Latest on Israel-Hamas war: Israel admits death of Hezbollah commander, Beirut death toll rises

Israel claimed responsibility for the death of a senior Hezbollah officer in a rare Israeli airstrike on Beirut, raising the death toll to at least 37 people on Saturday and wounding dozens more shortly after Hezbollah fired 140 rockets at northern Israel.

The attacks are part of a new cycle of escalation between the adversaries that has raised fears of a war breaking out in the Middle East, particularly after two separate attacks in Lebanon in which communication devices exploded simultaneously across the country, reportedly killing 37 people and injuring more than 3,400.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire regularly since Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, which triggered the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory during Israel’s nearly year-long war with Hamas. The ministry does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its statistics, but says just over half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Here’s the latest information:

Israeli military issues new security guidelines after attack on over 400 rocket launchers in Lebanon

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said about 90 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Saturday, and more than 400 rocket launchers were damaged in Lebanon.

It is not immediately clear whether anyone was killed or injured in the attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, which follow an Israeli attack on Beirut on Friday that killed a top Hezbollah commander.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli defense spokesman, announced updated security guidelines for areas north of Haifa, including limits on gatherings of 30 people in open spaces and 300 people in closed spaces. Work and school can continue if people can quickly reach protected areas. In practice, the new guidelines likely mean that school will be canceled in parts of the north because students and teachers will not be able to reach shelters in time.

Within an hour of the announcement, Sunday classes were canceled in at least one border region in the western Galilee. The cancellations extend far beyond the usual five-kilometer (three-mile) evacuation zone in northern Israel.

Iranian forces unveil new ballistic missile

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s armed forces unveiled a new ballistic missile during their annual military parade Saturday, amid tensions in the region.

State television said the missile, called Jahad, is a single-stage liquid-fuel ballistic missile with a high-explosive warhead that has a range of 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles), theoretically enabling it to reach Israel.

Iran regularly reveals the technological achievements of its armed forces.

In April, it fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for a suspected Israeli attack that killed two Iranian generals at the Iranian consulate in Syria. Israel said most of the missiles were intercepted.

Lebanese Prime Minister says he will not attend UN General Assembly

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he will not travel to New York for the United Nations General Assembly session because of the ongoing violence against Israel.

Mikati’s office said the prime minister was due to deliver a speech on Lebanon at the United Nations later this month, but now plans to discuss Lebanon’s diplomatic efforts with Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib, who is currently in New York.

“There is no other priority at the moment than stopping the massacres committed by the Israeli enemy,” Mikati was quoted as saying, a day after an Israeli airstrike on Beirut that killed 37 people and wounded 68.

Mikati said he was calling for the development of international rules that would prevent civilian technological devices from being used for military purposes.

Mikati’s comments came days after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000 members of the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Israel was blamed for the attack.

White House national security adviser calls Hezbollah commander’s death report ‘good result’

WILMINGTON, Del. — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan called reports of Ibrahim Akil’s death a “good outcome” and said he plans to talk to Israeli officials about the operation on Saturday.

Akil, the main target of Friday’s attack, had been wanted by the U.S. for years for his alleged role 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 U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his “identification, location, arrest, and/or conviction.”

“This man has American blood on his hands and the reward of justice on his head,” Sullivan told reporters on the sidelines of the Quad summit that U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting in Wilmington, Del. “This is someone the United States promised a long time ago that it would do everything in its power to bring him to justice.”

Sullivan added that the moment also holds significance for the American victims.

“You know, 1983 seems like a long time ago,” Sullivan said. “But for a lot of families and a lot of people, they still live with it every day.”

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

Israeli attack on school kills 22, Gaza Health Ministry says

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli shelling of a school in the northern enclave has killed 22 people, the Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday.

An attack on a school in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City left 30 people injured, a statement said.

Earlier Saturday, the Israeli military said it had attacked a “Hamas command and control center located in a compound that previously served” as a school.

Death toll from Israeli attack on Beirut suburbs rises to 31

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

Firass Abiad told reporters that 68 people were wounded in Friday’s airstrike, 15 of whom remain hospitalized. It was the deadliest Israeli attack on Beirut since Israel’s war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.

Among the dead were Ibrahim Akil, a Hezbollah commander who led the elite Radwan Forces, as well as about a dozen members of the militant group who had been meeting in the basement of the destroyed building.

Israel carried out a rare airstrike on a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday afternoon, during rush hour, as people returned home from work and students left schools.

On Saturday morning, Hezbollah’s press office took journalists to the site of the airstrike, where workers were still digging through the rubble.

Lebanese troops cordoned off the area around the destroyed building, while members of the Lebanese Red Cross stood nearby to collect bodies found under the rubble.

UN human rights chief says using ordinary devices as weapons violates international law

UNITED NATIONS — Using ordinary communication devices as weapons constitutes a new phase in the art of war, and attacking thousands of Lebanese people with pagers, radios and electronic equipment without their knowledge violates international human rights law, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday.

Volker Türk told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that an independent and transparent investigation was necessary into the two attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, during which explosive devices exploded, killing 37 people and injuring more than 3,400.

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

Lebanon blamed Israel for the attacks, which apparently targeted Hezbollah fighters but also claimed many civilian lives, including children. Hezbollah has fought multiple conflicts with Israel, including a 2006 war, and has carried out near-daily attacks on Israel in support of Hamas fighters who attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

When reporters asked Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, about speculation that Israel was behind the two explosions, he replied: “We have no comment on that.”