Israel strikes main Lebanon-Syria motorway after overnight attacks on Beirut and West Bank

Target of Beirut attack was Hashem Safieddine, a potential successor to Hassan Nasrallah as Hezbollah chief

Smoke rises from an Israeli air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs. Reuters

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Israel has struck the Lebanon-Syria border, cutting off the main road linking the two countries, after overnight bombardment of the West Bank and Lebanese capital Beirut.

The Friday morning strike near the Masnaa border crossing cut off the road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days, Lebanon's National News Agency said. The strike created a 4m wide crater. Israel on Thursday had accused Hezbollah of using the crossing to transport military equipment into Lebanon.

Around midnight on Thursday, intense explosions were reported in Beirut’s southern suburbs near Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport. Videos posted online showed explosions and fireballs erupting from the area. Reports said the target of Thursday's attack on Beirut was Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor as Hezbollah chief to Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli strike in the same area a week ago.

There was no initial confirmation of the fate of Mr Safieddine, who is also a cousin of Nasrallah and head of Hezbollah's Executive Council. The explosions were heard as far away as the northern Matn and Keserwan areas, about 20km from the capital.

A Hezbollah source said Israel had conducted 11 strikes on the group's southern Beirut stronghold late on Thursday. Sources had earlier said another Israeli strike had targeted a warehouse next to Beirut airport. The attacks came minutes after Hezbollah announced it launched Fadi-2 missiles targeting a base near the northern Israeli city of Haifa in response to the killing of Nasrallah. Fadi-2 missiles have a 170kg payload and are believed to have a range of 100km.

In all, Hezbollah launched approximately 230 projectiles from Lebanon into Israeli territory overnight.

Israel on Friday said it had killed the head of Hezbollah's communication networks, Mohammad Rashid Sakafi. It also claimed to have struck an underground tunnel crossing from the Lebanese border into Syria. "The 3.5km-long tunnel enables the transfer and storage of large quantities of weapons underground," Israel said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Beirut on Friday, the most senior international official to visit Lebanon since Nasrallah's killing. He arrived at Beirut’s airport, where overnight an Israeli strike landed nearby.

Mr Araghchi held talks with Prime Minister Najib Mikati. After the meeting, he said Iran "will carry out a diplomatic campaign in support of Lebanon", adding Tehran had requested a meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

He also met Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, later saying his presence in Beirut while it is being bombed by Israel showed Tehran stood with Hezbollah.

"We support efforts for a ceasefire on the condition that it would be acceptable to the Lebanese people, acceptable to the resistance [Hezbollah], and thirdly, it would be synchronised with a ceasefire in Gaza," he added.

A UN refugee agency official on Friday said that most of Lebanon's nearly 900 shelters were full and that people fleeing Israeli strikes were increasingly sleeping in the open.

"Most of the nearly 900 government established collective shelters in Lebanon have no more capacity," the UNHCR's Rula Amin told reporters in Geneva.

"With the onset of winter, UNHCR is concerned that conditions for those affected by the escalating conflict in other will only worsen," she added.

Occupied West Bank

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, at least 18 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarm refugee camp on Thursday night, the Palestinian health ministry said. The Israeli military said it had conducted a strike on Tulkarm and killed Zahi Yaser Abd Al Razeq Oufi, the head of the Hamas network there.

The Palestinian government “calls for urgent international action to stop the escalating massacres” against its people. The official spokesman for the Palestinian presidency also condemned the attack, Palestinian news agency Wafa said, adding that those attacks “will not bring security and stability to anyone, but will drag the region into more violence”.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gun battles between security forces and Palestinian fighters.

Israel, at war in Gaza since Hamas's October 7 attack, has widened the scope of the war to Lebanon secure its northern border and ensure the safe return of more than 60,000 people displaced by Hezbollah attacks over the past year. The fighting has driven nearly 1.2 million people from their homes in Lebanon, the country's crisis unit said Thursday.

Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad said that 1,974 people have been killed – including 127 children and 261 women – and 9,384 injured in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since October 8.

The ministry said early on Friday that 37 people were killed and 151 wounded by Israeli strikes over the previous 24 hours. The Israeli military said nine of its soldiers have been killed in combat in Lebanon.

The chief of the UN peacekeepers said the force is remaining in its positions on Lebanon’s southern border, despite Israel’s request for them to vacate some locations before it launched its recent ground operation. Jean-Pierre LaCroix said the commander and liaison officers from the force, known as Unifil, are in constant contact with their counterparts in the Israeli and Lebanese armies.

Unifil is also “the only channel of communications between the parties”, said Mr LaCroix. “The peacekeepers are also working with partners to do what they can to protect the population.”