Israel attacks Lebanon updates: ‘We are not stopping, we’ll keep attacking’

For firsthand accounts from people fleeing southern Lebanon during Israel’s deadly bombing campaign, read our feature here.

Israel’s military chief says the country is preparing for a “possible” ground assault into Lebanon as the army calls up two brigades to the north. Read more here.

And you can always find all our latest coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s events:

• Israel’s top military commander told soldiers along the border with Lebanon to prepare for a “possible” ground invasion against Hezbollah.
• In an address to an emergency UN Security Council meeting, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Lebanon cannot “become another Gaza” with “‘hell breaking loose” and called for an immediate ceasefire.
• At least 72 people were killed in Israeli attacks throughout Lebanon with nearly 400 wounded, the Health Ministry said.
• The Israeli army called up two additional reserve brigades to the northern border as it continues its bombardment campaign across Lebanon, where some 90,000 people have been displaced in just three days.
• In war-battered Gaza, Israeli forces continued pounding several parts of the enclave, killing 29 people, including women and children, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
• In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers raided several towns and killed at least one Palestinian while injuring several others with live ammunition.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations says his country is open to a diplomatic solution on Lebanon but promised to use “all means” in its goal of stopping Hezbollah attacks on civilians in the north.

“We are grateful for all those who are making a sincere effort with diplomacy to avoid escalation, to avoid a full war,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said.

But he added if negotiations fail: “We will use all means at our disposal, in accordance with international law, to achieve our aims.”

Danon said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to arrive on Thursday and address the UN General Assembly on Friday.

The International Monetary Fund says it’s closely watching the escalating Israel-Hezbollah conflict’s impact on Lebanon, which is already suffering heavy human and infrastructure costs.

“We are monitoring with grave concern the escalation of conflict in the region,” an unnamed IMF spokesperson said in an emailed statement to the Reuters news agency.

“The current conflict is inflicting a heavy human toll, damaging physical infrastructure in southern Lebanon, and exacerbating Lebanon’s already fragile macroeconomic and social situation.”

Hezbollah says its air defence units engaged and successfully forced two Israeli aircraft to leave Lebanese airspace “using appropriate weapons” near the Lebanese towns of Hula and Meiss el-Jabal.

Fighters also targeted the Kiryat Motzkin settlement with a barrage of rockets and carried out a second round of strikes with Fadi-1 missiles.

Israel has launched waves of deadly air strikes on Lebanon since Monday, killing nearly 700 people. The international community has warned against Israeli attacks on Lebanon as they raise the spectre of spreading the Gaza war regionally.

General Herzi Halevi, the army’s chief of staff, told soldiers in northern Israel the air attacks on Lebanon would continue in order to destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure and to prepare the way for a “possible” ground offensive.

Israel has pledged to do whatever it takes to ensure its citizens can return safely to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will keep up its rocket attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, something that appears increasingly remote.

To allow displaced Israelis to return, “we are preparing the process of a manoeuvre”, Halevi told soldiers.

Beirut is filling up, possibly way past its capacity, as thousands of people stream into its neighbourhoods, seeking refuge from Israel’s unpredictable air raids.

The uncertainty is almost palpable as exhausted people stream into the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut, some having been on the road for more than 12 hours to cover a distance that normally takes two.

Read more about the journeys of people fleeing Lebanon’s south in our story here.

Jean-Noel Barrot, the minister for Europe and foreign affairs, told the UN Security Council that France is working with the United States on a proposal for a temporary pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

“In recent days, we’ve worked with our American partners on a temporary ceasefire platform of 21 days to allow for negotiations,” Barrot told the emergency meeting in New York.

“This platform will be made public very soon, and we are counting on both parties to accept it without delay.”

Barrot added that he will go to Beirut by the end of the week to work on negotiations there.

At least nine people have been killed and 11 others wounded in an Israeli air raid on the town of Younine, in southern Lebanon’s city of Baalbek, the National News agency reports.

Search-and-rescue efforts for survivors in the rubble of destroyed buildings are ongoing.

At least 20 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on towns and villages in Nabatieh governorate, Lebanon’s National News Agency reports.

Eighty-eight others were wounded, it said, citing medical sources.

The United Nations said more than 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes on Lebanon. About 600 have been killed and thousands wounded.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the Middle East is staring down a “full-scale catastrophe” and warned Tehran would back Lebanon by “all means” if Israel escalates its offensive against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is Lebanon’s strongest political force and, with backing from Iran, is widely considered the top paramilitary group in the region.

“The region is on the brink of a full-scale catastrophe. If unchecked, the world will face catastrophic consequences,” he said at the United Nations, adding Iran would “stand with the people of Lebanon with all means”.

At least 22 people have been killed and 48 others wounded in Israeli strikes on several towns, the Lebanese National News Agency reports.

The attacks targeted:

• Maaysrah village in Ftouh Keserwan
• Joun village in the mountainous Chouf district
• Ras Osta village in the Byblos district

Israel expanded the zones in Lebanon it’s been striking with attacks for the first time on the beach resort of Jiyyeh, just south of the capital Beirut.

It also hit Bint Jbeil, Tebnin and Ain Qana in the south, the village of Joun in the Chouf district near Sidon, and Maaysrah in the northern Keserwan district.

As many as 500,000 people may have been displaced in Lebanon, its foreign minister said. In Beirut, thousands of people displaced from southern Lebanon are sheltering in schools and other buildings.

At least 51 people were killed and 223 wounded in Israeli air strikes and artillery fire on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council holds an emergency meeting in about one hour with the focus on Israel’s deadly assault on Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is expected to address the UN General Assembly on Friday. He will seek to persuade a world growing increasingly hostile to Israel’s war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon that the aims are justified.

“He arrives almost at a point of being persona non grata,” said Alon Liel, a former director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry and outspoken critic of Netanyahu. “There is no doubt that he knows how to deliver a speech. I think the world buys his chatter less and less.”

Yossi Shain, a professor of international relations at Georgetown and Tel Aviv University, said Netanyahu’s speeches abroad were often meant to impress audiences at home, and this one is no different.

“In his view, any such trips to New York, to the grand stage of world affairs, he considers an advantage,” said Shain.

Gaza’s civil defence agency says several more were wounded in an Israeli air strike that hit a tent sheltering the Fayyad family, west of Deir el-Balah.

Israel’s assault on Lebanon has led to more deaths in one day than any time since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing to seek safety from the onslaught.

What is Israel’s calculus in what happens next?