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
The Lebanese army says one of its soldiers was killed, and another injured, when they were hit by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
The incident happened as the army and Lebanese Red Cross were evacuating casualties from the village Al Taybeh, the army says.
We'll bring you more details about this incident as we get them.
As we've just reported, Israel has warned people in dozens of places in southern Lebanon to evacuate.
The Lebanese authorities say around 1.2 million people have been displaced by Israeli attacks in the past two weeks.
In Beirut, where many have headed to, some displaced families are living on the beach, while others have built their own shelters on paths:
Image source, Abbas Salman/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Image source, Abbas Salman/EPA-EFE/REX/ShutterstockSince Israel’s invasion of Lebanon began earlier this week, the Israel Defense Forces' Arabic spokesperson has warned residents in dozens of places to evacuate.
In a new update, Avichay Adraee is urging citizens in 25 more areas - including the city of Nabatieh - to head north.
“Evacuate your homes immediately,” Adaree says on X, after listing the villages at risk. “You must not go south. Any southward movement may put you in danger.”
Nabatieh is the capital of the Nabatieh region and one of the largest cities in the south. Estimates of its population ranged between 60,00 to 100,000 before the conflict.
Lebanon's health ministry has just provided an updated death toll on the overnight air strike in central Beirut.
Nine people were killed and 14 injured, the health ministry says.
A number of those killed are rescue officers and paramedics, according to Beirut's civil defence.
Our correspondent in Beirut says the target was a residential building containing a medical centre that is believed to be affiliated with Hezbollah.
Sally Nabil
BBC Arabic correspondent, reporting from Beirut
It’s a scene of chaos in central Beirut, after a medical centre believed to be affiliated to Hezbollah was hit overnight in an Israeli air strike.
The centre was in a crowded residential building that was heavily damaged. The street is strewn with rubble, blankets, medical masks and gloves.
"All of us came out running, children were screaming, we felt our hearts are going to stop," a resident of the badly hit building tells me.
The Lebanese civil defence tell us several medics were among those injured and killed.
The Israeli army says it’s targeting Hezbollah infrastructure. Hezbollah denies storing weapons in civilian areas.
When you put Israel’s argument to the people here, they get really upset.
Image source, Reuters
By Ghoncheh Habibiazad and Shayan Sardarizadeh
Press TV, Iran's state-owned, international facing channel, published a video today showing a huge fire in what appeared to be a bus station.
"Tel Aviv on fire after being hit by kamikaze drone barrage," read the headline of Press TV's story.
However, a reverse image search of several key frames of the footage , externalreveals the video was first posted online in June 2022.
On Wednesday, Iran's Tasnim news agency, which is closely affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), posted a clip on social media which it claimed to show "Iran's missiles make impact in Tel Aviv".
But the video dates back to July 2023, showing a Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow, which was reported by the BBC at the time.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has just announced that, three months ago, it killed three senior Hamas leaders in Gaza.
Among them is Rawhi Mushtaha, identified by the IDF as the head of the Hamas government, along with Sameh al-Siraj and Sami Oudeh, who were responsible for security in Hamas.
The IDF says they were hiding in an underground compound in northern Gaza and were killed by air strikes.
Israel says Hamas didn't announced the deaths "in order to prevent loss of morale and functioning of its terror operatives".
As we've been reporting, an Israeli air strike hit an apartment building in central Beirut last night.
Our team in Beirut have been to the scene and sent this footage:
Israel announced a ground offensive in southern Lebanon earlier this week, and fighting is continuing in border areas.
According to Hezbollah, Israeli forces attempted to advance at the Fatima border crossing but were "confronted" by Hezbollah fighters. The Israeli military is yet to comment.
The Fatima gate is near Kfarkela on the Lebanese side and Metula on the Israeli side. It has been closed since Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
Earlier, we reported Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling on a number of locations in Lebanon, including the Bint Jbeil district in southern Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) now says that overnight its warplanes "precisely struck the Bint Jbeil municipality building in which Hezbollah terrorists were operating, alongside large quantities of Hezbollah weapons stored in the building".
"As part of the strike, approximately 15 Hezbollah terrorists were eliminated," the IDF says.
Overall, about 200 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon were struck, including weapons storage facilities and observation posts, the IDF says.
A "limited number" of charter flights back to the UK from Lebanon will depart on Thursday and continue "for as long as the security situation allows", the Foreign Office (FCDO) says.
More than 150 British nationals and their dependants left Beirut on a government chartered flight yesterday.
British nationals and their dependants in Lebanon who've registered will be sent details, the FCDO says.
The FCDO says any non-British dependants boarding the flight will require a visa, granted for at least six months, to enter the UK.
The department is urging people not to travel to the airport unless they have a seat booked.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy urges "all British nationals still in Lebanon to register with the FCDO and leave the country immediately".
As of last week, there were thought to be between 4,000 and 6,000 UK nationals, including dependants, in Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says that two drones have been identified this morning crossing from Lebanon, and have been intercepted.
We earlier reported sirens in northern Israel - the IDF now says 25 "projectiles" (usually meaning rockets) have crossed the Lebanese border, with some intercepted.
The IDF has not reported any injuries.
Nafiseh Kohnavard
BBC Persian Middle East correspondent, in Beirut
Smoke rises above Beirut after a missile strike last night
I'm not sure how many people managed to sleep last night in Beirut, but many in my neighbourhood were awake again. It was 03:45am that we heard the last airstrike on Dahieh, Beirut’s southern suburb.
Even the United Nations' special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis, posted on X, external about "another sleepless night" in the city.
This morning I can see from my window that columns of smoke are still coming out of Dahieh.
But what scared many in my neighbourhood and downtown Beirut was that, for the first time, a missile strike targeted a building in a central part of the city.
The target was a building that an ex-parliament member of Hezbollah was living in. It's also a headquarters for a medical centre affiliated to Hezbollah.
That building is five minutes' drive from my home and is located in an area that is considered a "safe zone" due to its Christian majority population.
But many here, including myself, heard the missile passing over our heads with a strong howling. The feeling of safety is vanishing day by day in all parts of Beirut.
This morning smoke could be seen rising from several different places in Beirut
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) is reporting Israeli strikes on a number of locations in Lebanon this morning.
It says Israeli war planes bombed villages in the southern Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts, close to the Israeli border, as well as the village of Arnoun in the Nabatieh district, also near the border.
The border village of Aitaroun was shelled by Israeli artillery, the agency says.
In the Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon, an Israeli air strike was reported on the village of Harfouch. The NNA did not say whether there were any casualties.
"Israel has chosen an escalatory path in a very volatile and dangerous region. It's opened the Pandora's box," Lebanon's ambassador to the UK tells the BBC.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Rami Mortada says "Lebanon wants a diplomatic solution" but that the "hotheads in Israel chose a different path".
Questioned whether the Lebanese government has sufficiently condemned Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel, Mortada says: "I condemn any act of violence but Hezbollah has not been committing violence".
He instead claims the armed group has been "firing exclusively at military targets".
"Violence begets violence and when you provoke someone you would expect that they would provoke you back," he says.
Repeating his calls for a diplomatic solution he says: "We need to stop this carnage in Gaza, stop this carnage in Lebanon, and seek a diplomatic solution."
For context: Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim political party and armed group in Lebanon, sometimes described as a "state within a state". Authorities in Lebanon have very little, if any, say over the group's activities.
As we reported, an Israeli air strike targeted a building in Bachoura in central Beirut last night, killing at least six people.
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
Image source, ReutersA man holds up a damaged helmet that reads "Civil Defence"
More than 240 rockets were fired from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel throughout Wednesday, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
And the rocket fire seems to be continuing, with warning sirens in at least four areas in northern Israel throughout Thursday morning, the IDF says on Telegram.
The most recent siren was in the Galilee Panhandle, near the Lebanese border.
Image source, EPAIsrael's Iron Dome air defence system intercepts rockets fired from southern Lebanon over the Galilee, northern Israel, on Wednesday
Tom Bateman
State Department correspondent, Washington DC
We’re getting a bit more of a sense of the way Washington is trying to steer Israel as it mulls the retaliation to Iran’s missile strikes on Tuesday.
The first point is, it’s clear President Biden is telling the Israeli leadership that any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is off limits.
He was asked about it by reporters under the wing of Air Force One (on a trip to the hurricane-ravaged south-east US) - would the US would back any Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites?
Biden told them: "The answer is no."
He also said he’d been talking to other world leaders on a G7 conference call and that Israel should respond "proportionally".
Biden also said more sanctions would be imposed on Iran.
My sense so far is that the Israeli response is not immediately imminent, that the Americans support the retaliation but are still urging restraint - at least so far as to try to prevent a further Iranian counterattack.
Image source, EPAPeople looking at an Iranian missile that fell in the Negev desert in southern Israel during Tuesday's strikes
Image source, ReutersSmoke rises above a village in southern Lebanon following an air strike on Tuesday
Israeli air strikes will continue and Lebanese people who have left their homes in the south of the country should not return, the army says on Telegram.
"The Israeli army air strikes will continue. For your safety, and that of your children, do NOT go back home until further notice."
Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Beirut
Image source, ReutersAn apartment block in the Bachoura neighbourhood which was hit in an Israeli airstrike
A loud explosion was heard as Israel bombed central Beirut at around midnight.
The building hit was in the Bachoura neighbourhood, near the Lebanese parliament – the first Israeli airstrike to hit the heart of the capital in this conflict.
Pictures of the aftermath showed a heavily damaged apartment building, with the first floor partially destroyed.
Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, was also attacked. The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for several areas of the district, saying it would target Hezbollah facilities and interests in the future.
In the south of the country, there were signs Israel was preparing to expand its ground invasion, with more troops being sent to the border yesterday.