Mideast Crisis Updates: Israel Carries Out Another Round of Strikes Near Lebanese Capital
Here are the latest developments.
The Israeli military claimed on Monday that Hezbollah was operating an underground command center beneath a major hospital just south of Beirut, prompting the facility to be evacuated as fears spread that it could be targeted.
As the Israeli military launched new waves of airstrikes near the Lebanese capital, Lebanese health officials denied its claims about Al-Sahel hospital in the Dahiya, the densely populated community adjoining Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway. The hospital was evacuated once before, a few weeks ago, transferring patients to other facilities, because of Israeli bombardment.
Fadi Alameh, the hospital’s director and a Lebanese lawmaker, called the Israeli claims baseless and said there was no tunnel network beneath the hospital.
“We have invited the Lebanese Army and every single international observer to verify this information,” he said.
The Israeli military has long accused Hezbollah of embedding within civilian areas, but this was its first direct allegation during this war against a Lebanese hospital.
The allegations preceded a spate of Israeli evacuation warnings for buildings in the Dahiya, and deafening explosions soon began to shake Beirut.
One of the Israeli strikes landed near the main gate of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the largest government hospital in Lebanon, the hospital’s director, Dr. Jihad Saadeh, told The New York Times. At least four people were killed, including a child, and more than 20 injured in the attack, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The strike caused significant damage to the hospital, the ministry said.
Israel’s offensive has overwhelmed Lebanon’s health system in recent weeks. Several hospitals have shut down, and dozens of health workers have been killed. The United Nations’ human rights office has said that hospitals, clinics and ambulances have been struck during the war.
There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah about Al-Sahel, but the claims by the Israeli military resembled those it made against Hamas in Gaza. Hamas has frequently been accused of using medical facilities as cover, with Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City at the center of the debate, and Israeli bombing and raids have done significant damage to it and other hospitals.
The claims followed a visit to Lebanon by a top U.S. official on Monday, who said that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah had “escalated out of control.”
The official, Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s de facto envoy on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, called for the revival of a 2006 United Nations resolution that, if enforced fully, could pull the region back from the brink amid the widening war in Lebanon.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is heading to the Middle East for another visit that will include a stop in Israel, the State Department said, as the Biden administration renews efforts to bring calm to the region after Israel’s killing of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, Hezbollah’s ally, last week in Gaza. Mr. Blinken’s 11th trip to the region since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel a year ago comes as Israel is said to be weighing retaliation against Iran for a ballistic missile barrage this month.
Here’s what else to know:
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Hezbollah finances: The Israeli military has, since Sunday, said it is striking at branches of Al-Qard al-Hasan, a Hezbollah-affiliated financial institution under U.S. sanctions over accusations that it finances terrorism. In Lebanon, where Hezbollah is also a prominent political organization, Al-Qard al-Hasan is a registered charity that operates as a lender and financial services provider for civilians. Many of its branches are on the ground floors of residential buildings and it is deeply embedded in the Shiite Muslim communities it serves.
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Dismantled spy ring: The Israeli authorities said they dismantled a spy network made up of seven Israelis who had been gathering intelligence for Iran for two years, adding that the seven were arrested. They are suspected of photographing and documenting information on Israeli air force and navy installations, Iron Dome missile systems and a power plant, according to a statement by the Israeli police and Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency.
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Antimissile system: Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said on Monday that the THAAD antiballistic missile system that the United States had sent Israel to help defend against an Iranian attack was now in place. “We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly,” Mr. Austin told reporters traveling with him to Ukraine.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting from London, and Ephrat Livni from Washington.
Settler activists, encouraged by Israel’s far right, meet at the Gaza border for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
For more than a year, Israel has restricted access to the sandy area between Israeli villages and the eastern border of Gaza. But on Monday, authorities made a rare exception for an event promoting settlement construction in the Gaza Strip, led by 10 members of the government and senior ministers, half from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party, and including the far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Though only a few hundred, mostly religious, attendees gathered in the remote desert makeshift compound of wooden huts with white sheets as walls — built to reflect the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which commemorates the Israelites’ journey through the desert by spending time in temporary shelters — the event highlighted the influence of settler activists within the Israeli government and Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party.
In January, Mr. Netanyahu said that his government does not support plans to build settlements on the ruins of Gaza. His opposition likely stems from concerns that re-establishing settlements could complicate Israel’s security situation and damage its standing abroad, as settlements are considered illegal under international law. Israel also faces frequent criticism for the hardships Palestinians endure under Israeli military rule and the presence of settlers in the West Bank.
But as the war against Hamas continues with no end in sight, and uncertainty about Israel’s postwar plan looms, some in the Israeli leader’s coalition want to pressure him to reverse, or at least soften, his position on reviving Jewish settlements in Gaza.
“Everyone in Likud supports this as an idea,” said Avihai Boaron, a member of the Knesset from the Likud party who attended the event. “Our job now is to legitimize this as a plan.”
For the majority of the world, the settlements, which were dismantled in Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, were viewed as a barrier to resolving the conflict — a stance that continues to apply to those in the West Bank.
But for settler activists who believe the Gaza Strip is part of a biblical land promised to the Jewish people, leaving it in 2005 wasn’t just a mistake: it was a sin. They argue that if a Jewish civilian population had remained there, protected by the military, Hamas would not have been able to carry out the brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza, they now say, is the only thing that can ensure the security of Israelis. “This will prevent the next massacre,” said Yinon Goldstein, 23, a West Bank settler who is part of an activist group that aspires to establish New Gaza, or a Jewish metropolitan area in place of the devastated Palestinian Gaza City.
Polling since the beginning of the war has suggested that the majority of Israelis aren’t persuaded by these arguments, and some security experts disputed these claims, saying that the real motivations for building settlements in Gaza are religious, not practical.
Behind the main stage, later taken by Mr. Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister — who praised efforts to encourage Palestinians to leave Gaza — and Mr. Smotrich, the finance minister, who vowed to reintroduce Jewish settlements in Gaza, clouds of smoke rose from a distant Palestinian town in the enclave, accompanied by the thunderous roar of artillery fire. Yet, the attendees seemed to pay little notice.
Most came for the day, but a group of about 10 settler activists hoping to be the first to rebuild in Gaza has been camping for several months a short drive from there — near a highway, under a concrete bridge, a mile and a half from the northeast corner of the Gaza border.
A squad of soldiers, still dusty from fighting in northern Gaza, stopped by for coffee. Their officer, Yaron Arkash, 24, a tall, bearded man with a dark complexion, asked one of the settlers camping there who in the government was pushing for resettling Gaza.
“If I could,” Mr. Arkash said, “I’d build a home there in a heartbeat.”
The deaths of 3 Lebanese soldiers draw apology from Israel and show complexity of fight with Hezbollah.
Three Lebanese soldiers were killed on Sunday by Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, drawing condemnation from the Lebanese Armed Forces and prompting Israel’s military to apologize for what it called “these unwanted circumstances.”
The Israeli military said on Sunday that its troops had struck a Hezbollah truck with a launcher on it and later struck again after seeing another truck in the same area, a “combat zone” where Hezbollah had attacked Israeli troops. But the military “later concluded that the truck was owned by the Lebanese Army, and that three operatives were killed.”
The deaths of the Lebanese soldiers highlighted the complicated dynamic that Lebanon’s army is navigating as Israel invades its territory to fight Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant and political group with significant influence in the country.
The Lebanese Army is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Still, Lebanon’s military does not support Israel’s invasion of its country, and referred to Israel as the “enemy” in statements on Sunday and Monday about the soldiers’ deaths, saying they were targeted when they were driving in an army vehicle in southern Lebanon.
By contrast, the Israeli military said in a statement that it is “not operating against the Lebanese Army and apologizes for these unwanted circumstances.”
It was the third time this month that Israeli troops have killed Lebanese soldiers amid Israel’s war with Hezbollah. And the incident came just a day before the Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun of the Lebanese Armed Forces met with Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s envoy on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, to discuss the situation in Lebanon and “ways to support the Lebanese Army.”
American officials have expressed hope that Israel’s attacks will weaken Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, and loosen the group’s hold on Lebanese institutions and society. The United States has provided financial and training support to Lebanon’s armed forces, amounting to more than $3 billion since 2006.
But if the Lebanese army were to get drawn into Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah, the United States would find itself in the awkward position of having two American-supported militaries fighting each other.
“It’s already tricky where you have U.S.-backed forces killing U.S.-backed forces,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis for Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank.
The risk of Lebanon’s army entering the fray is low, Ms. Kavanagh said. The army has long maintained a position of neutrality that has given it legitimacy with international players like the United States, which it would quickly lose if it joined the fight, she said.
“It would be difficult for the U.S. to fund the Lebanese Armed Forces if they fight Israel,” she said.
And Lebanon’s army adopted its neutral position in part because it is “extremely weak” economically and otherwise, Ms. Kavanagh said. Lebanon has been in a severe economic crisis since 2019, leaving the army scrambling to recruit, pay salaries, train and get equipment, and it is no match for either Israel or Hezbollah, she said.
But she said the view that Israel’s war against Hezbollah could prove advantageous for Lebanon in the long term is held mostly by those outside the country. The Lebanese army does want to be stronger, she said, but Israel “just taking out Hezbollah positions isn’t going to get it there.”
The Lebanese army was supposed to work with United Nations peacekeepers to ensure that Hezbollah militants could not operate in southern Lebanon, according to a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution, known as 1701, that ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah. The army has been criticized for failing to enforce the terms of that resolution, which international diplomats are now seeking to revive.
In his visit to Lebanon on Monday, Mr. Hochstein, the American envoy, pledged to support Lebanon’s reconstruction if the U.N. resolution is enforced, seeming to suggest that the United States wants the Lebanese government to push for Hezbollah’s disarmament in southern Lebanon, and to deploy more Lebanese troops in its place.
But the army still plays an important role in Lebanon even if it is not undertaking the traditional job of a military to maintain its country’s territorial integrity. As long as Israel maintains its position that it is not at war with Lebanon or its people and is targeting only Hezbollah — and if Lebanon argues that it doesn’t have effective control over Hezbollah, from a legal perspective — the two states are not in an armed conflict and the army’s primary role is focused inward, experts say.
“Its role is to protect the state and its people, to protect Lebanese civilians,” said Noha Aboueldahab, an assistant professor of international law at Georgetown University in Qatar. “They need to play a humanitarian role for civilians.”
Euan Ward contributed reporting.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
At least four people were killed, including a child, and more than 20 injured in the attack near Rafik Hariri University Hospital, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The strike caused significant damage to the hospital, the ministry said.
What is Al-Qard al-Hasan, the Hezbollah-linked finance group targeted by Israel?
The Israeli military conducted a wave of airstrikes across Lebanon on Sunday, targeting multiple branches of Al-Qard al-Hasan, a financial organization that functions as a bank and is associated with the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military’s spokesman, said in a news briefing on Monday that one of the targets that was hit was a vault used by Al-Qard al-Hasan that was underneath a residential building in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. The vault, he said, contained “tens of millions of dollars.”
Israel’s minister of defense, Yoav Gallant, signed an order on Monday adding Al-Qard al-Hassan to a list of groups designated by Israel as terrorist organizations. The designation is part of a wider campaign led by Israel’s defense establishment, targeting the economic resources of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.
What is Al-Qard al-Hasan?
In addition to its military wing, Hezbollah also functions as a political organization and provides a range of social services inside Lebanon. Al-Qard al-Hasan is registered as a charity in Lebanon.
The organization’s name translates as “benevolent loan,” lending money based on the principles of Islamic finance, which prohibits interest. The loans, usually no more than $5,000, are backed by deposits of gold, jewelry or other valuable goods. It also offers savings accounts and financial transfers, and processes payments.
The de facto bank, which has around 30 branches, is the largest microcredit organization in a country where the traditional banking sector is in shambles. It is not regulated by the central bank and is not part of the international banking system.
Who uses the organization?
Since its founding in the early 1980s, Hezbollah has been a significant force in Lebanon, wielding political power and military strength, as well as providing social support, particularly to the country’s large Shiite population. The bank was set up in 1983 to serve the Shiite community, but it gained more clients in 2019 when the banking system all but collapsed.
The U.S. Treasury Department claims that the bank has been used by Hezbollah as “a cover to manage the terrorist group’s financial activities and gain access to the international financial system.”
The department placed Al-Qard al-Hasan under sanctions in 2007 for operating as Hezbollah’s de facto banking arm. In 2021, in the wake of the Lebanese financial crisis, the sanctions were strengthened, with the department accusing the association of “hoarding hard currency that is desperately needed by the Lebanese economy” and compromising the stability of the Lebanese state.
Why is Israel targeting Al-Qard al-Hasan?
Shlomit Wagman, the former chair of Israel’s Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prohibition Authority, said Al-Qard al-Hasan has become Hezbollah’s principal financial institution, responsible for safeguarding some $750 million a year in Iranian funding, as well as the proceeds from the organization’s criminal enterprises that are used to finance its attacks on Israel.
In a statement following Sunday’s attacks, Israel’s military said that the banking association “directly funds Hezbollah’s terror activities,” including the purchase of “weapons and payments to operatives in Hezbollah’s military wing.” The strikes, it added, are part of Israel’s efforts to “degrade Hezbollah’s terror infrastructure, its military capabilities and ability to rebuild.”
What is the impact of the strikes?
On Monday, the immediate damage from the strikes remained unclear, with no casualties reported.
Few traditional bank branches would have significant amounts of cash on hand, Ms. Wagman said. But the international sanctions against Al-Qard al-Hasan meant it was more likely that its branches might have kept physical caches of dollars, as well as the gold of its depositors. If these were destroyed in the strikes, Hezbollah’s ability to fund future attacks may be further reduced, Ms. Wagman said.
Still, she said, “We can also assume that Iran, which is the major sponsor of Hezbollah, will very soon refuel those supplies.” She noted that the psychological impact may be more enduring, serving to “further reduce the trust between Hezbollah and the Lebanese people.”
Makram Ouaiss, executive director for the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, a Beirut-based research organization, said that Al-Qard al-Hasan probably knew it would be targeted, and likely would have moved valuables to a safe location. He also noted that most branches of Al-Qard al-Hasan in Beirut occupy the ground floor of mixed commercial and residential buildings. “This probably isn’t going to hurt Hezbollah, but it will hurt lots of Lebanese,” he said.
What is the economic situation in Lebanon?
In a word, catastrophic. The traditional banking system all but collapsed in 2019, largely because of a combination of bad policy, bad loans and corruption. Account holders with mainstream banks have not been able to access most of their funds for several years.
The World Bank estimates that more than a third of the country is living below the poverty line, based on prewar data. With more than a million Lebanese people displaced and hundreds of buildings destroyed in the Israeli bombing campaign over the past month, the number of people living in poverty is likely to be far worse.
Johnatan Reissand Euan Ward contributed reporting.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
One of the Israeli strikes tonight landed near the main gate of Rafic Hariri University Hospital, the largest government hospital in Lebanon, according to the hospital’s director, Dr. Jihad Saadeh. The health facility, on the outskirts of Beirut, had been spared Israeli bombardment, but had received hundreds of patients from other evacuated hospitals in recent weeks. “We are anticipating the worst,” Saadeh told The New York Times last week in an interview.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
The Israeli military has issued a wave of new evacuation warnings for buildings in the Dahiya, the densely packed cluster of neighborhoods adjoining Beirut. I just heard an explosion rip across the city, no more than 20 minutes after the first warning was issued.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah about Al-Sahel, but the claims about tunnel networks underneath civilian hospitals mirrored similar Israeli allegations made against Hamas in Gaza. Lebanon’s health system has been overwhelmed by Israel’s offensive in recent weeks. Several hospitals have shut down amid Israeli bombardment, and dozens of health workers have been killed. Hospitals, clinics and ambulances have all been struck, the U.N.’s human rights office has said.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
The Israeli military claimed on Monday that Hezbollah was operating an underground command center underneath Al-Sahel Hospital in the Dahiya, the densely populated area adjoining Beirut. The allegation prompted an evacuation of the hospital, according to Fadi Alameh, a Lebanese lawmaker and the hospital’s director, who called the claims baseless.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
Alameh denied the existence of any tunnel network underneath the hospital. “We have invited the Lebanese Army and every single international observer to verify this information,” he said.
Reporting from Tel Aviv
As part of its attack on financial institutions affiliated with Hezbollah, Israel struck more than 20 targets in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon last night, the Israeli military’s spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said in a news briefing. One of the targets, Hagari said, was a vault used by Al-Qard al-Hasan that was underneath a residential building in Beirut. The vault, he said, contained “tens of millions of dollars.”
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
The U.N.’s human rights office condemned Israel’s heavy overnight strikes in Lebanon against Al-Qard al-Hasan, the Hezbollah-affiliated financial institution. The attacks led to “another wave of displacement” and caused “extensive damage to civilian objects,”including “residential properties, civilian infrastructure, and business premises,” the office said in a statement.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
“Under international humanitarian law, objects that contribute economically or financially to the war effort of a party to a conflict may not be lawfully made the target of attack on that basis alone as they do not fulfil the definition of a military objective,” the statement said.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
Two people were killed and three others injured on Monday when an Israeli airstrike targeted a car in Damascus, according to SANA, Syria’s state news agency. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which rarely comments on attacks inside Syria.
Israel dismantles an Iranian spy network and arrests seven people, authorities say.
The Israeli authorities said on Monday that they have dismantled a spy network made up of seven Israelis who were gathering intelligence for Iran, adding that the seven had been arrested. It’s one of the largest such cases involving Iran since the war in Gaza began more than a year ago.
The seven Israelis, all from the country’s north, were arrested after an investigation concluded that they had conducted intelligence missions for two years under the direction of two Iranian agents, according to a statement by the Israeli police and Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency. They are suspected of photographing and gathering information on Israeli air force and navy installations, ports, Iron Dome missile defense systems and a power plant, the statement said.
A separate statement, in Hebrew, said that the suspects had surveilled Nevatim, an air base in the Negev desert in the south of the country, which Iran attempted to hit with missiles on Oct. 1. The statements did not say when the arrests were made.
The English language version of Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, did not mention the case or offer any response from the Iranian authorities.
“The network members were aware that the intelligence they provided compromised national security and could potentially aid enemy missile attacks,” the statement said.
The statement named five of the suspects, citing the other two as minors, and said that they used equipment “procured specifically” for tasks of espionage under Iranian guidance.
Some of the suspects were caught while trying to gather intelligence on a senior Israeli citizen who lived nearby. Israeli security determined that there was a potential plan to harm that citizen, but gave no details of their identity. Charges against the suspects are expected in the coming days, the statement said, adding that they were all Jewish Israeli citizens.
The suspects were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of it in cryptocurrency, the statement said. They were originally from Azerbaijan, according to the Israeli news organization Haaretz, which said they were motivated by money.
Israel’s government has said it will retaliate against Iran for a drone and missile attack by Tehran on Israel on Oct. 1. Direct conflict between Israel and Iran broke out in April after a clandestine war that had lasted for decades.
In September, Israeli authorities said they had indicted a citizen who prosecutors said met with Iranian intelligence agents and discussed a plan to carry out attacks on Israeli soil, including a possible attempt to assassinate the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the justice ministry.
A Biden envoy says reviving a U.N. resolution is the only path to Israel-Hezbollah peace.
A top U.S. official said on Monday that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could only be resolved through fully enforcing an 18-year-old United Nations resolution, which calls for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and for the Lebanese militant group in effect to be disarmed along the border.
The official, Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s de facto envoy on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, spoke during a visit to Beirut, his first since the Israeli military launched a sweeping offensive against Hezbollah last month. Israel’s military campaign against the armed group has set off a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, displacing around a fifth of the population, and killing more than 2,400 people over the past year, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
“The situation has escalated out of control,” Mr. Hochstein told reporters in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. He said that the White House aimed to reach “a comprehensive agreement” that would see the full enforcement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
That agreement, which called for U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese military to be the only armed forces operating in southern Lebanon, is today widely considered a failure.
In the years since, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has only entrenched itself militarily along Israel’s northern border, amassing a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles. Israel, too, has long been accused of violating Lebanon’s sovereignty, even before embarking on a ground invasion this month.
The U.N. resolution “was successful at ending the war in 2006, but we must be honest that no one did anything to implement it. The lack of implementation over those years contributed to the conflict that we are in today,” Mr. Hochstein said after meeting with Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, a key interlocutor between the United States and Hezbollah.
Mr. Hochstein also met on Monday with the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, and the commander of the Lebanese armed forces.
His visit was part of a renewed flurry of U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Middle East coming this week. It follows Israel’s killing of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hezbollah’s ally Hamas, whose death the Biden administration hopes will pave the way for a cease-fire in Gaza. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was scheduled to depart later on Monday for another trip to the Middle East, which will include a stop in Israel, the State Department said.
Hopes for calm, however, appear premature. Israeli forces have continued a deadly offensive against Hamas in northern Gaza, and heavy Israeli airstrikes overnight targeted Hezbollah’s financial apparatus just hours before Mr. Hochstein’s meetings.
Even as the U.S. envoy spoke to reporters, Hezbollah continued to fire rockets toward northern Israel, following pledges by the group to intensify its attacks against Israel in the wake of Mr. Sinwar’s death.
“This is a really heartbreaking moment for me to be here in Lebanon,” Mr. Hochstein said, adding: “While we spent 11 months containing the conflict, we were not able to resolve it.”
Mr. Hochstein said on Monday that the United States would aid in Lebanon’s efforts to rebuild from Israeli attacks, but only if the U.N. resolution was fully administered to reduce the chances of conflict breaking out again.
“The world will stand by Lebanon and its leaders if they make the brave and the hard choices that are required at this time,” he said. The comments appeared to be a call for the Lebanese government to push for Hezbollah’s disarmament in southern Lebanon, and for it to deploy more Lebanese troops in its place, as stipulated by the 2006 U.N. resolution.
Hezbollah has pledged repeatedly that only an end to the war in Gaza will bring about peace. Although top Lebanese officials have said the group is on board with reviving the U.N. resolution, its leaders have publicly pledged to escalate their aerial attacks against Israel. And it remains unclear if Hezbollah would agree to withdraw from southern Lebanon — with or without a cease-fire in Gaza.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
A car has exploded in the Mezzeh district of Damascus, according to SANA, Syria’s state-run news agency. There was no immediate information about the source of the blast. Last month, the Israeli military carried out airstrikes on a residential building in the area in an attempt to assassinate a senior Hezbollah official.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based conflict monitor, reported the explosion was a targeted assassination and the result of a missile strike.
Farnaz Fassihi
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, is traveling to Bahrain and Kuwait today, continuing a diplomatic tour of the region. Iran and Bahrain don’t have diplomatic relations, and the last time an Iranian foreign minister visited Bahrain was 2007. But Israel’s military offensives in Gaza and Lebanon, and the immense civilian toll, have created a unity of sorts among Iran and its Arab neighbors. Araghchi has also been trying to rally regional support for Iran as it braces for Israeli retaliation for Tehran’s missile barrage this month.
Reporting from Tel Aviv
The Israeli military said it had intercepted five drones above the Mediterranean Sea, before they crossed into Israeli airspace. A brief statement did not mention the source of the drones or other details.
Reporting from Tel Aviv
The military also said there was “no concern for a security incident at Ben Gurion Airport” near Tel Aviv, after the Israeli news media reported a temporary halt to flight departures. An airport spokeswoman said normal operations had resumed.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein said after meeting Lebanese officials in Beirut that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah had “escalated out of control.” Speaking to reporters, Hochstein said that the only solution was to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last major war between the two sides in 2006. It has widely been considered a failure in the years since.
Euan Ward
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
“The lack of implementation over those years contributed to the conflict that we are in today,” Hochstein said. He added that full compliance by all sides with Resolution 1701 — which calls for Israeli forces to withdraw from Lebanon and for Hezbollah to be in effect disarmed along the countries’ border — “is what the solution is going to have to look like.”
A U.S. antimissile system has arrived in Israel, the defense secretary says.
An advanced missile defense system sent by the United States to Israel to thwart more attacks by Iran and its allies has arrived in Israel along with troops to operate it, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said on Monday.
The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, comes as the Israeli government has said it will retaliate against Iran for an attack on Oct. 1, in which Tehran fired around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel.
The missiles were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses along with those of the United States and other allies. The THAAD battery, a mobile defense system, is designed to add another layer of protection to defend cities, troops and installations from short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
Mr. Austin said on Monday that the THAAD system was in place in Israel. “We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly,” he told reporters traveling with him to Ukraine.
It is the first time that U.S. troops — about 100 of whom the Pentagon said it was sending to help operate the system — have been deployed to Israel in this way since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Their arrival comes as Israel wages war in Gaza and Lebanon against militia forces backed by Iran. Israel has also struck the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen in recent months and Iran itself earlier this year.
However, it is not the first time that the United States — already Israel’s main military supplier — has boosted its military presence in the Middle East in support of Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks. Shortly after Israel went to war in Gaza in response to the attacks, the United States sent warships to the Persian Gulf and a THAAD battery and Patriot missile defense systems to unspecified locations.
There are currently more than 40,000 U.S. troops in the region, and the Pentagon said in late September that between 2,000 and 3,000 more were being sent to bolster their security.
The THAAD system, which can operate above the atmosphere, is designed to intercept ballistic missiles is also able to intercept debris from downed missiles before it hits the ground, where it can inflict casualties and damage.
Blinken is expected to visit the Middle East again this week.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will depart on Monday for another trip to the Middle East that will include a stop in Israel, as the Biden administration makes a renewed effort to bring calm to the region after the death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Mr. Blinken, who is making his 11th trip to the region since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, is returning to the country after bypassing it during his last such trip a month ago. An announcement from the State Department did not say which other countries Mr. Blinken would visit, although his past trips have included Egypt and Jordan, as well as the Gulf Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
President Biden and other U.S. officials say that Mr. Sinwar’s killing could create new opportunities for diplomacy, especially around the long-stalled effort to reach a cease-fire in Gaza that would free hostages held by Hamas and allow for a surge of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians trapped there. But Hamas and Israeli leaders have vowed to fight on, and many analysts doubt that a deal has moved within reach.
Mr. Blinken will arrive in the region at a time when it is bracing for Israel to attack Iran in retaliation for an Iranian ballistic missile barrage on Israel earlier this month. American and Israeli officials have been discussing the response in recent weeks, and Israeli officials have told Washington that they will refrain from attacks on Iranian nuclear or energy sites that could lead to dramatic escalation between the countries.
Mr. Blinken will have several other agenda items during his trip, including planning for the governance and security of Gaza after Israel’s military campaign in the territory ends, the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in the statement announcing the travel.
Mr. Biden previewed that part of Mr. Blinken’s trip on Thursday, telling reporters that he had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel about it. “We’re going to work out what is the day after now — how do we secure Gaza and move on?” Mr. Biden said.
As Israel continues to pound southern Lebanon in a separate campaign against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah, Mr. Blinken will also discuss “the need to reach a diplomatic resolution to the conflict,” Mr. Miller’s statement said.
The Biden administration has also spent more than two years pursuing a wider regional deal in which Saudi Arabia and Israel would establish formal diplomatic relations for the first time if Israel committed to the creation of a Palestinian state and the U.S. entered into a security agreement with Saudi Arabia.
With Israel still fighting in Gaza, and now at war in Lebanon, the prospects for such a deal during Mr. Biden’s presidency appear slim at best. But Mr. Blinken insisted last month that it was still a realistic goal.
Eric Schmitt
Reporting from Washington
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said on Monday that the THAAD antiballistic missile system that the U.S. recently sent Israel to help defend against an Iranian attack was now in place. “We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly,” Austin told reporters traveling with him to Ukraine.
Shashank Bengali
The Israeli military said it had conducted strikes overnight on “dozens of facilities and sites” used by Hezbollah to finance its attacks against Israel. It said it had targeted Al-Qard al-Hasan, which U.S., Israeli and other officials accuse of operating as Hezbollah’s banking arm. In Lebanon, where Hezbollah is also a political organization, Al-Qard al-Hasan is a registered charity and is at the heart of the group’s social services network.
Shashank Bengali
“Hezbollah has paid and will continue to pay a heavy price for its attacks on northern Israel and its rocket fire,” Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said in a post on X. “We will keep striking the Iranian proxy until it collapses.”
Israel strikes a Hezbollah-affiliated financial institution in Lebanon.
The Israeli military conducted a wave of airstrikes across Lebanon on Sunday, targeting branches of Al-Qard al-Hasan, a financial association associated with the militant group Hezbollah.
The organization was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2007 and has been accused by American, Israeli, Saudi Arabian and other officials of operating as Hezbollah’s de facto banking arm. Inside Lebanon, where Hezbollah also functions as a political organization and provides a range of social services, Al-Qard al-Hasan is designated a non-governmental organization and is viewed as a Hezbollah-affiliated charity.
It operates as a lender and financial services provider for civilians in many areas of Lebanon, where the traditional banking sector is in shambles. Many of its branches are situated on the ground floors of residential buildings, and it is deeply embedded in the Shiite Muslim communities it serves.
On social media on Sunday night, Avichay Adraee, the Arabic spokesman for the Israeli military, warned residents of Lebanon to evacuate buildings near the infrastructure of Al-Qard al-Hasan around Beirut and across southern and eastern Lebanon, saying that the organization “is involved in financing the terrorist activities of the Hezbollah organization against Israel.”
Soon after, the sounds of explosions could be heard ringing across Beirut, the Lebanese capital. A New York Times reporter saw dense plumes of black smoke rising in the near distance after the strikes.
The strikes marked an apparent escalation of Israel’s war against Hezbollah, with a senior Israel intelligence official saying the targeting of the banking system — rather than weapons depots or command and intelligence centers — was intended to disrupt Hezbollah’s day-to-day operations, undermine its support in Lebanese communities and hamper its ability to rebuild.
The financial organization has about 30 branches across Lebanon, including in the Dahiya, a densely packed area adjoining Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway.
Israel, the United States and others say that the group, despite its stated aims, serves as a front for Hezbollah financing. The group “purports to serve the Lebanese people” but in practice “illicitly moves funds through shell accounts and facilitators,” the Treasury Department said in 2021 when it was sanctioning individuals involved in what it called Hezbollah’s “shadow banking” network.
“In the coming days, we will reveal how Iran funds Hezbollah’s terror activities by using civilian institutions, associations, and NGOs that act as fronts for terrorism,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said in a statement on Sunday evening.
Critics of the group say the organization allows Hezbollah to build up its influence with citizens in Lebanon while hobbling the state and putting Lebanon’s banks at risk of foreign sanctions.
A senior Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters said that Israel aims to disrupt Hezbollah’s day-to-day financial operations, including paying salaries of Hezbollah’s operatives, which all run through Al-Qard al-Hasan, and to undermine the trust between Hezbollah and the many Lebanese Shiite Muslims who use the branches as an alternative banking service.
Al-Qard al-Hasan said in a statement on Sunday that Israel had exhausted “its bank of objectives and has chosen to threaten and target Al-Qard al-Hasan, the non-profit organization.”
Lebanon is still reeling from a severe financial and economic crisis that began in 2019.
In October of that year, the country was rocked with protests calling for a new government, leading to the prime minister’s resignation.
But the government and the country have yet to recover — and the financial crisis was exacerbated in the years that followed, first by the Covid-19 pandemic, and then by a massive explosion in the port of Beirut in the summer of 2020. Desperate Lebanese citizens have at times even tried to hold up banks where they are customers in an effort to get their money.
Last year, Hezbollah began launching attacks at Israel in solidarity with Hamas after that group’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza. Israel and Hezbollah traded fire for many months in a steady exchange of strikes that seemed, until last month, to be designed to avoid an all-out war.
But Israel in September stepped up its attacks against Hezbollah, targeting its commanders and infrastructure in a series of intense strikes in and near Beirut and throughout southern Lebanon; more than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 2023, with the vast majority of those deaths occurring in the recent uptick in Israeli attacks. In October, Israel also launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon that has led to the displacement of about a million people in Lebanon, according to local authorities.
On Sunday, residents of areas near branches of Al-Qard al-Hasan began fleeing after the evacuation warnings from Israel. Fatima Jneideh said she had evacuated her home just a few meters from a branch location in the Dahiya, an area near Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway. “My brother is still home,” she said. “He refused to leave.”
Isabel Kershner and Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut and Jerusalem.
The U.S. is investigating an intelligence leak on Israel’s plans to strike Iran.
U.S. officials planned to hold a classified briefing about a leak of American intelligence documents that appear to detail Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran for a missile salvo earlier this month, the House speaker said Sunday.
“The leak is very concerning,” the speaker, Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, said on CNN on Sunday morning. He said that he would take part in the classified briefing later in the day and that he was following the issue “very closely.”
The leaked documents, which began circulating on Friday on the Telegram app, were prepared in recent days by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for analyzing images and information collected by American spy satellites.
The documents, which are highly classified, offer interpretations of satellite imagery that provide insight into a potential strike by Israel on Iran in the coming days.
For weeks, an Israeli attack has been anticipated in retaliation for the Iranian missile assault on Oct. 1. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said that the strike was in retaliation for the assassinations of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Lebanon; Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, killed in Tehran in July; and an Iranian commander.
The leaked documents offer a window into intense American concerns about Israel’s plans. U.S. officials are working to ascertain just how much material was leaked, and believe it was disclosed by a low-level government official.
The documents are dated Oct. 15 and represent only what analysts looking at satellite imagery could determine at that time.
Mr. Johnson said that he had spoken to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday “to encourage him,” and said the United States should stand behind Israel.
“We cannot equivocate,” he said. “We can’t appease Iran. Now is the time for a maximum pressure campaign.”
On Friday, President Biden was asked in Germany whether he knew when Israel planned to strike and what kind of targets it had chosen. “Yes and yes,” he said, declining to say more.
But his statement seemed to suggest that he and Mr. Netanyahu had reached some kind of understanding about what kind of targets would be hit; previously, Mr. Biden called on Israel to avoid Iran’s nuclear sites and its energy facilities. The president has repeatedly raised concerns that if those targets, Iran’s crown jewels, were destroyed, the conflict would quickly escalate.
Mr. Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the briefing on Sunday.
Julian E. Barnes, Ronen Bergman and David E. Sanger contributed reporting.
Moldovans, Very Narrowly, Choose to Look Toward Europe, Not Russia
A referendum in Moldova intended to put an end to decades of swerving between East and West yielded a microscopic win on Monday for voters who favor amending the Constitution to lock in alignment with Europe rather than Russia.
The result of the referendum held Sunday was so tight, and the mandate for an irreversible path to Europe so thin, that Moldova, a former Soviet Republic and one of Europe’s poorest countries, looked stuck in a mire of uncertainty over its direction.
The referendum has been closely watched by Russia, the European Union and the United States. The results highlighted the deep divisions found in many formerly Soviet lands — divisions that Russia has labored to widen and, in the case of Ukraine, Moldova’s neighbor to the east, exploited to set the stage for its full-scale military invasion in February 2022.
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Sinwar Is Dead, but a Palestinian State Seems More Distant Than Ever
Follow our latest updates on the Middle East crisis here.
The killing of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, has raised hopes in the Biden administration that it could help pave the way for the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.
But in many ways the goal of an independent Palestinian state seems further away than ever. In Gaza, there has been death and destruction on a devastating scale. There is a lack of a clear and solid Palestinian leadership. And Israel is grappling with its own trauma over the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7.
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Vietnam Revives Power-Sharing Arrangement With New President
Vietnam’s National Assembly approved a new president on Monday, restoring a power-sharing arrangement among four high-level leaders that has defined the country’s approach to Communist government for decades.
The assembly’s announcement that Luong Cuong, a Vietnamese Army general, would be president calms speculation about the country’s top leader, To Lam, and whether he would try to retain the presidency after rising to become general secretary of the Communist Party in August.
Under the country’s “four pillar” structure, established in part to avoid the rise of a single strongman, decision-making roles are split among the general secretary, president, prime minister and head of the National Assembly.
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‘You Are Not Our King’: Charles III Heckled in Australia’s Parliament
Shortly after King Charles III had finished making remarks in Australia’s Parliament on Monday, a voice rang out from the back of the hall. “You are not our king,” shouted Lidia Thorpe, an Indigenous senator and activist for Aboriginal rights. “Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us.”
As security guards hustled Ms. Thorpe out of the chamber, she continued to heckle the king, demanding that Britain enter a treaty with Australia’s Indigenous population and accusing British colonizers of genocide.
“Our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people,” said Ms. Thorpe, wearing a traditional possum skin cloak and shaking her fist at Charles, as the guards backed her toward the door. “You destroyed our land.”
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Fethullah Gulen, Turkish Cleric and Erdogan Rival, Dies at 83
Fethullah Gulen, the preacher who founded an international Islamic movement and was a major ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey before being accused of plotting a coup against him in 2016, has died. He was 83.
Mr. Gulen died late Sunday in a hospital in the United States, where he had lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, according to the social media accounts of Herkul, a website associated with his movement. It did not mention a cause of death. A prominent follower, Ekrem Dumanli, said in an online interview that Mr. Gulen had been hospitalized for complications related to heart and kidney failure.
During his own rise as an Islamist politician in a staunchly secular country, Mr. Erdogan found useful allies in Mr. Gulen’s followers, who also used Islam as their guide in the prominent positions they held in Turkey’s judiciary, police forces and news media. But the two men later became enemies, and in 2016 the Turkish government designated Mr. Gulen’s movement a terrorist organization.
Nearly a decade after the failed coup and more than two decades since he left Turkey for the United States, Mr. Gulen’s image still loomed large as a key irritant in U.S.-Turkey relations and for Mr. Erdogan, who wanted the cleric sent back to Turkey to stand trial.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, on Monday confirmed Mr. Gulen’s death, calling him the leader of a “dark organization.” Suggesting that Mr. Gulen’s movement still posed a threat to Turkey, Mr. Fidan urged its followers to cut ties.
“With this death, the spell on them should be removed,” he said.
Mr. Gulen began his career as a provincial preacher in Turkey but gradually amassed a large following that grew into an international movement called Hizmet, or “service,” in Turkish. At its height, Hizmet ran schools in Turkey, Central Asia, Africa and elsewhere and promoted a vision of Islam that was friendly to the West and supported free markets, science and interfaith dialogue.
“Our general philosophy is to open up to all of humanity with love, while one of our feet is in our own world of thought,” Mr. Gulen said in a 2014 interview with BBC Turkish.
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But Mr. Gulen’s many detractors accused his movement of covertly working toward a more sinister goal: infiltrating the Turkish government to eventually take over.
For Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Gulen’s followers, known as Gulenists, were initially valuable partners. For more than a decade, Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party embraced them, angering Turks who said the two Islamist groups were working together to increase the role of Islam in public life.
But that relationship began to break down, taking a significant hit in 2013 when Turkish prosecutors investigated government officials close to Mr. Erdogan, then the prime minister, for corruption. Mr. Erdogan said the investigations had been concocted by a “criminal gang” with foreign links — a clear reference to the Gulenists — and dismissed dozens of officials involved in them, including the Istanbul police chief.
The alliance collapsed after the 2016 coup attempt, when parts of the Turkish military using tanks and fighter jets attacked government institutions, bombed the Parliament building in Ankara and attempted to kidnap Mr. Erdogan. About 250 people had been killed by the time the Turkish government quashed the rebellion, which took only a matter of hours.
Mr. Erdogan blamed Mr. Gulen for plotting the failed coup and began a vast purge in its aftermath, imposing a state of emergency for two years, detaining 100,000 people and removing 150,000 public employees from their jobs. More than 8,000 military personnel were prosecuted on charges of complicity in the insurrection.
The crackdown shuttered Gulenist schools, news outlets and businesses in Turkey and effectively destroyed the movement as an overt force in Turkish society and politics. Many of its prominent figures ended up in exile.
Mr. Gulen repeatedly denied that his group had anything to do with the attempted coup and rarely traveled far from his rural retreat in Saylorsburg, Pa. That fueled accusations from Mr. Erdogan and other Turkish officials that the preacher was an American asset who had been deployed to weaken Turkey.
“The coup plotter is in your country,” Mr. Erdogan said in 2016, addressing the United States. “You are nurturing him there. It’s out in the open.”
The Turkish government canceled Mr. Gulen’s Turkish passport in 2015 and tried for years to have the cleric extradited, but the United States never agreed to send him back to Turkey.
In a guest essay published in The New York Times in 2016, Mr. Gulen said that he had always taught “inclusive and pluralist Islam,” promoted democracy and opposed armed rebellion.
He said Mr. Erdogan’s accusations against him revealed the Turkish leader’s “systematic and dangerous drive toward one-man rule.”
Much about Mr. Gulen’s life and the movement he founded floats in the cloudy realm between the hagiography of his followers and the sweeping but mostly unproven accusations of vast conspiracies leveled by his Turkish detractors.
According to his official biography, Mr. Gulen was born in the village of Korucuk near the city of Erzurum in northeastern Turkey. He had eight siblings; his father was a local imam, or prayer leader; and his mother taught him the Quran.
He dropped out of elementary school to study Islam and the Arabic language, eventually joining the Turkish civil service as a mosque functionary. He decided not to marry so he could, he said, “devote myself to Islamic services.”
His prominence took off in the 1970s. He preached in important mosques around Turkey and traveled internationally, meeting with American Jewish leaders and Pope John Paul II to promote understanding among the Abrahamic faiths. His followers opened subsidized dormitories for poor students in Turkey to expand his movement and schools abroad to spread his message internationally.
The Turkish authorities repeatedly pursued him for religious activities deemed threatening to Turkey’s official state secularism, and in 1999, he moved to the United States. A recording of a sermon he had given circulated around that time in which he told his followers to “move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers.”
His followers dismissed the tape as a manipulation, but other Turks saw it as confirmation that the Gulenists were a power-hungry cult seeking to take control of the government.
In 2002, Mr. Gulen applied for permanent residency in the United States but was rejected. He later received it after providing endorsement letters from a former C.I.A. official and a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, fueling Turkish suspicions that he was a key node in an international plot.
In Turkey, his followers remained influential, running a newspaper, a television station and a bank and working in the police forces and judiciary. Their support was critical to Mr. Erdogan after he first became prime minister in 2003 and needed institutional backing to challenge Turkey’s traditional secular and military elites.
But Mr. Erdogan brought the full force of the Turkish state to bear on the movement after the 2016 coup attempt, expunging it from public life.
Turkish officials continued lash out at Mr. Gulen and at the American officials who refused to return him to Turkey, questioning how a NATO ally could deprive Turkey of a man it considered a dangerous terrorist.
“Whatever Osama bin Laden means for the United States and for the American people, Fethullah Gulen means the same for Turkey and Turkish people,” Bekir Bozdag, Mr. Erdogan’s justice minister, said in 2016.
Safak Timur contributed reporting.
How a TV Hit Sparked Debate About Having Too Many Babies
Five young sisters and their brother crowded around a small television in their modest cement house, a wriggling, giggling pile of skinny limbs and abandoned homework. Like families across northern Nigeria, the Sani family had been waiting all week for Thursday night to watch the latest episode of their favorite show, a comedy drama called “Gidan Badamasi.”
Everyone was talking about the show last year in their suburb of Kano, Nigeria’s second-biggest city, where rows of well-behaved children sit on sidewalks every afternoon, learning the Quran by heart.
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