Israeli tank fired at peacekeeper watchtower – Unifil

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said an Israeli tank fired at their watchtower, describing it as "apparently deliberate fire" at its position – Israel is yet to comment.

It follows several reports of similar incidents over the past week – you can read our Middle East correspondent Wyre Davies' in-depth look at the row between the two here.

Cross-border fire continues

Lebanon says 16 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a municipal building in Nabatieh, a city in the south, with the mayor among those killed – Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah in the area.

Israel also carried out air strikes on Beirut early this morning for the first time in five days.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces said 90 projectiles were fired at Israel in the last 24 hours, and emergency services there said two people were treated after being injured. Lebanon's government reported 138 strikes in the past 24 hours, state media reports.

Mounting pressure over Gaza

After Washington demanded Israel allow more aid into Gaza or risk a reduction in military support, Reuters and Israel's Channel 13 News reported that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has convened an emergency meeting to address the situation.

Our international editor Jeremy Bowen writes that the US threat is a sign of its anger that Israel has not kept its promises.

We're closing this page now. You can read more about the latest offensive in Gaza and the toll the situation is taking on the people living there in this piece from our special correspondent Fergal Keane here.

Tom Bateman
US State Department correspondent, Washington DC

More from the press briefing just now at the US Department of State.

I asked about the wider US strategy as it relates to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and whether the US was being drawn into an attempt to bomb Lebanon into "regime change" as some critics assert, rather than a diplomatic approach Washington previously favoured.

Spokesman Matthew Miller says "of course" the US did not want to see Hezbollah exercise political power in Lebanon.

Miller adds: “We said immediately after Israel launched this military campaign… that we are fully cognisant that military campaigns can, at times, create space for diplomacy - a long history of that.

"They can also produce the opposite effect… I'm not going to make any predictions about what will happen. I'll tell you what we're going to try to achieve.”

"We’re not interested in regime change. We’re interested in the people of Lebanon electing a president and breaking the deadlock that a terrorist organisation [has on the government]," says Miller.

Tom Bateman
US State Department correspondent, Washington DC

I’ve just come from a press briefing at the US Department of State where I asked about the Israeli strike we’ve been reporting on in the Lebanese town of Nabatieh, where authorities say 16 people including the mayor were killed.

According to the Lebanese government, mayor Ahmad Kahil was holding a meeting to discuss the town’s humanitarian needs when he was killed. He was reportedly affiliated with Hezbollah but locals described him as a civilian. Israel says it was targeting "Hezbollah bases".

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declines to say whether the US, which arms Israel, regarded the strike as legitimate, saying he didn’t have enough information about it.

I press Miller on who the US regards as lawful military targets given Hezbollah is both an armed organisation and a political party interwoven in Lebanon’s social, economic and political governance.

The US lists the entirety of Hezbollah as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO). Some countries by contrast designate its military but not its political wing. The group is backed by Iran and from its origins, its supporters - predominantly among Lebanon’s Shia population - saw it as legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.

"[The Israelis] have the right to target militants. They have the right to target those engaged in terrorism, those involved with supporting terrorism, financing terrorism, and helping carry out terrorism, terrorist attacks. That's clear," says Miller.

"Under an international humanitarian law, they don't have the right to carry out attacks on civilians," he adds.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Lebanon's government says there have been 138 air strikes on their country in the past 24 hours, most of them in the south and Nabatieh, Lebanese state media reports.

Image source, EPA

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say they've "eliminated" the leader of a Hezbollah unit in Qana, Lebanon, where Israel carried out overnight strikes.

According to the IDF, the Israeli Air Force struck Jalal Mustafa Hariri and other Hezbollah members responsible for artillery and anti-tank missiles in the Qana region.

It's unclear if the strikes in Qana last night were the ones that killed Hariri or how many other members of the armed group were killed. Hezbollah has not yet responded.

In the last few hours, Hezbollah says it's been continuing to fire rockets at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, as well as towards the city of Safed in northern Israel.

Earlier this evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting to discuss increasing humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, Reuters and Israel's Channel 13 News are reporting.

It comes after Israel received a strongly-worded letter from the United States about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and as the UN Security Council met in New York to discuss it.

Following Netanyahu's meeting, three Israeli officials told Reuters aid is expected to increase in the near future. A spokesperson for Netanyahu did not immediately comment.

More now on the air strike that hit the municipal headquarters in the southern Lebanon town of Nabatieh today.

US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller says the US is in touch with Israel’s government over the strike, which Lebanon says killed 16.

Speaking at a press conference, Miller says he does not know what Israel’s intention was, but that the US does not want to see civilian buildings destroyed. Miller says that Hezbollah does at times operate from inside civilian homes.

Earlier, Lebanon's prime minister condemned the strike, saying Israel had "intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council," while Israel's UN envoy said it was targeting Hezbollah.

Image source, Reuters

A UN official says that four members of a relief team working with the UN were killed during Israeli strikes on Nabatieh, the city in southern Lebanon.

As we reported earlier, Lebanon's health ministry says 16 were killed in the strikeon a municipal building, including the mayor. Israel says it was targeting Hezbollah.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, Imran Riza, describes the strike "occurring just as a crisis meeting was convening" as "devastating".

Riza says the four members were part of "a relief team with whom the UN and humanitarian partners have been working for more than a year"

He calls for "respect for the rules of war," saying civilians must be allowed to seek safety and that humanitarian workers "are not a target".

We've got a statement from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil). They say that this morning, peacekeepers at a position near Kafer Kela, a village in southern Lebanon, saw an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) tank firing at their watchtower.

Unifil says that two cameras were destroyed and the tower was damaged in what they call "direct and apparently deliberate fire on a Unifil position".

The IDF has not yet commented.

On Sunday, Unifil has also said two Israeli tanks destroyed the main gate of a post in Ramyah, and "forcibly entered the position".

Tensions between Israel and the UN over peacekeeping operations in southern Lebanon have been rising recently.

In the latest standoff, the head of UN peacekeeping operations rejected a call on Monday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Unifil to pull out of “combat areas”.

Sam Rose, senior deputy director of UNRWA, tells the BBC he welcomes the "small number" of aid trucks entering northern Gaza, but says it's "nowhere near the needs that are required".

Speaking from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, he describes seeing children scavenging in rubbish piles 20 ft (6m) high and says hundreds of thousands are living in squalor, with nights "dotted with bombardments".

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wants aid to Gaza "urgently increased" and sustained, Rose says.

"People can't live on bags of flour alone," he adds, noting that tens of thousands of children are suffering from acute malnutrition.

"It's gone beyond anything that we've ever witnessed here in Gaza, and anything we've seen in decades as a humanitarian community."

As we mentioned in the previous post about how aid gets into northern Gaza, these images show packages waiting to be delivered from Egypt across Gaza's southern border.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

How aid moves into northern Gazapublished at 18:28 British Summer Time 16 October

18:28 BST 16 October

The Visual Journalism Team
BBC News

As we discuss international calls for increased aid to the Gaza Strip, here's a look at how and where humanitarian supplies enter the enclave's north.

Palestinians in northern Gaza rely on the Erez West crossing and Gate 96 for aid shipments. They also rely on the Kerem Shalom crossing, near Egypt.

Two other crossings - Erez in the north, and Rafah in the south - are closed.

According to the most recent update from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is responsible for humanitarian affairs, 96% of Gazans are facing crisis levels of food insecurity, with nearly 500,000 people facing catastrophic food insecurity.

Israel says it is not impeding aid shipments into Gaza, and has placed blame on Hamas for delays in getting vital supplies into the area.

Israeli UN envoy Danny Danon says his country "remains committed" to ensuring aid reaches Palestinians.

Still, Gaza faces a critical shortage: Prior to the conflict, 500 lorries per day entered Gaza with supplies. This month, an average of 30 lorries per day entered the area.

We heard earlier that six people had been killed in Israeli strikes on Nabatieh, a city in southern Lebanon.

Nabatieh's municipality building was hit in the attacks, where the mayor was attending a crisis cell meeting to deal with the humanitarian situation in the city, the local governor told us earlier.

Just now, Lebanon's health ministry has provided an updated figure. It says 16 people were killed and 52 were wounded following the air strike "on the buildings of the municipality of Nabatieh".

Earlier, the country's prime minister condemned the strike, saying Israel had "intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council". Israel's UN envoy says it was targeting Hezbollah.

Image source, Getty Images

Hezbollah says it is engaging in close-combat clashes with the IDF in southern Lebanon today.

According to the group, it has been engaging with the Israeli military with "various types of machine guns" in Qouzah. It says there were "multiple casualties among enemy troops".

The IDF has not yet commented on the clashes.

Separately, further east Hezbollah also says it fired rockets at Israeli troops in Lebanese border villages including Markaba, as well as into Misgav Am in northern Israel.

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi has told his Iranian counterpart they will not allow anyone to violate its airspace, as the region prepares for a possible retaliation from Israel following Iran's attack earlier this month.

"Jordan will not be a battlefield for anyone and will not allow any party to violate its sovereignty and airspace and threaten its citizens’ security," Safadi tells a meeting with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iran launched almost 200 ballistic missiles towards Israel on 1 October. Israel has vowed to retaliate.

Iran is warning its neighbours not to allow Israel to use its airspace. Jordan, which borders Israel, temporarily closed its airspace following Iran's attack.

More now from Lebanon's public health ministry, which says two people have died and nine others injured in an Israeli strike on the Baalbek-Riyaq highway in eastern Lebanon.

This road links the town of Riyaq to the city of Baalbek, both in the Bekaa Valley region.

Yesterday, another Israeli strike on Riyaq resulted in the deaths of five people, including three children, the Lebanese health ministry said.

There have been Israeli strikes close to the highway for months, according to the UK's Foreign Office., external

Image source, Getty Images

The Lebanese health ministry says 17 more people were killed on Tuesday, taking the total number of people killed in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,367 since it escalated last October.

The Lebanese health ministry adds 11,088 people have been injured.

The figure doesn't include any casualties in strikes today - for example the six killed including the mayor in Nabatieh.

Hezbollah began launching rocket attacks on northern Israel last October in support of Hamas, after the Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people. After months of Hezbollah attacks, on 1 October the Israeli military launched a wave of air strikes and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council is currently taking place to discuss the situation in Gaza.

The meeting was called by Britain, France and Algeria, and comes after Israel received a strongly-worded warning from the United States about the humanitarian situation.

The US ambassador to the UN - Linda Thomas-Greenfield - tells the Security Council the US is watching to make sure Israel's actions on the ground do not amount to a "policy of starvation".

"The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy. That food and other essential supplies would not be cut off. And we will be watching to see that Israel's actions on the ground match this statement."

Image source, Getty Images

More now from Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon, who responds to the strikes in Nabatieh in Lebanon today that killed six people, including the mayor of a town.

Danon says the IDF is only targeting Hezbollah. "We target Hezbollah bases. We know that Hezbollah many times takes advantage of civilian facilities", he says.

The Visual Journalism Team
BBC News

According to the US letter to the Israeli government, lorries of humanitarian aid paid for by the US are being held up by Israel at the border crossings with Gaza.

Washington has demanded that Israel boosts the amount of aid getting into Gaza within 30 days and has set a target of 350 lorries a day.

Let’s put that number in context. Before the war about 500 lorries a day crossed into the territory. Most were commercial vehicles supplying shops and other businesses - but those have almost completely stopped.

In March, the World Food Programme said that addressing simple food needs would require at least 300 lorries a day to enter Gaza and distribute food - a figure that has not been reached since the conflict started.

In the chart below you can see how, according to UN figures, the number of lorries entering Gaza fell at the start of the war, rising to a peak of about 190 a day in April before falling back again.

An average of just 30 a day have entered in the first days of October.

Israel disputes the UN figures but even its data shows just 39 lorries a day entered, external in the first 12 days of October, with the highest number of 226 a day entering in April.

Israel has previously insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid that can be delivered into and across Gaza and blames UN agencies for failing to distribute supplies. It also accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.