Israel Hezbollah War Live Updates: Israel hits over 120 Hezbollah targets 'within an hour'

The Iran-backed Hezbollah group said on Monday it ordered its fighters not to attack Israeli troops who recently moved behind a UN peacekeeping position near a Lebanese border village.

The group reported "unusual movement of Israeli enemy forces behind a UNIFIL position, on the outskirts of the border village of Maroun al-Ras," ordering fighters "not to take action... to preserve the lives of the peacekeepers", quoting a field commander in their statement. The group accused Israel of "trying to use UNIFIL forces as human shields".

-Air France and its low coast airline Transavia said Monday they are suspending flights to Tel-Aviv until October 15 and to Beirut until October 26 because of security concerns.

"The resumption of service will be subject to an evaluation of the situation on the ground," said the Air France-KLM group airlines, which earlier had suspended flights to the two middle eastern cities until at least October 8.

The World Bank is looking to free up emergency funds for Lebanon, potentially including up to $100 million through the use of special clauses in existing loan deals, its managing director of operations told Reuters.

The Washington-based development lender currently has $1.65 billion in loans to the country including a $250 million loan approved this week to help connect dispersed renewable energy projects in the country.

The Israeli military said it struck more than 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon within a 60-minute period as part of extensive strikes on Monday. "The IAF (air force) conducted an extensive aerial operation and struck over 120 terror targets in southern Lebanon within an hour," the military said in a statement, adding the targets belonged to the group's elite Radwan forces and other units.

Iran hailed Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel as a turning point for Palestinians on Monday as it marked the first anniversary of the deadliest attack on Israeli soil. "The operation on October 7, 2023... was a decisive moment in the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and oppression of the Zionist regime," Iran's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The IDF says the ballistic missile launched from Yemen at Israel was successfully intercepted by Israeli air defenses, according to the Times of Israel. Sirens sounded across central Israel amid fears of falling shrapnel.

A Lebanese security source said an Israeli strike hit Monday near the country's only airport in Beirut, close to Hezbollah's stronghold in the south of the capital.

"Israel conducted an air strike near the airport," the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Lebanon's official National News Agency had earlier said Israel launched "a series of strikes targeting more than 30 towns and villages in the Tyre district," after earlier saying "series of strikes" hit other south Lebanon locations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a security briefing after the government meeting marking the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel. The meeting seems to be urgent, as a scheduled meeting between Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot was postponed at the last minute.

The French-U.S. proposal for a ceasefire to end fighting in Lebanon remains on the table, with parties continuing to work on it, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.

At least 10 firefighters have been killed in the Israeli strike on a municipal building in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon's health ministry said on Monday.

Hezbollah, the militant organization based in Lebanon, launched a second attack, targeting regions north of the Israeli city of Haifa with a barrage of missiles, according to a statement released by the group. This assault followed an earlier incident in which Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets at the northern Israeli port city.

On the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a solemn promise to secure the release of all captives still being held by Palestinian militants in Gaza. The Prime Minister's office issued a statement in which Netanyahu addressed the nation.

"On this day, in this place, and in many places across our country, we remember our dead, our hostages, whom we are obligated to bring back and our heroes who fell in defence of the homeland and the nation. We went through a terrible massacre a year ago," Netanyahu declared. He emphasized the government's commitment to bringing the hostages home and honoring the memory of those who lost their lives in the attack and in the defense of Israel.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated his country's support for Israel and its battle against Hamas militants on Monday, the first anniversary of a lightning attack on the Middle Eastern country in which some 1,200 people were killed.

"We feel with you the horror, the pain, the uncertainty and the sadness. We stand by your side," he said. "The Hamas terrorists must be fought."

Scholz also drew attention to the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, saying that "people need hope and perspectives if they are to renounce terror."

"That's why the federal government is calling for a ceasefire, for the hostages to be freed, and for a political process - even if that seems more distant today than ever," he said.

Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 41,909 Palestinians and wounded 97,303 since October 7, 2023, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Monday.

Hamas' armed wing attacked on Monday Israel's Tel Aviv with a missile salvo, the group said in statement, with the Israeli military saying sirens were sounded in central Israel.

The Israeli army on Monday said it had deployed another division to participate in operations in Lebanon -- making it the third troop grouping at division strength to be used in the ground fight against Hezbollah.

"The soldiers of the 91st Division began localised and targeted operational activity in southern Lebanon," said a statement from the army.

A high-ranking Hamas official on Monday stated that the lethal assault carried out by the group on October 7 of the previous year had undone Israel's progress. Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's former leader, made the remarks on Al Arabiya TV.

"Al-Aqsa flood returned the occupation to square zero and threatened its existence," Meshaal said, employing Hamas's term for the offensive. The attack, according to the senior official, not only reversed Israel's gains but also posed a threat to its very presence.

Democratic Party's Vice President nominee Tim Walz expressed his firm support for Israel's right to defend itself, in his interview to Fox News on Sunday.

His opinion becomes significant as it comes just a day ahead of the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre in Israel, which resulted in the deaths of over 1200 Israelis at the hands of the terrorist organisation Hamas.

Giving his first solo interview ahead of the US General Elections due early in November this year, Walz called for Israeli hostages to be released and to bring an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza but said that "Iran is at the heart of this," noting "their proxies that bring disruption throughout the region.", the Hill reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday paid tributes to the victims of the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel, on the first anniversary of the incursion that shook the Middle East.

The pain remains, as vivid as it was a year ago. The pain of the Israeli people. Ours. The pain of wounded humanity," he wrote on the social media platform X, adding that he was sending "fraternal thoughts" to the victims, their families and the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip a year on.

Australians gathered for vigils on Monday to mark the first anniversary of Hamas's deadly attack on Israel, which sparked the war on Gaza, but the events were muted after authorities warned of tougher security measures.

At Sydney's famed Bondi Beach, participants holding Israeli and Australian flags listened in silence to a reading of the names of Israel's 101 hostages still held by Hamas.

The Israel-Hamas conflict has triggered protests from both Jewish and Palestinian groups across the world, including some in Australia, which has warned the events could inflame community tension and disrupt social harmony.

The United States has spent a record of at least USD 17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University's Costs of War project, released on the anniversary of Hamas' attacks on Israel. An additional USD 4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up US military operations in the region since the October 7, 2023, attacks, researchers said in findings first provided to The Associated Press. That includes the costs of a Navy-led campaign to quell strikes on commercial shipping by Yemen's Houthis, who are carrying them out in solidarity with the fellow Iranian-backed group Hamas.

The report - completed before Israel opened a second front, this one against Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, in late September - is one of the first tallies of estimated US costs as the Biden administration backs Israel in its conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon and seeks to contain hostilities by Iran-allied armed groups in the region.

There are hills of rubble where apartment blocks stood, and pools of sewage-tainted water spreading disease. City streets have been churned into dirt canyons and, in many places, the air is filled with the stench of unrecovered corpses.

Israel’s yearlong offensive against Hamas, one of the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, has killed more than 41,000 people, a little over half of them women and children, according to local health officials. With no end in sight to the war and no plan for the day after, it is impossible to say when – or even if – anything will be rebuilt.

Even after the fighting stops, hundreds of thousands of people could be stuck living in squalid tent camps for years. Experts say reconstruction could take decades.

The armed wing of Hamas claimed it fired rockets into southern Israel on Monday as the country marked the first anniversary of the attack the Palestinian group launched on this day last year.

The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that its fighters fired the projectiles at "enemy gatherings" at Rafah crossing, Kerem Shalom crossing and kibbutz Holit near the border with Gaza.

Four projectiles fired from Gaza as Israel begins October 7 commemorations. Israelis on Monday marked the first anniversary of the devastating Hamas attack that triggered a war which has sparked protest worldwide and risks igniting a far wider conflict in the Middle East.

Ceremonies and protests in Jerusalem and Israel's south were scheduled to begin around 06:29 am, the hour when Hamas-led militants launched rockets into Israel at the start of the October 7 attack last year.

Israel intercepted early on Monday two aerial targets launched from the east after sirens went off in the central areas of Rishon Letsiyon and Palmachim, the military said on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks. It gave no further details of the source of the drones.

Last year's Hamas attacks killed 1,200 people and more than 250 were taken hostage, Israeli figures show.

They provoked an Israeli offensive in Gaza that laid waste the densely populated coastal enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.

Israel's military said in a statement early on Monday that one soldier had been killed in combat on the Lebanese border and two soldiers were severely injured.

In the past year in the Gaza Strip, Israel has bombed more than 40,000 targets, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites, the military said on Monday's one-year anniversary of the Hamas-led militant attacks that triggered Israel's assault on the enclave.

Tallying troops whose names it received permission to publish, Israel's military said 726 Israeli soldiers had been killed since October 7, 2023. Of those, 380 died in the October 7 attacks and 346 in Gaza combat starting Oct. 27, 2023.

Injured troops numbered 4,576 since that date. Fifty-six soldiers died as a result of operational accidents, which the military did not define.

In data to mark the October 7 anniversary, the Israeli military said it enlisted 300,000 reservists since the start of the war - 82% men and 18% women and nearly half of them aged 20 to 29.

Israel's military said early on Monday that sirens were sounded in Rishon Letsiyon in central Israel.

Beirut's skyline lit up again late on Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel's heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh since it escalated its air campaign on September 23. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties.

Israel confirmed the strikes and says it targets Hezbollah. The militant group, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, has called its months of firing rockets into Israel a show of support for the Palestinians.

A separate Israeli strike earlier on Sunday in the town of Qamatiyeh southeast of Beirut killed six people, including three children, Lebanon's Health Ministry said.

Thousands of people gathered over the weekend for the first emotional commemorations marking the anniversary of Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The first candlelight vigils, memorials and marches to mark the anniversary were held in cities ranging from Tel Aviv to London, Paris and Berlin, with more set to be held around the world on Monday.

In Tel Aviv, friends and relatives of the 370 people killed in the massacre at the Nova dance festival held a candlelight vigil Sunday evening at a concert hall.

Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, Israeli police said early on Monday, and Israeli media reported 10 people were injured in the country's north.

Hezbollah said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with a salvo of "Fadi 1" missiles. Media reports said two rockets hit Haifa.

Police said that some buildings and properties were damaged, and that there were several reports of minor injuries.

A new round of airstrikes hit Beirut suburbs late on Sunday as Israel intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza and southern Lebanon in a widening war with Iran-allied militant groups across the region. Palestinian officials said a strike on a mosque killed at least 19 people. A year after Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack, Israel has opened a new front in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has traded fire with Israel since the war in Gaza began.

Israel's military confirmed a Hezbollah attack on the northern city of Haifa, though it was not immediately clear whether shrapnel from "fallen projectiles" was from rockets or interceptors. Hezbollah said it tried to hit a nearby naval base. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it treated 10 people, most of them hurt by shrapnel.

Israel also has vowed to strike Iran after a ballistic missile attack on Israel last week. The widening conflict risks further drawing in the United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel. Iran-allied militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have joined in with long-distance strikes on Israel.

Israel is on high alert ahead of memorial events for the October 7 attack, while rallies continue around the world marking the anniversary.

In Berlin, around 650 people attended a commemoration on Saturday. Police said they had detained 26 people who shouted insults at participants.

In Paris, thousands of people gathered on Sunday to remember the victims of the attack.

"We're here in support of Israel, the Israeli people, in memory of those who were killed and for those who were kidnapped" that day, Robert Zbili, the president of the National Jewish Fund, told AFP.

In Geneva, 300 people gathered on Sunday evening in front of the UN offices there for a tribute.

But in a video message and a post on X, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Daniel Meron, denounced the organisation for having failed to "pass a resolution holding Hamas and its supporters responsible".

The build-up to the anniversary has been marked by soaring tension, with fears the ongoing conflict could spiral into a wider war.

The October 7 attack resulted in the death of 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,870 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory's health ministry and described as reliable by the United Nations.

Thousands gathered over the weekend in cities worldwide to commemorate the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel. Emotional vigils, memorials, and marches were held in locations including Tel Aviv, London, Paris, and Berlin. In Tel Aviv, a candlelight vigil was held in memory of the 370 people killed during the massacre at the Nova dance festival, where attendees lit candles and embraced.

In London’s Hyde Park, thousands waved Israeli flags and held placards with images of hostages still held by Palestinian militants. The names and faces of those killed in the attack were displayed as participants honored the victims. Families of the hostages, like Mandy Damari, whose daughter Emily was taken by Hamas, expressed their longing for the safe return of their loved ones.

Amid ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah, rockets from Lebanon were intercepted by Israel, house has been damaged in northern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's military has significantly altered the situation since the Hamas attack on October 7 last year. Netanyahu, addressing troops, expressed confidence in Israel's victory in ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon while preparing to target Iran.

Israel's army chief told troops on Sunday that Israel was fighting a lengthy war and vowed to destroy those who attack Israel. "This is a long war, measured not only by capabilities but also by the willpower and perseverance over time," Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in an address to troops.

He also said that Israeli forces had defeated the military wing of Hamas. "A year has passed, and we have defeated the military wing of Hamas. We have dealt a severe blow to Hezbollah, which has lost all of its senior leadership. We are not stopping," Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi added.

Former US defence secretary Mark Esper said that Israel might launch strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. "Israeli forces would go into Tehran and "go after the Ayatollah Khomeini, they'll go after President Pezeshkian, and they'll go after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," said Esper.

Esper also mentioned that Israel's military would need to target Iran's command and control centers to disrupt communication within the regime.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu and reaffirmed France's "unwavering commitment" to Israel's security, the presidency said. Macron also insisted on a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. "On the eve of the first anniversary of the Hamas terrorist offensive against Israel, he expressed the solidarity of the French people with the Israeli people," the French presidency said.

In a covert operation by Israel's Mossad, Hezbollah was convinced to purchase and distribute pagers to thousands of its operatives. The scheme was designed to infiltrate the group's communication system, ultimately leading to the deaths and injuries of many members. The story began two years ago when Mossad devised a plan to use pagers as a Trojan horse to penetrate Hezbollah's network.