What to Know About Fighting in Lebanon and Gaza

Relentless Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs overnight and closed off the main highway linking Lebanon with Syria, forcing fleeing civilians to cross the border by foot.
The airstrikes came as the supreme leader of Iran, which backs the anti-Israel militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, praised the country’s recent missile strike on Israel and said Friday it was ready to do it again if necessary.
Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel almost exactly a year ago, killing 1,200 Israelis, taking 250 people hostage, and setting off a war with Israel that has shattered much of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since then in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. It says more than half were women and children, The Associated Press said.
In late September, Israel shifted some of its focus to Hezbollah, which holds much of the power in parts of southern Lebanon and some other areas of the country, attacking the militants with exploding pagers, airstrikes and, eventually, incursions into Lebanon.
Here’s what to know:
What is the latest on Israel’s operations in Lebanon? Israel said it targeted the crossing with Syria because Hezbollah militants were using it to bring in weapons, and that its jets had also struck a smuggling tunnel. Much of Hezbollah's weaponry is believed to come from Iran through Syria.
Tens of thousands of people fleeing war in Lebanon have crossed into Syria over the past two weeks.
Israeli officials said they were targeting Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in the Beirut suburb airstrikes. It did not say if any militants were killed, but it says it has killed 100 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours.
Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed in a Thursday drone attack in northern Israel, military officials said. An umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it carried out three drone strikes Friday in northern Israel.
The Israeli military launched a ground incursion into Lebanon earlier this week and has been fighting Hezbollah militants in a narrow strip of land along the border. A series of attacks before the incursion killed some of the group’s key members, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah, in a display of solidarity, began launching rockets into northern Israel just after Hamas' Oct. 7 cross-border attack.
On Thursday, Israel extended its evacuation warnings to communities in southern Lebanon, including and beyond an area that the United Nations had declared a buffer zone after Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief 2006 war.
Lebanese officials say nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes because of the fighting.
What happened in the airstrike on a West Bank cafe? A Thursday airstrike on a West bank cafe, which Israeli officials said had targeted Palestinian militants, also killed a family of four, including two young children, relatives said.
The Palestinian health ministry said at least 18 Palestinians had been killed.
The Israeli military said the airstrike in the Tulkarem refugee camp killed several militants, including Hamas’ leader in the camp, whom it accused of involvement in multiple attacks on Israeli civilians, and of planning an attack on Israel on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 assault.
Tulkarem, a militant stronghold, is frequently targeted by the Israeli military.
Airstrikes used to be rare in the Palestinian territory, but they have grown more common as Israeli forces clamp down, saying they want to prevent attacks on their citizens.
Israeli fire has killed at least 722 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, Palestinian health officials say. In that time, Palestinian fighters have launched a number of attacks on soldiers at checkpoints and within Israel.
What is Iran saying? A top Iranian official warned Friday that it would harshly retaliate if Israel attacks Iran.
“If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in Beirut after meeting Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Araghchi's visit came three days after Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel, the latest in a series of rapidly escalating attacks that threaten to push the Middle East closer to a regionwide war.
What did Biden say about Netanyahu? President Joe Biden said he couldn't say if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was holding up a Mideast peace deal to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden told reporters Friday, using the Israeli leader's nickname. “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”
Biden, who has long pushed for a diplomatic agreement, and whose relationship with Netanyahu has grown increasingly complicated, was responding to comments made by one of his allies, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
“I don’t think you have to be a hopeless cynic to read some of Israel’s actions, some of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions, as connected to the American election,” Murphy said on CNN.
A peace deal would help smooth divisions in the Democratic Party and could increase electoral support for Vice President Kamala Harris. Netanyahu, though, worries his far-right coalition would stop supporting him if he signed an agreement, leaving him out of power and facing his own legal problems.
Netanyahu has a markedly closer relationship with former President Donald Trump than he does with Biden.

The ruins of a coffee shop in the West Bank city of Tulkarm show the force of the airstrike on Thursday night that killed a senior local commander of the militant group Hamas - and at least 17 others.

The strike in Tulkarm's Noor Shams refugee camp, one of the most densely populated in the occupied West Bank, destroyed the ground floor shop entirely, leaving rescue workers picking through piles of concrete rubble with the smell of blood still hanging in the air.

Two holes in an upper level show where the missile penetrated the three-storey building before reaching the coffee shop, where a mechanical digger was clearing rubble.

The strike by the Israeli air force was the largest seen in the West Bank during operations that have escalated sharply since the start of the war in Gaza almost a year ago, and one of the biggest since the second "intifada" uprising two decades ago.

"We haven't heard this sound since 2002," said Nimer Fayyad, owner of the cafe, whose brother was killed in the strike.

"The missiles targeted a civilian building, a family was wiped from the civil registry. What was their fault? ...

"There is no safe place for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves."

Residents said the strike took place after a rally in the middle of the camp by armed fighters based there. When the rally ended, some went to the coffee shop, Reuters reported.

The Israeli military said the strike killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, head of the Hamas network in Tulkarm, a volatile city in the northern West Bank that has seen repeated clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian fighters.

It said the attack joined "a number of significant counterterrorism activities" conducted in the area since the start of the war.

ATTACK KILLS FAMILY OF FIVE IN APARTMENT

Local residents said another commander, from the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, was also killed but there was no immediate confirmation from either faction.

But Palestinian emergency services said at least 18 people had died in all, including a family of five in an apartment in the same building.

The missiles penetrated their ceiling and the floor of their kitchen, leaving many of the cabinets incongruously intact.

With the first anniversary approaching of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the strike on Tulkarm underlined how widely the war has now spread.

As well as fighting in Gaza, now largely reduced to rubble, Israeli troops are engaged in southern Lebanon while parts of the West Bank, which has seen repeated arrest sweeps and raids, have in recent weeks come to resemble a full-blown war zone.

Flashpoint cities in the northern West Bank like Tulkarm and Jenin have suffered repeated large-scale operations against Palestinian militant groups that are deeply embedded in the area's refugee camps.

"What's happening in Gaza is spreading to Tulkarm, with the targeting of civilians, children, women and elders," said Faisal Salam, head of the camp refugee council.

More than 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank over the past year, many of them armed fighters but many also unarmed youths throwing stones during protests, or civilian passers-by.

At the same time, dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in the West Bank and Israel by Palestinians, most recently in Tel Aviv, where seven people were killed by two Palestinians from the West Bank with an automatic weapon.

What to Know About Fighting in Lebanon and Gaza