Hamas commander killed in Lebanon's north, Hezbollah targets Israeli soldiers

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for seven attacks on Israeli forces on Saturday, with its fighters launching barrages of rockets to target Israeli soldiers near the border. 

As the fighting continues to escalate in the region, a leader of Hamas' armed wing was reported to have died, along with his family, after an Israeli offensive in the northern Tripoli region. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli military struck a mosque beside a hospital in the town of Bint Jbeil in south Lebanon, adding to a growing list of civilian infrastructure it has targeted in the country. 

The Israeli military said it hit a "command center located inside a mosque," where Hezbollah fighters were present.

Israeli strike on hospital

Located adjacent to the mosque, the Salah Ghandour Hospital said nine of its medical and nursing staff were wounded by heavy strikes, most of them seriously, after it received an Israeli warning to evacuate. It has now closed.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that the grounds of the hospital in the southern town of Bint Jbeil were "subjected to Israeli shelling." The hospital director said it took a direct hit and was evacuated. It has now been closed.

Israeli bombardment has put at least four hospitals in Lebanon out of service.

In the first reported Israeli airstrike on the northern Tripoli region in the current flare-up, Hamas said "Zionist bombardment" of the Beddawi refugee camp killed its commander, Saeed Attallah Ali, as well as his wife and two daughters.

The escalation comes just days before the first anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel. Nearly a year into the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel has shifted its focus north.

Intensified wave of strikes

Israel's military launched an intensified wave of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon, killing more than 1,110 people since September 23.

On the ground, Hezbollah said early Saturday that its fighters were engaged in clashes with Israeli troops in the border area after earlier saying they had forced soldiers to retreat.

The Israeli military said its forces had killed 250 Hezbollah fighters in the border area this week. Israel's recent attacks on Lebanon have killed an Iranian general, a host of Hezbollah commanders and, in the biggest blow to the group in decades, its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

As Israel mulls its response to the recent Iranian missile attack, U.S. President Joe Biden cautioned against striking Iranian oil facilities, a day after he said Washington was "discussing" such action.

The Iranian attack, which Tehran called revenge for the killing of Nasrallah and other top figures, killed one person in the occupied West Bank.

Satellite pictures of Nevatim air base in southern Israel showed apparent damage to a structure on Wednesday, compared with a photo taken on August 3.

Syrian nationals displaced again

Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Friday cut off the main international road to Syria, with Israel saying it aimed to prevent the flow of weapons.

More than 200,000 Lebanese and Syrian nationals have already crossed the border into Syria fleeing the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Philippo Grandi.

The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said that its forces "remain in all positions" despite an Israeli request on Monday to "relocate some of our positions" as the military's ground incursions began.

In a visit to Beirut, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his government backs "efforts for a ceasefire" that would be acceptable to Hezbollah and come "simultaneously with a ceasefire in Gaza."

Biden said the U.S., Israel's top military supplier, was working to "rally the rest of the world and our allies" to prevent the fighting from spreading even further.

Continued attacks on Gaza

Meanwhile, Israeli fire killed at least 12 people in Gaza, said a hospital medic, the civil defense agency and the Palestinian Red Crescent separately.

The Red Crescent said a child was killed in "a missile attack" that hit a makeshift displacement camp near a central Gaza school, where the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas's "command-and-control center."

The Israeli military has issued a new evacuation order for large areas in central Gaza.

A new map was released that designates 11 "blocks" in areas of Nuseirat and Bureij in the besieged enclave that need to be immediately evacuated. Civilians are told to go to a so-called "humanitarian zone" designated by the army.

Palestinians detained in West Bank

Israeli forces detained more than 25 Palestinians, including a child and former detainees, in a series of raids across the occupied West Bank over the last 24 hours, Wafa news agency reported citing local sources.

The U.S. military said it carried out 15 strikes on Friday against targets linked to Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen, where residents reported blasts at military outposts and even an airport.

The Houthis have carried out nearly 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November and say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel's year-long war in Gaza. They have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers.

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