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Israel Intensifies Offensive in Gaza, Lebanon After Hamas leader’s Death
Khiam, Lebanon, October 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
Israel said it had struck Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Sunday, while officials in Gaza said they were still trying to recover bodies from the rubble after an Israeli strike.
Many were dead or missing following the airstrike on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza late on Saturday, the health ministry in the Palestinian territory said. Israel said it was investigating reports of the incident.
It marked an intensification of Israel’s offensives against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, days after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had raised hopes of an opening for ceasefire negotiations to end more than a year of escalating conflict in the Middle East.
With US elections approaching, officials, diplomats and other sources in the region say Israel is seeking through military operations to try to shield its borders and ensure its rivals cannot regroup.
Israel is also preparing to retaliate for an Iranian missile barrage earlier this month, though Washington has pressed it not to strike Iranian energy facilities or nuclear sites.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was the subject of an assassination attempt by “Iran’s proxy Hezbollah” on Saturday when a drone was directed at his holiday home. In a call with former US President Donald Trump, the prime minister reiterated that Israel would make decisions based on its own interests, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.
The strike came two weeks into a major assault around the town of Jabalia, just to the south of Beit Lahiya, where Israeli troops backed by tanks have been trying to root out remaining Hamas fighters.
Over 5,000 Palestinians left Jabalia via designated routes, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on social media platform X.
BEIRUT STRIKES
In Lebanon, Israel stepped up its bombardment of southern Beirut from Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, it said its air force attacked Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut as well as an underground workshop for the production of weapons.
Fighter jets killed three Hezbollah commanders, including Alhaj Abbas Salameh, a senior figure in the group’s southern command, the Israeli military said in a statement.
Reuters witnesses saw smoke rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs, once a densely populated zone that also housed Hezbollah offices and underground installations.
The Lebanese military said on Sunday three of its soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on an army vehicle in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah made no immediate comment on the strikes, but said it had fired missiles at Israeli forces in Lebanon and at a base in northern Israel.
Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted a year ago when the Iranian-backed group began launching rockets in support of Hamas.
At the start of October, Israel launched a ground assault inside Lebanon in an attempt to stabilize the border region for its citizens who had fled rocket attacks in northern Israel.
Over the last year, more than 2,400 people have been killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, with more than 1.2 million people displaced, most in recent weeks. Fifty nine people have been killed in northern Israel and the Golan Heights over the same period, say Israeli authorities.
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Iran, Europeans Hold Nuclear Talks, Agree to More, Diplomats Say
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Photo: Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS
Diplomats from Iran and the three European parties remaining in a moribund 2015 nuclear deal met in Istanbul on Friday, Iranian and British officials said, their first round of talks since the US began nuclear talks with Tehran in April.
The talks between senior diplomats from Iran and Britain, France, and Germany – known as the E3 – took place as US President Donald Trump pushes for a deal to limit Iran‘s nuclear program. On Friday he called on Iran to move quickly after he said his administration had put forward a proposal to Iran.
An Iranian source close to the negotiating team said Tehran has yet to receive the US proposal, “but Oman has got it and will hand it over to Tehran soon.”
The European powers are not part of current negotiations between Iran and the United States, the fourth round of which ended in Oman on Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
However, they have held repeated talks with the Iranians most recently in March where they discussed how they saw the parameters of a deal to replace the 2015 accord.
The three powers have sought to coordinate with Washington notably on whether and when they should reimpose UN sanctions against Tehran – known in diplomatic circles as the “snapback mechanism” – if no agreement is reached.
That coordination has not been easy with European diplomats bemoaning a lack of clarity in US policy on its negotiations with Tehran.
Iran and the Europeans agreed to hold further talks if needed, Iran‘s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on X on Friday.
“Iran and the three European countries are determined to maintain and make optimal use of diplomacy,” Gharibabadi said. “We will meet again to continue the discussions if necessary.”
British diplomat Christian Turner said on X that Iran and the E3 shared a commitment to dialogue and that they agreed to meet again, without giving a timeframe.
Under the terms of a UN resolution ratifying the 2015 nuclear pact, the three European powers have until October 18 to trigger the snapback mechanism before the resolution expires.
According to diplomats and a document seen by Reuters, the E3 countries may do this by August if no substantial deal can be found by then.
Relations between the E3 and Iran have worsened over the last year despite sporadic meetings, against a backdrop of new sanctions imposed on Tehran over its ballistic missile program, its detention of foreign citizens and support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met the equivalent of national security advisers of the E3 powers also in Istanbul on Friday to discuss Iran and Ukraine, a US official said.
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Israel Strikes Yemeni Ports, Warns That Houthi Leader Is a Target
Illustrative: Smoke rises in the sky following US-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adel Al Khader
Israel struck Yemen’s Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif on Friday, continuing its campaign to degrade Houthi military capabilities and warning that the Iran-backed terrorist group’s top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, could be targeted if attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, although they have agreed to halt attacks on US ships.
Israel has carried out retaliatory strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
On Friday, the Israeli military said the ports of Hodeidah and Salif were being used to transfer weapons, reiterating its warnings to residents of those areas to evacuate.
Residents in Hodeidah said they heard four loud booms and saw smoke rising from the port following the Israeli strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement they would hunt down the Houthis’ top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
“If the Houthis continue to fire missiles at the State of Israel, they will be severely harmed, and we will also hurt the leaders,” they said, adding that al-Houthi could join the list of terrorist figures killed by Israel, such as Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.
The Houthis are part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US interests in the Middle East, alongside Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. About 60 percent of the Yemeni population lives under their control.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks toward Israel, most of which have been intercepted or landed short.
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Russia Says Ukraine Talks Yielded Prisoner Swap Deal and Agreement to Keep Talking
Russian delegation, led by presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, attend a meeting with Ukrainian delegation (not pictured) in Istanbul, Turkey, May 16, 2025. Photo: Murat Gok/Turkish Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
Russia said on Friday that the first direct talks with Ukraine in more than three years had yielded a deal to swap 1,000 prisoners of war each soon and to resume talks after each side had set out its vision for a future ceasefire.
In a short statement shown live on Russian state TV after the negotiations in Istanbul had wrapped up, Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia‘s delegation, said that Moscow was satisfied with progress made and was ready to keep talking to Kyiv.
“In general, we are satisfied with the result and are ready to continue contacts. In the coming days, there will be a massive thousand-for-thousand prisoner exchange,” said Medinsky.
That would be one of the largest exchanges of its kind since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 in what he called a special military operation.
“The Ukrainian side requested direct talks between the leaders of our states. We have taken note of this request,” Medinsky added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had challenged Putin to fly to Turkey for direct talks with him on Thursday, but Putin – who had proposed the talks in the first place but had not said who was going for Russia – sent a mid-level delegation of experienced negotiators instead.
In the event, the talks took place on Friday, not Thursday.
US President Donald Trump, who has tried to pressure both sides to move towards a peace settlement, has said he wants a 30-day ceasefire in an attempt to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Kyiv, which is on the defensive on the battlefield, has agreed to a 30-day ceasefire.
But Russia – which is slowly but steadily advancing on the battlefield and is worried that Ukraine will use such a pause to regroup and re-arm – has said it needs to nail down the terms of a ceasefire before signing up to one.
Medinsky said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to go away and set out in detail and in writing their vision for what a future ceasefire would look like.
“After such a vision has been presented, we believe it would be appropriate, as also agreed, to continue our negotiations,” he said.
In an interview with state TV released after his statement, Medinsky said that history showed that ceasefires did not always precede peace talks and that negotiations had been held throughout the Korean and Vietnam wars while fighting raged.
“As a rule, as Napoleon said, war and negotiations are always conducted at the same time,” said Medinsky.
The Kremlin said earlier on Friday that a meeting between Putin and Trump was essential to make progress on Ukraine and other issues, but needed considerable preparation and had to yield results when it happened.
The Russian and US presidents have spoken by phone but not met since Trump returned to the White House in January, despite both leaders expressing their desire for face-to-face talks.
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