US says it's time to end Gaza war after Hamas leader killed

Al-Mayadeen TV said an Israeli strike destroyed its office in Beirut.

The broadcaster reported "an Israeli aggression on... an office in Beirut," saying it had been evacuated before the strike.

Separately three security sources told the Reuters news agency the office had been hit in an Israeli strike on a multi-story building.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. 

Israeli strikes on various parts of Lebanon over the past 24 hours have killed 28 people and injured 139 others, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

This brings the death toll of those killed since October last year to 2,574, with at least 12,000 more injured. 

Some 1.2 million people have been internally displaced by the fighting, the United Nations' children's agency says, including over 400,000 children.

The Lebanese militant group and political party Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesnday an earlier announcement by the Israeli military saying it has killed Hashem Safieddine, considered the heir apparent to late Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The Iran-backed group said Safieddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

A relative of Nasrallah, Safieddine had been running the group together with its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem since Nasrallah's assassination by an Israeli strike in September.

Though no official confirmation of his choice as new leader was ever made, Safieddine was expected to be formally elected as Hezbollah's next secretary general.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that Safieddine was killed in a strike approximately three weeks ago in Beirut's southern suburbs.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that "intense bombardment" and "escalating violence" in northern Gaza have forced it to postpone the last phase of a child polio vaccination drive.

The necessary second round of vaccinations has been completed in central and southern Gaza. It had been due to begin on Wednesday in the north.

However, the WHO said it had been "compelled to postpone" the bid to give a second vaccine dose to 119,279 children in northern Gaza, where Israel has launched a major air and ground assault this month.

The UN health agency said the inoculation campaign was called off "due to the escalating violence, intense bombardment, mass displacement orders, and lack of assured humanitarian pauses across most of northern Gaza."

"The current conditions, including ongoing attacks on civilian infrastructure, continue to jeopardize people's safety and movement in northern Gaza, making it impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination," and for staff to operate, it added.

The vaccination drive began after the Gaza Strip confirmed its first case of polio in 25 years, with the war having left most medical facilities and sewage systems in the territory in ruins.

The highly infectious disease, mainly affecting children under the age of five, can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal.

Israel's offensive in Gaza since the October 7 terror attacks last year has killed more than 42,792 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry. 

There were at least 74 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 100,412 people have been wounded since the latest conflict began.

Around half of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants are children.

Israel launched its Gaza operation after the Hamas attacks in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people. 

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has warned that Lebanon is close to collapse after arriving for a visit to the country as Israel clashes with the militant group Hezbollah.

Baerbock is on her 12th trip to the Middle East since the Hamas attack of October 7 last year that sparked Israel's war in Gaza and now against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"The humanitarian situation in Lebanon is becoming more desperate by the day," she said at the start of the trip, which was not previously announced because of security concerns.

"Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing with their last belongings, children are being separated from their parents, hospitals are working at the limit of their capacity."

"Lebanon is on the brink of collapse."

Baerbock said Hamas allies Hezbollah are "hiding behind civilians and continuing to fire rockets at Israel."

She also cautioned that Israel must operate within "the narrow limits of the right to self-defense and international humanitarian law".

The minister said that "any deliberate attack on UN peacekeepers violates international humanitarian law."
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has accused Israel of attacking its peacekeepers multiple times in recent weeks. 

"All parties to the conflict also have an obligation to protect UN peacekeepers," said Baerbock. "The soldiers of UNIFIL have our full support. They are needed for a political solution to the conflict."

The US State Department says Secretary of State Antony Blinken is slated to meet Arab counterparts in London on Friday to discuss Israel's wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

He will speak with foreign ministers in the British capital after talks on Thursday in Qatar, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters as Blinken flew from Israel to Saudi Arabia.

Lebanese state media has reported an Israeli drone strike on a street in the historic southern coastal city of Tyre.

"An enemy drone targeted" a "street in Tyre", the National News Agency said. Video footage from AFP news agency showed a plume of black smoke rising from the city.

Earlier, the Israeli military issued a new evacuation call for Tyre, warning of impending operations that would target Hezbollah.

The warning sparked a new evacuation from the city.

The Israeli army's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee posted a map of the affected streets in Tyre on X.

"You must immediately move out of the area marked in red and head north of the Awali River," he said.

"Anyone who is near Hezbollah elements, facilities and combat equipment is putting his life in danger."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeated that Washington rejects any Israeli reoccupation of Gaza.

He added that he had been assured by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there were no such plans, despite pressure from within his own political party to allow settlers to return.

"I can be very clear on that because I've been clear on that for the last year. We fully reject it. We reject any Israeli reoccupation of Gaza." 

"It's been US policy, it will remain US policy, and it's also, to the best of my understanding, the policy of the Israeli government. That I heard from the prime minister, who is the authoritative word on these things," he said.

Hundreds of far-right demonstrators, including legislators and ministers from Netanyahu's government, gathered near the Israel-Gaza border on Monday to demand the establishment of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory. The event was titled "Preparing to Resettle Gaza."

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July maintained that Gaza has remained effectively occupied even after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, because Israel maintains control over its land sea and air borders.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has arrived in Beirut for talks saying that, after Israel had succeeded in weakening Hezbollah, work was needed to find a viable diplomatic solution with Lebanon.

"The task now is to work with our partners in the US, Europe and the Arab world to find a viable diplomatic solution that safeguards the legitimate security interests of both Israel and Lebanon," Baerbock said in a statement.

She added that attacks on UN forces in Lebanon "violate international law." Peacekeepers with the UN's peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, UNIFIL, were injured by Israeli fire earlier this month. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday that the war in Gaza should end now, and added that Israel needed to do more to allow in aid despite some improvement in deliveries.

Blinken said he had pressed Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and reiterated his warning that the failure to do so could lead to a reduction in US military aid.

"There's progress made, which is good, but more progress needs to be made," on that front, he said.

Blinken said Israel needed to pursue an "enduring strategic success" after its recent tactical victories against Hamas.

"Since October 7 a year ago, Israel has achieved most of its strategic objectives when it comes to Gaza."

"Now is the time to turn those successes into an enduring strategic success. And there are really two things left to do, get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow," Blinken told reporters. 

Speaking as he prepared to leave Israel for Riyadh, Blinken also said Israel should grasp the "incredible opportunity" to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, a process put on hold by the war in Gaza.

"There remains, despite everything that's happened, an incredible opportunity in this region to move in a totally different direction," he said.

Germany's flagship Lufthansa Group has extended the suspension of its flights to Tehran and Beirut until early next year over concerns of a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Flights to Tehran will be suspended until the end of January while those to Beirut are suspended until the beginning of March, said the group that includes Swiss and Austrian Airlines.

The group has said it is avoiding Israeli airspace until the end of October and will not use Iranian and Iraqi airspace "until further notice," except for a corridor in Iraqi airspace for departures and arrivals to Erbil in northern Iraq. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, barely a week after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. 

Blinken called on Netanyahu to try to use the moment as a catalyst to halt the conflict in Gaza.

As Hamas' Gaza leader, Sinwar is considered to have orchestrated the October 7 terror attacks on Israel. 

The top US diplomat "underscored the need to capitalize on Israel's successful action to bring Yahya Sinwar to justice by securing the release of all hostages and ending the conflict in Gaza in a way that provides lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians alike," Blinken's spokesperson said of the meeting.  

He also stressed the need to provide assistance to displaced Palestinians and the importance of "charting a new path forward in the post-conflict period," the spokesperson said. 

Netanyahu's office meanwhile called the meeting "friendly and productive." It also referenced Sinwar's death and the prospect of an end to the fighting, but made no explicit mention of seeking a cease-fire. 

"The prime minister emphasized that the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is likely to have a positive influence on the return of the hostages, the achieving of all the objectives of the war and the day after the war," it said. 

Blinken has been a key component of cease-fire negotiations for a year now that have yielded little fruit since a one-week cease-fire accompanied by hostage and prisoner exchanges in November 2023. He has visited the Middle East 11 times since October 7.

Israel's military confirmed late on Tuesday that it had killed top Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, considered the heir apparent to late Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed last month in an Israeli attack targeting the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that Safieddine was killed in a strike approximately three weeks ago in Beirut's southern suburbs.

The confirmation of Safieddine's death comes after weeks of reports that he was likely killed in a bomb strike in early October. 

Hezbollah had yet to comment on Israel's claim.

"We have reached Nasrallah, his replacement and most of Hezbollah's senior leadership," Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Herz Halevi said. "We will reach anyone who threatens the security of the civilians of the State of Israel."  

The IDF said that the head of the militant group's intelligence branch was among several other commanders killed in the attack in the southern Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut. 

The FBI is investigating the public disclosure of a pair of highly classified intelligence documents describing Israel's possible preparations for a retaliatory strike on Iran.

"The FBI is investigating the leak of classified documents and working closely with our partners in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community," it said in a statement on Tuesday.

Earlier, on Monday, White House spokesperson John Kirby said US President Joe Biden was watching the results of the investigation closely, and that it was not clear whether it was a hack or a leak. 

"We're not exactly sure how these documents found their way into the public domain," Kirby said. "The president remains deeply concerned about any leakage of classified information into the public domain. That is not supposed to happen, and it is unacceptable when it does. 

The documents began circulating last week on the Telegram messaging app. They appear to be based on satellite imagery monitoring from mid-October. 

Iran fired a ballistic missile barrage at Israel on October 1, saying it was a response to the deaths of Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh and an IRGC general. Israel had threatened to retaliate.

rc,zc,msh/wmr (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)