Hezbollah announces new leader as Israel steps up Lebanon attacks

• Lebanese armed group Hezbollah named Naim Qassem as its new leader. Israel responded by threatening that his tenure would be "temporary". READ MORE BELOW

• Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley overnight killed more than 60 people across a dozen towns, according to the district governor. READ MORE BELOW

• At least 93 Palestinians were reported killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. READ MORE BELOW

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah is to hold talks with ministers and the heads of the military and intelligence community about the talks on a diplomatic solution to the war in Lebanon, according to an Axios reporter.

• United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined a chorus of international disapproval at the decision by the Knesset to ban U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA from operating in Israel. READ FULL STORY HERE

• The head of the International Organization for Migration said the agency was keen to step up its support to people in crisis following the Israeli decision to ban the UN relief agency UNRWA but there was "no way" it can replace its work in Gaza.

• Eight Austrian soldiers belonging to the UN peace-keeping force in Lebanon sustained slight and superficial injuries in a rocket strike on Camp Naqoura near the Israeli border, Austria's Defense Ministry said.

• Yemen's Houthis launched drones towards an industrial zone in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, the militant group's military spokesperson said. The Israeli military said that sirens sounded in Ashkelon after a drone crossed into Israeli territory but fell in an open space in the area.

• Qatar will work with U.S. President Joe Biden's administration "until the last minute" before the Presidential election to reach a Gaza ceasefire deal, the Qatari foreign ministry said.

Israel mocks new 'temporary' Hezbollah chief

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah named Naim Qassem as its new leader on Tuesday but Israel said his tenure would be "temporary", an apparent threat after it killed his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut over a month ago.

"Temporary appointment. Not for long," Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted on X with a photo of Qassem.

Earlier, Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a written statement that its Shura Council had elected Qassem, 71, in accordance with its established mechanism for choosing a secretary general.

Qassem was appointed as Hezbollah's deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group's then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, and has long been one of Hezbollah's leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media, including while cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.

Nasrallah was killed on September 27 in an Israeli air attack on Beirut's southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, and senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine - considered the most likely successor - was killed in Israeli strikes a week later.

Since Nasrallah's killing, Qassem has given three televised addresses, including one on October 8 in which he said the armed group supported efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon.

He is considered by many in Lebanon to lack the charisma and gravitas of Nasrallah.

In its official Arabic account on X, the Israeli government said: "His tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this terrorist organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine."

20 children among Beit Lahiya dead

At least 93 Palestinians were killed and missing and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday, the Gaza health ministry said.

Medics said at least 20 children were among the dead.

"A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them," the territory's health ministry said in a statement.

Later on Tuesday, Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the government media office, put the number of fatalities at 93.

There was no immediate Israeli comment. The Israeli military has frequently questioned figures on death tolls published by the Hamas media office, saying they were often exaggerated.

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed several bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground outside a bombed four-storey building. More bodies and survivors were being retrieved from under the wreckage as neighbors rushed to help with rescue.

On Monday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. 

The health ministry said on Tuesday those wounded in the strike could not receive care as doctors had been forced to evacuate the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Bekaa Valley targeted

Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley overnight killed more than 60 people across a dozen towns, the district governor said on Tuesday, the deadliest day yet in the area in more than a year of hostilities.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble on Tuesday morning.

No evacuation orders were given for any of the towns struck overnight. District governor Bachir Khodor said 67 people had been killed and more than 120 wounded and the death toll was expected to rise.

"That's only the people who've been removed from under the rubble and we still don't have the final toll. This is the most violent day for Baalbek in the last year," Khodor told Reuters.

The toll included nine people killed in Ram, its mayor Nazih Noun said, including a woman and her four children.

Large swathes of the Bekaa Valley are Hezbollah strongholds. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the attacks.