Israel-Iran War Highlights: Hezbollah source says contact 'lost' with top figure Safieddine

Israel's army chief Herzi Halevi on Saturday vowed no let-up in the military's battle against Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

"We must continue to apply pressure on Hezbollah and do additional and continual damage to the enemy, without concessions and without respite", Lieutenant General Halevi said in a statement.

The president of Ireland on Saturday sharply criticised Israel's demand that UN peacekeepers leave their positions in southern Lebanon.

"It is outrageous that the Israeli Defence Forces have threatened this peacekeeping force and sought to have them evacuate the villages they are defending," President Michael Higgins said in a statement.

"Indeed, Israel is demanding that the entire UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) operating under UN mandates walk away."

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed reservations Saturday about the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send troops on ground operations into Lebanon.

"I regret that Prime Minister Netanyahu has made another choice," said Macron, referring to his decision not to heed calls from Paris and Washington for a ceasefire.

The 88 members of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), including France and Canada, call for an "immediate and lasting" ceasefire in Lebanon, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.

"We have unanimously expressed ourselves in favour of an immediate and lasting ceasefire and have stated our commitment to de-escalating tensions in the region," Macron told reporters at the end of a "Francophonie" summit, adding France would hold an international conference in support of Lebanon in October.

A plane chartered by the Brazilian Air Force has left Beirut for Brazil carrying 229 passengers including 10 infants.

Brazil’s foreign ministry said in a statement Saturday that three pets are also on the flight headed for Sao Paulo. Brazil’s first flight evacuating nationals from Lebanon. The ministry says it was supposed to leave Friday but was stalled due to security reasons.

It says a second flight is scheduled for next week, depending on security conditions on the ground.

President Isaac Herzog said on Saturday that Iran remains an "ongoing threat" to Israel, a year after the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas militants.

"In many senses we are still living the aftermath of October 7... It is in the ongoing threat to the Jewish State by Iran and its terror proxies, who are blinded by hatred and bent on the destruction of our one and only Jewish nation state," Herzog said in a statement to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.

Hezbollah said it lauched rockets at a defence company in northern Israel Saturday, the latest attacks after Israel intensified its bombing campaign last week, nearly a year into cross-border clashes with the group.

The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it launched "a rocket salvo" towards a "military industries company" east of Acre.

A high-level Hezbollah source said Saturday that contact with Hashem Safieddine, widely touted as potentially the group's next leader, had been lost following Israeli strikes this week.

"Contact with Sayyed Safieddine has been lost since the violent strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs" early Friday, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters and adding: "We don't know if he was at the targeted site, or who may have been there with him."

Iran’s foreign minister says some countries are making efforts to broker cease-fires in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Damascus that “we are trying to reach a cease-fire in Gaza and in Lebanon.” The minister did not name the countries involved, describing them as regional states and some from outside the Middle East. He declined to provide details, saying the efforts are still “ideas.”

Rocket alert sirens have been blaring all day in northern Israel. The Israeli military says some 90 projectiles have been fired Saturday from Lebanon into Israel.

Most were intercepted or fell in open areas, but several rockets fell in the northern Arab town of Deir al-Asad, where police said three people were lightly injured, and in the nearby city of Karmiel, damaging an apartment building.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency arrived in Lebanon on Saturday on a "solidarity" visit for those affected by Israeli bombardment, decrying a "terrible crisis" that requires international support.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said on social network X that "Lebanon faces a terrible crisis" as "hundreds of thousands of people are left destitute or displaced by Israeli air strikes", adding: "I have come here in solidarity with those affected, to support the humanitarian effort and to ask for more international help."

A Syrian opposition war monitor and pro-government media are reporting that an Israeli drone strike on a car in central Syria killed one person and wounded three.

It was not immediately clear who was the target of Saturday’s airstrike near the central city of Hama, which was reported by the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and pro-government Sham FM radio. They did not give further details.

Nearly 375,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria, fleeing Israeli bombardment, in less than two weeks, Lebanese officials said. Thousands have continued to cross on foot through the main Masnaa Border Crossing even after Israeli airstrikes cut off the road leading up to it on Thursday.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged a halt to arms deliveries to Israel, which has been criticised over the conduct of its retaliatory operation in Gaza.

"I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza," Macron told broadcaster France Inter, adding that France was not sending any arms to Israel.

Muhammad Hussein Ali al-Mahmoud served as Hamas’ executive authority in Lebanon and directed terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria. He was responsible for Hamas’ entrenchment inside Lebanon, using it to supply weapons for rocket attacks against Israel and in attempts to manufacture advanced weaponry.

Said Alaa Naif Ali carried out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets and worked to recruit Hamas operatives inside Lebanon.

China said Saturday that it has evacuated 215 of its nationals from Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out intense bombardments since last month, resulting in over 1,100 deaths.

Iran's oil minister Mohsen Paknejad said on Saturday that he was "not worried" amid the escalating conflict in the region, the ministry's Shana news site said, after reports that Israel may strike Iran.

"I am not worried about the crises that the enemies of the revolution are creating, and this trip is considered a normal work trip," Paknejad was quoted by Shana as saying.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Saturday that Iran's second-ever missile attack on Israel this week was a "lesson" for Israel, his office said.

The missile attack on Tuesday evening, just days after Israel killed the leader of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, was "a strong response and taught the Zionist entity a lesson," Assad was quoted as saying as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Damascus.

An Israeli official told AFP on Saturday that the military is "preparing a response" to the Iranian missile barrage that targeted Israel earlier this week.

"The IDF (Israeli military) is preparing a response to the unprecedented and unlawful Iranian attack on Israeli civilians and Israel," the official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the issue. He did not elaborate on the nature or timing of the response.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that special forces were carrying out ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, destroying missiles, launchpads, watchtowers and weapons storage facilities. The military said troops also dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.

Israel marks the first anniversary Monday of the devastating October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war and has now engulfed neighbouring Lebanon, creating a perilous regional crisis.

President Isaac Herzog will lead a memorial service at Sderot, one of the cities hardest hit during the onslaught by Palestinian militants.

A rally calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will be held at kibbutz Beeri, where more than 100 people were killed last October 7.

Sirens sounding in Haifa and northern Israel

Israeli air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs since Friday have kept rescue workers from searching the site of an Israeli strike suspected to have killed Hezbollah’s anticipated next leader, three Lebanese security sources told Reuters on Saturday.

One of the sources said Safieddine, widely expected to succeed slain leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, had been unreachable since the strike on Friday.

The Israeli army warned residents to evacuate part of central Gaza on Saturday, saying the military was preparing to use "great force" against Hamas fighters in the area.

The evacuation call is the first in weeks for Gaza as the Israeli military has largely shifted its focus to fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"Hamas and the terrorist organisations continue their terrorist activities within your area and, as a result, the IDF (military) will act with great force against these elements," the evacuation order posted by the Israeli army said, with an attached map listing the blocks to be evacuated.

According to the 'Times of Israel,'  the Israeli military is planning a response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on the country earlier this week. It warns that it will be “serious and significant.”

Hezbollah said its militants launched Fadi-1 rockets on Saturday at Israel's Ramat David air base near the northern city of Haifa, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) from the Lebanese border.

In a statement, the Iran-backed group also said its fighters hit an Israeli tank in south Lebanon, near the border, with a missile.

Hezbollah fires rockets at Israeli air base near Haifa

The Israeli military has struck a mosque near a hospital in southern Lebanon, adding to the growing list of civilian infrastructure targeted in the country. The Salah Ghandour Hospital reported that nine medical and nursing staff were seriously injured by heavy strikes after receiving an Israeli warning to evacuate. The Israeli military claimed Hezbollah fighters were inside the mosque at the time of the attack, though no evidence has been provided. Lebanon’s National News Agency confirmed that the hospital grounds in Bint Jbeil were shelled by Israeli forces. The hospital's director, quoted by AFP, said the facility took a direct hit and was evacuated.

The death toll in Gaza from Israeli attacks since last October has reached 41,825, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Additionally, 96,910 people have been injured in the attacks.

A South Korean military aircraft has evacuated 97 citizens and their family members from Lebanon, according to the country's Foreign Ministry. The KC-330 aircraft departed Beirut on Friday afternoon and is set to arrive at a military airfield in Seoul on Saturday. South Korea is the latest country to organize evacuations amid escalating Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Other countries facilitating evacuations include Brazil, which has sent an Air Force Airbus A330 for its 3,000 nationals, Japan, which dispatched two C-2 military transport aircraft for 40 to 50 citizens, the Netherlands, which sent a military plane for two flights accommodating nationals and others, the UK, which chartered flights for over 150 citizens, and Spain, which deployed two military planes to repatriate 400-500 nationals.

Reports from Lebanese media indicate that Ibrahim Amin Al-Sayyed has been appointed as the new Secretary General of Hezbollah following Israel's targeted attack on Hashem Safieddine, the anticipated successor to Hassan Nasrallah. However, Lebanese media have stated that Al-Sayyed has declined the leadership position, expressing a desire to travel to Tehran to focus on worship in Iran.

Saeed Atallah, a leader of Hamas' armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, was killed along with three family members in an Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, as reported by Hamas-affiliated media on Saturday.

Iran’s supreme leader made an appearance at Friday prayers in Tehran, stating that Iran would not hesitate to launch another attack on Israel following this week’s missile strikes. Meanwhile, the civilian death toll in Lebanon continued to rise as Israel intensified its airstrikes in Beirut, targeting Hezbollah. NBC News’ Richard Engel reports.

Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for a series of rocket attacks targeting Israeli forces. A "rocket salvo" was fired at a gathering of Israeli soldiers in Kafrioufel and Kafr Jaladi, two settlements in northern Israel. Additionally, rockets were launched at Israeli troops in the Lebanese village of Khallet Ubair in Yaroun.

Israel bombed areas near Beirut airport, and an Israeli drone struck a refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Ongoing strikes, particularly in southern Lebanon, have displaced 1.2 million people, with the death toll rising daily.

Approximately 122 projectiles were launched into Israel from Lebanon, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Earlier in the day, the IDF reported around 70 projectiles being fired, with some intercepted and others landing in open areas. No injuries have been reported.