Israel-Hamas war update: Beirut death toll rises, Israel claims Hezbollah commander killed

Israel claimed a senior Hezbollah official was killed in a rare Israeli airstrike on Beirut, shortly after Hezbollah fired 140 rockets into northern Israel on Saturday, raising the death toll to at least 31 and wounding dozens.

The attack is part of a new cycle of rising tensions between the hostile countries that has raised fears of an all-out war erupting in the Middle East, especially after two separate attacks in Lebanon reportedly involved simultaneous explosions of communications devices across the country, killing 37 people and wounding more than 3,400.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging regular gunfire since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel triggered a devastating Israeli military offensive into the Gaza Strip.

Gaza's health ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the region in nearly a year of war between Israel and Hamas. The ministry does not separate counts of combatants from civilians but says just over half of those killed are women and children. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 combatants, without providing evidence.

The latest information is as follows:

Lebanese Prime Minister says he will not attend UN General Assembly

BEIRUT — Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati says he will not travel to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly because of ongoing violence with Israel.

Mikati's office said the prime minister, who was due to address Lebanon at the United Nations later this month, would discuss Lebanon's diplomatic moves with Foreign Minister Abdullah Bouhabib, who is currently in New York.

“At the moment there is no higher priority than stopping the massacre by Israel's enemies,” Mikati was quoted as saying, the day after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed 37 people and wounded 68.

Mikati said he wanted to draft an international law banning the use of civilian technology for military purposes.

Mikati's comments came days after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding around 3,000 members of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, an attack that Israel has blamed.

White House national security adviser calls reported Hezbollah commander's death 'good outcome'

WILMINGTON, Del. — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan called the news of Ibrahim Akil's death a “positive outcome” and said he planned to discuss the operation with Israeli officials later Saturday.

Akil, the main target of Friday's attack, had long been wanted by the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s. He was subject to U.S. sanctions, and in 2023 the State Department announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his “identification, location, arrest or conviction.”

“That individual has American blood on his hands and a bounty of justice around his neck,” Sullivan told reporters on the sidelines of a Quad summit hosted by US President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Delaware. “The United States committed a long time ago to doing everything in its power to bring that individual to justice.”

Sullivan added that the moment was also meaningful for the American victims.

“1983 seems like a long time ago,” Sullivan said, “but for many families and many people, they still live with it every day.”

— AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller in Wilmington, Delaware.

22 killed in Israeli school attack, Gaza health ministry says

DEIR AL-BALAR, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces attacked a school in the northern part of the enclave, killing 22 people, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Saturday.

The statement said 30 more people were wounded in an attack on a school in Gaza City's Zaytun neighborhood.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas “command and control center” in a building formerly used as a school early on Saturday.

Death toll in Israeli attack on Beirut suburb rises to 31

BEIRUT — Lebanon's health minister said Saturday that the death toll from an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Beirut has risen to 31, including seven women and three children.

Firas Abyad told reporters that 68 people were wounded in Friday's airstrikes, 15 of whom remain in hospital, making it the deadliest Israeli attack on Beirut since the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006.

Among the dead were Commander Ibrahim Akil, who headed Hezbollah's elite Radwan Unit, and about 10 members of the militant group who had been meeting in the basement of the destroyed building.

Israel launched the unusual airstrikes on Friday afternoon in densely populated areas of southern Beirut during rush hour, as people returned home from work and students left school.

On Saturday morning, Hezbollah's media office took reporters to the site of the airstrike, where workers were still digging through the rubble.

The Lebanese army had sealed off a perimeter around the destroyed building, while members of the Lebanese Red Cross stood nearby to retrieve bodies found beneath the rubble.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says weaponizing conventional equipment violates international law

UNITED NATIONS — The weaponization of ordinary communications devices is a new development in warfare and the targeting of thousands of Lebanese civilians using pagers, two-way radios and electronic devices without authorization is a violation of international human rights law, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday.

Foreign Minister Volker Turk told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that there must be an independent and transparent investigation into the twin attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday that reportedly detonated explosive devices, killing 37 people and wounding more than 3,400.

“Those who ordered and carried out these attacks must be held accountable,” he said.

Lebanon blames Israel for the attack, which appears to have targeted Hezbollah fighters but also caused many civilian casualties, including children. Hezbollah has fought multiple conflicts with Israel, including the 2006 war, and has launched near-daily attacks on Israel in support of Hamas fighters who attacked Israel on October 7.

When asked by journalists about speculation that Israel was behind the twin explosions, Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon said he had “no comment.”