Israel’s plan to respond to Iran’s October 1 attack is ready, a source told CNN, while Israeli strikes continue in Lebanon and Gaza.
US officials expect Israel will retaliate before November 5, sources told CNN — a timeline that would thrust the growing volatility in the Middle East squarely into public view within days of the US presidential election.
Here’s what else you need to know:
In Lebanon:
- At least 16 people were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a municipality building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike hit Hezbollah targets and dismantled what it claimed was “underground infrastructure used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces.” Nabatiyeh mayor Ahmad Kahil was killed along with several municipal workers, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported. A civil defense worker was also among those killed.
- Separately, Israel also struck Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday morning, according to Lebanese state media, the first attack to target the area in several days. The IDF said Wednesday it hit “strategic weapons” belonging to Hezbollah in an underground storage facility.
- Hezbollah said it sent “barrages” of rockets into several areas of northern Israel overnight, while the IDF said it had identified about 50 projectiles launched from Lebanon in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
- Israel is opposed to a “unilateral ceasefire” in its war with Hezbollah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told French President Emmanuel Macron, claiming it would only return the security situation in Lebanon “to what it was before.”
- The United Nations called for an investigation into an Israeli strike on Aitou, a village in northern Lebanon, that killed at least 21 people as it destroyed an entire building housing people who fled the bombardment in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said 12 women and two children were among those killed.
- Two paramedics were injured by shrapnel while responding to a prior Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross posted on X Wednesday. The medics arrived in the town of Jouaiyya in coordination with UNIFIL, the UN’s peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, to respond to a previous Israeli strike. Israel has “no intention” of harming UNIFIL forces, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said.
In Gaza:
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday it killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas commander who led the militant group’s drone operations in northern Gaza.
- At least seven medical NGOs were informed they will no longer be permitted to enter the Palestinian enclave, according to two sources familiar with the matter. This comes just days after the US warned Israel that it needs to do more to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk losing military assistance. Meanwhile, the State Department said Israel has taken steps to improve the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza after a US warning, but the department spokesperson did not say if the steps taken thus far are adequate enough.
