the remaining hostages and getting aid to Gaza. Until then, they say, there is little prospect for improving the desperation of the situation for around two million Gazans.

"Everyone else around the world moves forward," said Alashqar. "Their children live in proper homes, receive a good education and grow up in a better environment. Meanwhile, in Gaza, time stands still, yet we continue to age, along with our children. Life moves on, but our time remains frozen."

"I can only describe the past year as if we were living in limbo—neither in the sky nor on the ground."

Developing Stronger Defenses for Israel
Developing Stronger Defenses for Israel
The year of war in Gaza—and the escalating conflict with Hezbollah—has been propped up by Israel's defense industry. The country's defense officials told Newsweek that there has been a "growing recognition" in recent years that Israel needs to shore up its ability to produce defense equipment domestically, but this sharpened from October 2023.

In the past year, the officials said, the defense ministry has placed "significant orders with local companies." The move toward producing and developing technology inside Israel covers all aspects of the military, defense officials said.
In practice, this means "all hands on deck, 24 hours a day," a spokesperson for state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems told Newsweek.

Shortly after October 7, around a fifth of its workforce were pulled away into military service, the company said. Since January, Rafael has recruited more than 1,000 employees, a spokesperson said, with plans in place to recruit a further 2,000 by the end of 2024. A separate industry source said "thousands" of personnel are being recruited across the defense industry.

Elbit Systems announced several new contracts with the defense ministry recently. In August, the Israeli defense contractor said it will build a manufacturing facility to produce $340 million of ammunition for the ministry over 10 years. "It's quite obvious the company will continue to grow quite rapidly in the coming years," CEO Bezhalel Machlis told Reuters.

Israeli defense and industry sources are keen to stress that the defense firms and government are balancing upping production of existing systems with the need to keep ahead of the curve. The government is tipping "significant resources" into research and development for next-generation technologies, defense officials said.

The Iron Beam—Rafael's pioneering high-energy laser weapon system primarily developed to intercept drones—is still expected to be ready by the end of 2025, Newsweek understands.

The industry has been tasked with expanding air defense production, one industry source said, attributing this not only to Israel's needs, but also to a global shift in how important such stocks are considered. The war in Ukraine, with Kyiv repeatedly calling for more air defenses, has contributed to this surge.

A different industry source said there was "definitely" a spike in interest in Israeli-made air defense systems, including from other nations.

With Hezbollah sending cheap drones over the border, the likes of the Iron Dome and its expensive interceptor missiles are not always the best solution for shooting down incoming uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). "We have a challenge...locating and shooting down those drones," said Lieutenant Colonel Dotan Razili, speaking to the media in Mitzpe Hila, around five miles from the Lebanon border. "It's a challenge for the Western world. In Ukraine, they use other weapons systems, but it is still a challenge."

Asked if the northern forces have enough low-tech solutions for Hezbollah drones, Razili said: "Not as much as we'd like." An Israeli industry source said all defense companies in Israel were working toward a solution for inexpensive drone attacks. Another said this may include looking back at older systems.

Reevaluation of Israeli Security
Israel's intelligence and security services are also still reeling from October 7, squarely blamed for failing to stop the attacks. Former Israeli intelligence officers say the information was there but the interpretation of it was not. "The accurate term that we should use is not a reevaluation but earthquake," said Milshtein, adding that Israeli intelligence agencies have spent months in the "deepest crisis."

High-profile resignations over the failures included Major General Aharon Haliva, the then-head of the IDF's military intelligence unit, in April. "I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night after night. I will carry the horrible pain of the war with me forever," Haliva said in a statement. In mid-September, the head of the IDF's secretive Unit 8200 intelligence unit, Yossi Sariel, resigned.

It's still hard to unpick how Israel's security agencies and military intelligence fell so out of alignment, said a former Mossad official. They told Newsweek that on the night of the attacks, dozens of new telephones lit up in Gaza but the alert wasn't raised—just one example of intelligence being brought to the attention of high-up officials but then disregarded, they claimed.

Several former Israeli intelligence officials said the security services, military, political and academic circles and the media fatally misunderstood Hamas. "The lesson that we learned from October 7 is that we should stop trying to read his mind," said Zehavi. "We cannot—we don't have the capability."

There was a sense of "arrogance," held up by Israel's technological superiority and a belief it was invulnerable to the type of attacks Hamas could launch, Milshtein said. Other errors came down to misunderstanding Hamas' priorities, or simply too many intelligence officers having little knowledge of Arabic, according to Milshtein. "You cannot really believe that you can predict, or you can analyze, the intentions of the other," he said, "if you don't know his language."

With intense warfare ongoing, the ex-Mossad official suggested it is unlikely any significant reorganization of these inner workings could have taken place since. Newsweek reached out to the IDF for comment.

Looking to the Future in the Middle East
One year on from October 7, a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, stability in northern Israel and the return of southern Lebanon's 200,000 displaced residents are likely a long way off. So, too, is a reprieve for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Prospects for a two-state solution were already quite slim before 10/7 but are now nonexistent," said Elgindy. Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a U.S. policy fellow with Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka, told Newsweek the likelihood had been "dead years, if not decades, prior to October 7 and the subsequent genocide in Gaza." Israel denies accusations of genocide.

The past year "highlighted the desperate need for a solution, any solution, but I fear the sheer scale of brutality that has ensued has rendered that unrealistic in the short term to medium term. In other words, it'll get worse before it gets better," said Kenney-Shawa.

From the Israeli side, Wasserman Lande told Newsweek the "watershed moment" of October 7 has "moved farther away the concept of Palestinian statehood." "Israelis, by far, are actually far more fearful now to have a state led by Palestinians right next door to them," she said.

It seems like they're dedicated to making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Engaging in genocide tends to sour public opinion on a nation, whining in response to fair criticism like they're entitled to receiving a double standard only reinforces that souring and it's not like the Samson option contributes to a positive public view of Israel considering it amounts to nuclear blackmail.

If they're worried about the world turning on them, they're doing everything possible to ensure that outcome.
They're their own worst enemies when it comes to public perception.

Israel Air Force aircraft targeted Hezbollah's Intelligence Headquarters in Beirut, the IDF reported on Thursday, following reports of large explosions in the Lebanese capital.

The IDF reported that IAF fighter jets, guided by intelligencehttps://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-823077 from the Military Intelligence Directorate, targeted Hezbollah sites involved in the group's intelligence operations.

These strikes reportedly hit terrorists, intelligence-gathering equipment, and command centers.
Further, during the operation, additional Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure was also destroyed, the military noted.

The IDF reported that Hezbollah's Intelligence Corps, which had been targeted in the operation, is the terrorist organization's primary intelligence body and is responsible for gathering information about the IDF and Israel, with the headquarters directing terrorist activity.

The IDF announced the death of Rawhi Mushtaha, head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, on Thursday.

"Mushtaha, alongside Yahya Sinwar, established Hamas's General Security Mechanism," the military stated. They served a prison sentence together in an Israeli jail. Mushtaha was considered to be the most senior figure in the Hamas political bureau in the Gaza Strip and, during the war, maintained civil control of the Hamas regime while simultaneously engaging in terrorist activity against Israel. Mushtaha was Sinwar's right-hand man and one of his closest associates."

The IDF also noted that Mushtaha had been one of Hamas's most senior operatives and was a key decision-maker in how the terror organization deployed its fighters and assets.

Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio on Hamas's political bureau and Labor Committee, and Sami Oudeh, the commander of Hamas's General Security Mechanism, were killed alongside Mushtaha, the military reported.

Hamas reportedly attempted to conceal eliminations to preserve moral
According to the IDF, the three senior Hamas operatives were killed in an airstrike around three months ago, but the Gazan terror organization refrained from making an announcement on the matter at the time to prevent morale loss among its fighters.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday told reporters in Washington that the idea of Israel striking Iran’s oil in retaliation for Tuesday’s ballistic missile attack was “in discussion,” as reports indicated that Israel was determined to strongly respond, but had not yet decided on the scope and timing.

Speaking to reporters as he headed to his Marine One helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House, Biden was asked if he supported Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities.

“We’re in discussion of that. I think — I think that would be a little — anyway,” Biden responded, adding that Israel would ultimately make its own decisions on how to respond to Iran’s massive missile strike.

“First of all, we don’t allow Israel. We advise Israel. And there’s nothing going to happen today. We’ll talk about that later,” Biden said.

Nevertheless, Hebrew media reports said the response was being closely coordinated between Washington and Jerusalem

Citing the possibility of a phone call soon between Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Channel 12 said the “harsh response,” expected within days, was being closely coordinated with the White House.

The report added that “many options” were being considered.

Meanwhile, a US official told Reuters that the US does not believe Israel has decided how to respond to Iran’s attack, including whether to hit its oil facilities.

“As the president said, we continue to have discussions with the Israelis about their response to Tuesday’s attack and we understand that they are still determining what exactly they will do,” the source said.

Netanyahu on Thursday was set to hold the latest in a series of top-level security consultations, as Israel decides how and when to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Tuesday, Channel 12 said.

“We have a lot of options,” Israel’s envoy to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told CNN Thursday. “So it’s [up to] us to decide where and when we want to attack, but they are vulnerable. They know that.”

Biden’s comment that Iran’s oil sites were “in discussion” caused oil prices to shoot up, amid fears of a sudden shock to the global supply.

Israel is also seeking to apply heavy diplomatic pressure on the US and the West in general to impose stringent new sanctions on Iran, Channel 12 said, elaborating that Israel sees not only a military opportunity to hit Iran hard, but also a chance to toughen the global stance and see the imposition of sanctions that the west has refused to impose for a long time.

The report cited defense sources confirming that the US would back Israel in its response and help defend Israel against further Iranian attacks.

The report noted that Israel’s current official war goals require it to avoid a regional war, and asserted — without elaboration or sourcing — that this “will certainly be weighed in the future.”

After Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian warned Wednesday night that an Israeli response to its ballistic missile attack would prompt “a stronger response” from Iran, Iranian commentators were predicting that Iran would fire 1,000 missiles at Israel and target civilian infrastructure, Channel 12 reported.

Ohad Hemo, the network’s regional affairs reporter, also said reports in Iran have claimed Tehran fired 400 missiles at Israel Tuesday, more than double the 181 that Israel has reported.

Hemo said the Iranian regime sees the current escalated conflict as a “moment of truth” and an “existential war for the Axis of Resistance it has put together,” referring to the network of Islamic militias that includes Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis.

Hemo said the Iranian regime sees the current escalated conflict as a “moment of truth” and an “existential war for the Axis of Resistance it has put together,” referring to the network of Islamic militias that includes Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis.

Since Hezbollah, the intended spearhead of that axis, was weakened, the current conflict was really a direct case of Iran against Israel, Hemo noted.

He quoted Pezeshkian saying in Qatar Wednesday night that, if Israel “wants to react, we will have a stronger response; this is what the Islamic Republic is committed to.”

But he also said Pezeshkian talked of other states that Israel ostensibly has in its sights after Gaza and Lebanon. Hemo interpreted that comment as indicating the regime’s “real concern” of an Israeli attack.

In his comments Wednesday, Pezeshkian claimed Iran was “not looking for war; it is Israel that forces us to react.”

The dirty goal of the Zionist regime is to cause insecurity and spread crisis in the region,” Pezeshkian also said. “What we want from US and European countries is to tell the entity they have planted in the region (Israel) to stop the bloodshed.”

But “any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces,” he said.

With Israel reportedly considering targeting Iranian oil facilities, Channel 12 said that Iranians have been ordered not to fill up their cars with more than 30 liters of fuel for now.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that at a meeting in Qatar, representatives of Gulf Arab states — some of which have helped Israel shoot down Iranian projectiles — expressed concern that their oil facilities could be targeted by Iran.

Tehran has not threatened to attack Gulf oil facilities but it has warned that if “Israel supporters” intervene directly their interests in the region would be targeted, Reuters said.

“The Gulf states think it’s unlikely that Iran will strike their oil facilities, but the Iranians are dropping hints they might from unofficial sources. It’s a tool the Iranians have against the US and the global economy,” Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator close to the Royal Court, told the news agency.

When night falls, it's no longer sleep but the humming threat of an Israeli strike that descends on the Lebanese capital.

Israel's overnight attacks, which reached the heart of Beirut in the early hours of Thursday, mean that few in the city and beyond are getting any rest. Residents told NBC News they've hardly slept in recent days, fearful of where Israel will strike next and what the future holds for their long-beleaguered country now at the center of a spiraling regional conflict.

Hala Kobaissi, a makeup artist living in Beirut's Salim Salam neighborhood — just a stone's throw from Bachoura, where at least nine people were killed in an Israeli strike on the city's heart overnight — said she spent the hours from dusk to dawn "in total shock" as the sounds of "shattered glass, people's screams and cries" rang out.

"I don't know what to say and from where to start," said Kobaissi, 55, speaking at a frenetic pace in a phone interview early Thursday. "Nowhere is secure now."

Every night, we say this is the toughest night,” Hiam Khoury, 50, said after spending another restless night in the Beirut suburb of Hadath, where she lives with her 19-year-old son.

The hours from dusk to dawn were "a nightmare," she said, after Israel launched its deepest aerial attack into the capital city yet.

Israeli strikes were also launched overnight in the suburb of Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold less than a 10-minute drive from Hadath, with the tremors from the blast felt through Khoury's home.

"Everything was shaking, the house," she said. "We didn't sleep. How can you do it, even if the bombing stops?"

Across the country, where more than 1,300 people have been killed and some 1.2 million displaced since Israel ramped up its military offensive, families described sleepless nights filled with terror. A growing number of people have had little choice but to try to sleep on Beirut's bustling streets, in parking lots and playgrounds as overcrowded shelters fill up.

For the last three days, people have been on edge,” said Rayan Youness, 42, a school instructor living in the capital's Hamra neighborhood.

“They’re staying up until the early hours in the morning,” he said, “wondering where the explosion is going to come from: Is it going to hit me? Is it going to hit somebody I know? Is it going to hit a family?”

"From the moment we wake up until the moment we try to fall asleep, there are reaper drones above our heads," Youness said. "All throughout the city, in any and every neighborhood. Is this normal?”

Dr. Tania Baban, a doctor working on the ground in Beirut for the Illinois-based humanitarian nonprofit MedGlobal, said she was horrified this morning after hearing that people who had fled to Lebanon's capital in search of safety were forced to flee once again after Israel launched its overnight strike in Bachoura.

"Can you imagine being woken up by a blast, then told to evacuate within minutes?" she said Thursday morning. “The horror of waking up your children and running away and leaving behind everything?”

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, said striking at night typically "privileges the side which has trained and prepared to do so, with sensors, visual aids and other technologies."

During Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, he said, the Israel Defense Forces were surprised to find Hezbollah 'special forces' "who were equipped like their own specialists, including with night-vision goggles."

This time around, with Hezbollah "communications compromised, the Israelis no doubt calculate they can gain an additional advantage, though the complexity of night-fighting shouldn’t be under-estimated," Savill said.

Mahdi Ghuloom, a regional security analyst at Le Beck International, said Israel's decision to launch strikes overnight could also be in part "due to the timing of accurate intelligence on targets."

"The intelligence advantage may be arising from lower level of mobility amongst high-value targets for the (Israeli military) during the night, and thus presenting actionable information on where to strike," he said in an email Thursday. "It may also point to weaknesses amongst Hezbollah ranks at night.

"I don’t know how long this is going to last. We don’t have a place to go to and we don’t want to leave our house and stay on the street," she said.

"We are exhausted.”

Israel allegedly tried to eliminate former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah's successor presumed, Hashem Safieddine, in the Dahieh suburb in Beirut, Israeli media reported early on Friday, citing Lebanese reports. These reports could not be verified.

The strikes targeted a meeting of senior Hezbollah leaders, including Safieddine, three Israeli officials told The New York Times.

Safieddine, as head of Hezbollah's executive council, oversees the group's political affairs. He also sits on the Jihad Council, which manages the group's military operations, Reuters reported. Safieddine is a cousin of Nasrallah and was designated as a terrorist by the US State Department in 2017.

Israeli and Arab media had previously reported that the IDF conducted strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Reports noted that the military also attacked the area of Burj al-Shamali, east of Tyre, in southern Lebanon.

At least one Israeli strike early on Friday hit outside the perimeter of Beirut's international airport, according to a source in Lebanon's Ministry of Transport and Public Works.

IDF issues new evacuation warnings
These reports emerge following an evacuation warning issued by the IDF's Arabic Spokesperson, which included warnings for certain areas of Beirut in Lebanon in a post to X (Twitter) on Thursday evening.

In the message, he called for residents located in specific areas of the Bourj el-Barajneh neighborhood to evacuate, as the IDF would operate against Hezbollah-affiliated facilities in the area. The warning stated to remain at least 500 meters away from these areas.

At least 18 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late on Thursday.

The Palestinian Authority-run news agency Wafa said the air strike had hit a cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp where many civilians had been present.

The Israeli military said the air force had conducted a strike in Tulkarm in a joint operation with its Shin Bet security service and had killed the head of Hamas in Tulkarm and "other significant terrorists".

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Since then more than 700 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, saying they are trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.

The Israeli military has carried out dozens of air strikes in the occupied West Bank in the past year, but normally using drones or helicopters.

One resident from the area told AFP news agency the Israeli had "hit a cafeteria in a three-story building."

"There are many victims in the hospital," the resident added, saying the death toll would likely rise.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike had killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, who it said had attempted a car bombing last month and supplied weapons.

Wafa quoted a local official as saying children and elderly people from several families had been killed in the strike.

Tulkarm was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a major Israeli military operation in August.

Last month UN rights chief Volker Turk said major Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank were taking place "at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades".

Over the past year more than 700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry says.

Meanwhile at least 24 Israelis including members of the security forces have been killed by Palestinian attackers in the same period, according to Israeli officials.