More air strikes have been reported in southern Beirut and Lebanon, as Israel tells more than 30 villages in the south to evacuate
A major road out of Lebanon was hit overnight - pictures show a large crater near the border crossing into Syria, where thousands of people have been fleeing. Israel says the route was being used to transport weapons
Rockets continue to be fired into Israel from Lebanon - watch the moment our correspondent runs for cover after hearing gunfire and explosions
Lebanon's health ministry said earlier 37 people have been killed in Israeli ground and air attacks in the past 24 hours; more than 2,000 people have now been killed since last October
In Iran, the supreme leader defended his country's missile attack on Israel earlier this week as a "minimum punishment" in a rare public speech
As we've been reporting - in the last hour there's been a huge explosion not far from Beirut airport.
We've now got video of the moment when the blast happened.
Moment giant explosions seen near Beirut airport
Loud blasts have been reported by various international and Lebanese news agencies near Beirut's international airport, which borders the suburb of Dahieh - Hezbollah's stronghold in the city and a continuing target for Israeli air strikes.
Video footage appears to show a large explosion close to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport. The BBC has yet to confirm the location of the latest strike.
Earlier, the Israeli military called on civilians near two buildings in southern Beirut to move away ahead of an air raid.
It comes as the Lebanese health ministry released figures saying 37 people were killed and 151 wounded in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in the past 24 hours, in a statement early on Friday.
Image source, ReutersLarge explosions are being reported in Beirut, with images from the Lebanese capital showing the night sky lighting up in southern areas of the city.
Reports say an area just outside Beirut airport has been hit in an Israeli strike. Earlier, the IDF called on civilians near two buildings in the southern Beirut suburbs to flee.
We're working to gather information on what's happening on the ground, and will bring you more details as we get them.
Image source, ReutersThe leaders of the G7 have outlined their concern over the "deteriorating situation" in the Middle East.
The joint statement issued today read: "We, the leaders of the G7, express deep concern over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and condemn in the strongest terms Iran's direct military attack against Israel, which constitutes a serious threat to regional stability."
The statement also reaffirmed the group's commitment to the security of Israel and condemned what it called Iran's "destabilising actions throughout the Middle East through terrorist proxies and armed groups".
Discussions to avoid escalation in the region have also taken place, the G7 leaders said, adding: " A dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks fuelling uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East, which is in no-one's interest. Therefore, we call on all regional players to act responsibly and with restraint."
We're now seeing some new pictures from Lebanon, where tonight Israel has been carrying out strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut:
Image source, Getty Images
Image source, ReutersPeople living near two buildings in a suburb in southern Beirut have been ordered by the Israeli military to evacuate.
The Israel Defense Forces' Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee issues the warning to civilians in the Dahiyeh neighbourhood, publishing two maps, external showing where the orders are in place.
He says people should leave immediately, warning that they are "located near Hezbollah facilities and interests", which the IDF pledges to "act against... in the near future".
The Israeli military says it has carried out a strike in the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank.
Several people are reported to have been killed, with the Palestinian Authority health ministry putting the number at 16.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, separately, said that at least five people were killed.
The IDF did not provide further details of the strike on the refugee camp in its statement.
We'll bring you more information as we get it.
Lucy Williamson
Reporting from Israel’s northern border
The communities sitting along Israel’s northern border fence are now in a closed military zone.
The roads into many of them take you through the line of sight from Hezbollah positions.
We drove fast into one of them, past tanks, which were dug in and waiting.
In a near-empty kibbutz, we walked the last few metres to a vantage point overlooking the border.
Just below us, small scattered buildings used by Hezbollah lie broken. Beyond them is the town of Bint Jbeil, where Israel’s army said today it had killed Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah said it had targeted soldiers on the other side of the hill.
Dean Sweetland, a former British soldier who moved here eight years ago, is one of the few residents still living here.
He told me his house shook several times a day with rocket and anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon, some of them intercepted by Israel’s air-defences overhead.
“We can’t continue this for another year, having Hezbollah sitting on our border just waiting to do a 7 October [attack] on us,” he said.
“But my son is in the army, and do we want our kids to be in there, slaughtered, where Hezbollah has been waiting for us to go in for nearly 20 years?”
“It’s not going to be pretty,” he continued, “but if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes”.
The most senior leader of Hamas outside Gaza has told the BBC that the crisis his organisation provoked in the Middle East, which has led to thousands of deaths across the region in the last year, is justified.
Challenged by BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen, Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy leader of Hamas, denied overwhelming evidence that Hamas fighters targeted civilians during the attacks on 7 October last year.
Around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed and more than 250 taken into Gaza as hostages. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organisation by the UK and other governments.
Al-Hayya said the 7 October attacks last year were necessary to place the issue of Palestinian statehood back on the global agenda.
Pressed on whether he regretted an offensive that led to the deaths of more than 40,000 Gazans in Israeli attacks, he said Israel’s occupation of land Palestinians believe is theirs was at the root of the violence and killing in the Middle East.
Without it, he said, the cycle of violence in the Middle East would not end. Al-Hayya is the most senior man in Hamas after the leader, Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be in Gaza.
The interview took place in Doha, where most of the political leadership of Hamas is based. Iran attacked Israel with ballistic missiles around an hour after the interview was recorded.
Image source, AnadoluCarolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana's Permanent Representative to the UN, read out the joint statement
Ten elected members of the United Nations Security Council have issued a joint statement expressing concern about "the escalation of tensions in the Middle East".
"We condemn the current cycle of violence and call for an immediate end to all hostilities," Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana's Permanent Representative to the UN, said as she read out a joint statement.
"We also call on all parties to respect their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law," the statement said.
The UN Security Council is comprised of 15 members with five that remain permanently on the council and 10 non-permanent members who are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly.
The five permanent members are: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The ten current non-permanent members - who are elected for two-year terms - are: Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it "precisely struck several weapons production sites" and Hezbollah infrastructure sites in Beirut on Thursday.
The Israeli Air Force also "struck Hezbollah intelligence targets in Beirut", including intelligence operatives and command centres, the IDF said in a statement.
"Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including using precise munitions and leveraging aerial surveillance," it said.
Iran’s mission to the UN has warned that any country providing assistance to Israel will become a “legitimate target".
"Should any country render assistance to the aggressor, it shall likewise be deemed an accomplice and a legitimate target," it said in a statement.
"We advise countries to refrain from entangling themselves in the conflict between the Israeli regime and Iran and to distance themselves from the fray."
The mission added that the only communication channel between Washington and Iran was the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.
Frank Gardner
Security correspondent
President Biden has given a strong hint that Israel may be considering an attack on Iran’s oil terminals, in response to Tuesday’s missile attack by Iran.
So what would this entail and what effect would it have?
Oil and gas are the lifeblood of the Iranian economy and a major source of income for its Revolutionary Guards Corps. Hence, an obvious target for an Israel bent on retaliation.
Iran’s principal oil export terminal is an offshore island called Kharg in the northern Gulf, close to the port of Bushehr.
During the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s it was a frequent target for airstrikes by the Iraqi air force.
Israel has shown it has the reach to hit long distance targets after twice bombing the Yemeni port of Hodeidah from 2,000km (1,243 miles) away and also hitting an Iranian radar site near Isfahan.
Bombing Kharg would be complex as Israeli warplanes would either have to fly over Arab nations’ airspace or else fly all the way around the entire coast of the Arabian Peninsula, requiring extensive refuelling.
The effect of this, if Israel did decide to attack Kharg or any other Iranian oil facilities, would be twofold.
Oil prices would most likely jump, at least in the short term, and Iran would then vow to hit back hard. And it’s that latter, unknown factor that is causing the US to caution restraint.
Image source, Getty ImagesWe've just heard from the US state department, with spokesman Matthew Miller saying the US is "committed to the defence of Israel" and it approves of its ally defending itself from an "untenable security situation".
He declined to speculate on targets when asked if Israel would attack Iran's oil production sites in retaliation to Tuesday's missile attack.
Miller added the US wanted to see a resolution to the conflict, but also Hezbollah's capabilities degraded.
On getting American citizens out of Lebanon, the state department says it's working with US airlines, as well as chartering its own flights to Turkey.
A Yazidi woman who was kidnapped aged 11 in Iraq by the Islamic State group and subsequently taken to Gaza has been rescued after more than a decade in captivity there, officials from Israel, the US and Iraq said.
The Yazidis are a religious minority who mostly live in Iraq and Syria. In 2014 the Islamic State group overran the Yazidi community in Sinjar in northern Iraq, massacring thousands of men, and enslaving girls and women.
The Israeli military said the now 21-year-old's captor in Gaza had been killed during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas, probably as a result of an air strike.
The woman, identified as Fawzia Amin Sido, then fled to another place in Gaza.
Mallory Moench
Live reporter
Image source, ReutersI've been speaking to people involved in the humanitarian response in Lebanon, who fear that the window of opportunity to get aid in may be closing.
Juan Gabriel Wells, Lebanon country director with the International Rescue Committee, told me that nearly half of displaced people surveyed by his organisation in shelters run by the government were children under the age of 15.
With people crowded into schools with inadequate sanitation “the spread of disease is going to start becoming a problem”, he says. It also started raining on Monday, and winter is coming, with people still sleeping on the streets, he adds.
He’s worried that more bombings and the possibility of a wider ground invasion would destroy bridges and highways - as happened in the 2006 war in Lebanon - hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid. He also called on the international community to send more resources.
“We have a window of opportunity here to be able to respond quickly to the needs,” he says. “We need help now more than ever.”
Footage filmed from Dabouq, in Jordan, shows a barrage of missiles exploding over Israel after Iran launched almost 200 missiles towards the country on 1 October.
The Israeli military said most of the missiles were intercepted, but a small number struck central and southern Israel.
The country's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran had made a "big mistake" and "will pay for it".
A man was also killed by falling missile debris in the city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said.
Iran said the attack was in response to two assassinations by Israel - of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Image source, ReutersBritish Airways has just announced it will suspend flights to Tel Aviv until the end of the month.
It joins a host airlines cancelling Middle East routes due to the ongoing conflict.
German carrier Lufthansa has suspended flights to Tehran until 26 October, Tel Aviv until 31 October, and Beirut until the end of November.
Dutch airline KLM has suspended flights to Tel Aviv until the end of the year.
Air India, Cathay Pacific, Delta, United, EasyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air have all suspended flights to Israel in recent days.
Lebanon's Middle East Airlines is one of the last carriers still offering flights in and out of Beirut airport.
On Tuesday, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a bulletin recommending that operators avoid Iranian airspace, due to the possibility of Israel launching retaliatory strikes at Iran.
Image source, Planet Labs PBC/APThis satellite image taken by Planet Labs PBC shows a damaged hangar at Israel's Nevatim Air Base
By Paul Brown
Damage to Israel's Nevatim airbase following Iran's missile attack on Tuesday night can be seen in newly-released satellite imagery captured by US company Planet Labs.
The image, which only covers a section of the base and was taken on 2 October, shows a crater on a road, damage to the roof of what appears to be a hangar, and signs of debris nearby. It is not clear if aircraft were present in the hangar at the time of the strike, and there is no obvious damage to the aircraft visible in the image.
The Israeli military has acknowledged that some of its airbases were damaged in the attack, but that the strike had not had any operational effect.
BBC Verify also analysed several videos of missiles striking the vicinity of the airfield from the night of the attack and counted at least 27 missiles heading towards the base, nine impacts and numerous in-air interceptions. Further imagery covering more of the base would reveal the true extent of the damage sustained.
Orla Guerin
Reporting from Tyre in Lebanon
Image source, EPATwo Lebanese soldiers have been killed in separate attacks in southern Lebanon today, which the army has blamed on Israel.
The two fatal attacks were just hours apart and mark another escalation since Israeli forces invaded the region earlier this week.
As we reported earlier, a convoy of Lebanese army and Red Cross vehicles came under fire in the village of Taybeh as they were carrying out an evacuation. One soldier was killed, and four red cross volunteers lightly injured.
Later on, the Lebanese army said a barracks in the town of Bint Jbeil was hit - killing another soldier. The army returned fire which is a first in this conflict.
The warring sides here are Israel and the Shia militia Hezbollah. The Lebanese army has been staying on the sidelines.
With every day the death toll is climbing here, as Israeli strikes kill civilians, Hezbollah fighters, and now Lebanese troops.