Israeli Air Forces and Hezbollah’s Headquarters in Lebanese After the First Day of the War: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Briefing to the United Nations

After the strikes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly left for the United States to go back to Israel. He told the United Nations that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah over the past two weeks would go on, further diminishing hopes for an international cease-fire.

Israel is conducting an operation but it is not known what it will be able to accomplish in order to push the group away from the border. Thousands of troops were moved toward the border.

The United Nations said the fighting has displaced 211,000 people, including 85,000 now staying in public schools and other shelters. The airstrikes have disrupted access to clean water for hundreds of thousands of people.

The Israeli military said Friday that it had killed the long time leader of Hezbollah militant group in a series of airstrikes in central Lebanon.

Israeli army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the strikes targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, saying it was located underground beneath residential buildings.

Two people familiar with the situation, who are also an official with the United States, said that Nasrallah was the target of the strikes. The Israeli army wouldn’t say who was being targeted. It was not immediately clear if Nasrallah was at the site, and Hezbollah did not comment on the report.

Israel provided no immediate comment about the type of bomb or how many it used, but the resulting explosion levelled an area greater than a city block. The Israeli army has in its arsenal 2,000-pound, American-made “Bunker Buster” guided bombs designed specifically for hitting subterranean targets.

The footage showed rescue workers climbing over large slabs of concrete while surrounded by high piles of twisted metal. Several craters were visible, one with a car toppled into it. A stream of people fleeing along the main road out of the district.

Smoke and debris clouds from the explosion above the city is still rising and Israeli officials have labeled Hezbollah’s headquarters in southern Lebanon even after the airstrikes leveled large residential buildings.

The news of the blasts came while Netanyahu was talking to reporters. A military aide whispered into his ear, and Netanyahu quickly ended the briefing.

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The death toll is likely to rise significantly as teams comb through the rubble of six buildings. The initial blast prompted Israel to launch strikes on other parts of the south.

The health ministry of the country said that six people had died and more than 90 were injured but authorities said they were still clearing rubble and the number would likely rise.

An Israeli security official said he expects the campaign against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza, because the military’s goals are much narrower.

The people in the crowd waved their fists up and shouted, “We will not accept humiliation” while they marched behind the coffins.

Hezbollah officials and their supporters remain defiant. Thousands of people gathered in another part of the suburbs of Lebanon to honor three Hezbollah members who were killed in earlier strikes.

In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, civil defense workers pulled the bodies of two women — 35-year-old Hiba Ataya and her mother Sabah Olyan — from the rubble of a building brought down by a strike.

In Gaza, Israel aims to dismantle Hamas’ military and political regime, but the goal in Lebanon is to push Hezbollah away from the border — “not a high bar like Gaza” in terms of operational objectives, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to military briefing guidelines.

The mood among Israelis was jubilant. One Tel Aviv apartment building blasted a song in Hebrew saying they would take Nasr Hezbollah and send it back to God. At a beach in southern Israel, a lifeguard announced to beachgoers over a loudspeaker: “With happiness, joy and cheer, we announce officially that the rat Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated yesterday. The people of Israel live.

The leader of a group that several countries, including the United States, label a terrorist organization rarely made public appearances during his 32-year tenure.

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Israel’s top military commander, Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, issued a video statement Saturday, in which he said the unprecedented strikes Friday that had targeted Hezbollah’s leadership was “not the end” for what he termed Israel’s “toolbox.’

The fact that Hezbollah leader Sayyed Nasrallah was willing to risk his life in order to gather with other commanders shows the group was in trouble after two weeks of Israeli attacks, said a Jordanian security expert.

“The level of shock among Hezbollah cannot be measured,” Al Sabaileh said. They did not think that Israel would start and continue its attacks on Hezbollah.

And the regional consequences could be significant too, according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the British think tank Chatham House.

Iran will be looking for a way to save face after the killing of Hezbollah and the impact it will have on the Iran’s “axis of resistance,” wrote Vakil in a series of online posts. The axis has not proven to be effective for providing Iran deterrence against Israel.

But Orna Mizrahi, an Israeli security expert from the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said Israel’s successes in degrading Hezbollah’s leadership structure and military capabilities could be leveraged to reach a lasting agreement that would force Hezbollah forces back from Lebanon’s border with northern Israel.

Nick Blanford, who is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and has been involved with the Middle East programs for more than 30 years said Hezbollah’s succession plans are opaque, but should follow a plan that saw him elevation more than 30 years ago.

Blanford says that Hezbollah will get a big blow, but it will also be a repetition of what happened in 1992. “The Shura Council sits down and they elect somebody else.”

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On Saturday, the U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy reiterated calls for a ceasefire, saying in a post on X that he had spoken with the Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

Russia’s foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the killing of Nasrallah, saying it “is fraught with even greater dramatic consequences for Lebanon and the entire Middle East.” Moscow called on Israel to stop hostilities aimed at Lebanon.

Iraq’s parliament cried on TV at the news that Nasrallah had been killed. One lawmaker vowed that his death would “open the gates of fire against Zionists.”

In Syria, where Hezbollah has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s brutal civil war, people in Idlib province celebrated on the streets, Syrian journalist Fared Al Mahlool told NPR. People are very pleased to hear it. Is that correct? Many people have lost their lives because of Nasrallah’s support of the Syrian regime. They took part in destroying several cities and displacing so many people,” he said.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese have fled the country’s southern and eastern regions that have borne repeated Israeli strikes in the past week. And many have also been pouring over the border to neighboring Syria, Syrian journalist Danny Makki told NPR, speaking from the capital Damascus.

Thousands of people have been called up and brought to the country’s border with Lebanon, as Hezbollah continues to trade rockets with Israeli ground forces.

Hezbollah confirmed that its leader of 32 years was killed in Lebanon by an Israeli airstrike, and offered condolences for others killed with him, after what the group called a “treacherous Zionist raid on the southern suburb” of Beirut.

Despite his death, it was described as a great martyr, a bold, brave, wise, insightful, and faithful leader, and would remain among us with his thought, spirit, line and sacred approach.

In Washington, President Biden in a White House statement said Nasrallah and Hezbollah “were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror.”

To emphasize the potential for a larger conflict to arise from the attack, a top official of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has been reported as saying. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, had also been killed in the strike. Iran has long financed and supported Hezbollah, while also supplying weapons and missile technology to the group.

Just after Netanyahu spoke at the U.N. General Assembly, an attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters occurred. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with protocol, said Netanyahu greenlit the strike before he delivered his address.

Netanyahu said in public that the assassination of Nasrallah was an essential condition for Israel to achieve its war goals.

The Israeli military ordered limitations on public gatherings in central Israel in a sign that the country was preparing for possible retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah or other Iran-supported militias.

Israel’s 2023-nucleus war and its attacks on the Middle East: The UN General Assembly in New York, September 27, and September 27

“Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a ‘northern front’ against Israel,” Biden said in a statement.

In a separate statement, Biden noted the operation to take out Nasrallah happened within the wider context of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks against Israel.

There is a call from Canada, France, the U.K., and others for a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, even though there is less and less chance of such an agreement being reached.

Since October of last year, the conflict has spread across the Middle East region thanks to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.

There were fears that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was heading toward an all-out war after the latest exchanges of fire.

The IDF said it had shot eight projectiles from Lebanon into Israel on Sunday, hitting open areas in Israel’s north.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) stated on Telegram that their air forces targeted buildings where weapons and military structures of the organization were stored.

The decision by Benjamin Netanyahu to return toIsrael earlier than planned was due to the rumors that Israel was preparing for an invasion into southern Lebanon.

There are sirens in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. It was the first time Haifa has been targeted since the war began.

September 27: At the UN General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu declared that Israel is winning on many fronts, and would attack Iran and its proxies anywhere in the Middle East. Many of the delegates leaving the U.N. hall after his speech were snubbed by him, because he calls the UN a “swamp of antisemitic bile”.

A wave of explosions of communications devices killed 14 people and injured 450 in Lebanon. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks about “excellent achievements” by Israel’s military and intelligence branches leading to “impressive results,” but does not mention the device attacks of the previous two days.