Joel Gunter
Reporting from Beirut

Image source, EPA

More than a quarter of Lebanon is now under Israeli evacuation orders, the UN refugee agency said today.

The agency's Middle East director Rema Jamous Imseis told a press briefing that new evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that more than 25% of the country was affected.

"People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they're fleeing with almost nothing,” she said.

More than 1.2 million people have been displaced from the south of Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley, and parts of Beirut, according to figures from the Lebanese government.

Major cities and villages in the south of the country have emptied out, displacing people to cities further north.

Many have ended up in unsafe and unsanitary conditions in shelters in and around the capital, where schools and shops have been closed to house people.

The sheer volume of displaced people has overwhelmed welfare services, leaving thousands of displaced people on the streets.

Beirut had prepared for just 10% of the eventual wave of people, the mayor Abdallah Darwich told the BBC last week.

“We did not imagine it could be this huge,” he said. “Every day our calculations have become larger and larger.”

Dominic Casciani
Home and Legal Correspondent

Image source, PA Media

The UK’s Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer KC has told the BBC that he would not allow political considerations to influence his conclusions on whether British police should arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, if the International Criminal Court demands he is taken into custody for alleged war crimes.

The ICC’s judges are under pressure from Karim Khan KC, the court’s chief prosecutor, to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s PM and defence minister Yoav Gallant. Khan is also seeking similar warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif.

Lord Hermer is the cabinet minister who advises the government on what the law requires it to do.

Speaking to me last night, he underlined that he was determined that he would focus on the letter of the law, irrespective of an inevitable diplomatic storm.

“My advice [on an arrest warrant for Netanyahu] would be legal advice, based on analysis of the law,” he said.

“It's not for the Attorney to dictate what a government chooses to do. The role of the Attorney is to provide fearless legal advice as to what the law requires, what the contents of the law is, and where the law takes you. And that's what I'm going to do.”

The court’s member countries, including the UK, have signed a treaty that obliges them to act on arrest warrants. So if warrants were issued, and the Attorney General told the PM they were lawful, the UK would have to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they set foot on British soil.

Less than a month after winning the general election, the new Labour government scrapped its predecessor’s plan to challenge the right of the ICC to issue an arrest warrant at all - saying it was a matter for the judges to decide.

Image source, Reuters

The UK Foreign Office says it condemns "settler violence and inciteful remarks" such as those made by the Israeli national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. However, they declined to comment if sanctions are being considered.

It follows former Foreign Secretary David Cameron this morning saying he had been “working up" plans to put sanctions on Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, describing them "extremist". Cameron said he was forced to shelve the plans because of the elections.

Asked today about sanctioning the two ministers, Foreign Office minister Anneliese Dodds told MPs that “the UK will always keep our sanctions regime closely under review and will announce any changes to the House”.

Image source, Reuters

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has reiterated claims that Hezbollah is using ambulances to move fighters and weapons in southern Lebanon, in a warning to medical teams in the area.

An Israeli military spokesman says the army will continue to target any vehicle believed to be transporting Hezbollah members "regardless of its type".

"We call on medical teams to avoid dealing with Hezbollah members and not to co-operate with them," IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee says in a post on X.

Since escalating its offensive against Hezbollah last month, the Israeli military has been hitting search-and-rescue teams, medical centres and hospitals across Lebanon, resulting in the deaths and injuries of dozens of medics and emergency workers.

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

We brought you news this morning that former Foreign Secretary David Cameron was working up a plan to sanction two Israeli ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, until the UK election intervened.

Whitehall sources say that Cameron’s plans to impose a travel ban and asset freeze were well advanced and ready to go.

But the sources say the decision was put on hold for fear of inflaming political tensions during the general election campaign.

There were concerns about triggering violence in constituencies where views about the Middle East were polarised.

I also understand that the United States opposed sanctioning Smotrich and Ben-Gvir at the time, and the UK tends to impose sanctions alongside US and European partners to maximise their impact.

Cameron today called on the new Labour government to pursue sanctions against the men, pointing to remarks they made encouraging people to stop aid convoys entering Gaza and encouraging violence by settlers in the West Bank.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Cameron's successor, told a fringe event at his party conference last month that he found the language used by both men “entirely unacceptable”.

And while in opposition, Lammy was repeatedly critical of both Israeli ministers.

The Foreign Office never comments on future sanctions decisions.

But some sources say any decision on sanctioning these two Israeli ministers might be delayed until after the US election.

And with such little UK leverage over Israel, domestic political factors may now play a bigger role in Lammy's decision.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Nearly 93,000 children under the age of 10 received a polio vaccine in Gaza yesterday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a series of localised pauses in the fighting to allow health workers to administer vaccines after Gaza's first confirmed case of polio in 25 years left a 10-month-old partially paralysed in August.

The second round of the major polio campaign started yesterday but a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza, meant to be used to administer the vaccines, was hit by an Israeli air strike, killing 22 people.

UNRWA says in a post on X, external: "We cannot vaccinate children under a sky full of bombs. All parties to the conflict must respect the agreed-upon humanitarian pauses to allow the roll-out of this campaign."

A policeman has been killed and four people wounded in a shooting in Israel, Israeli police says.

The identity or motive of the gunman is not yet clear.

The Israeli ambulance service, Magen David Adom (MDA) says the shooting happened on Route 4, a main road in Israel.

Israeli police say a gunman opened fire on cars before being shot dead by a passerby.

"A short time ago a terrorist just came over to the main road here next to Tel Aviv, next to Yavne, and started shooting towards a police car, then went on and shot other ongoing cars and wounded our people," police spokesperson Mirit Ben Mayor says.

"Luckily enough he was neutralised and killed by a citizen who was here on the way."

A British doctor has been telling the BBC about her experience working in hospitals in Gaza with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

“It’s horrific,” says Dr Ana Jeelani. “I don’t think any pictures can do it justice.”

She says that Israeli authorities had limited the amount of medical supplies her team could take into Gaza.

Dr Jeelani describes one particular hospital in Gaza, with “no gowns” available, meaning “sterile gloves” were the only sanitary protection.

Despite the World Health Organization announcing a second round of polio vaccinations in Gaza, the medic says it's still tough to administer them.

“It baffles me how we’re talking about a polio vaccination campaign,” she says, "when actually what the children of Gaza need... is a ceasefire".

The UN human rights office says it's received reports that most of those killed in yesterday's Israeli strike on the predominantly Christian village of Aitou in northern Lebanon were women and children.

UN spokesman Jeremy Laurence says 12 women and two children were among at least 21 people killed.

He says a four-storey residential building was struck, which he says has raised "real concerns" in respect to international humanitarian law.

He also calls for an investigation into what happened.

Image source, Reuters

Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has accused Israel of choosing to expand what he describes as its "aggression" to "implement pre-prepared plans" in the West Bank and Lebanon.

Speaking at the opening of the Shura Council, the country's legislative body, Al Thani says Israel's reason for doing so is "because it sees that the scope for that is available".

He says the "easiest and safest way" to stop conflict escalating on Lebanon's border would have been to "stop the war of extermination on Gaza".

Qatar, alongside Egypt and the US, has been a key mediator in attempts to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas and Israel in Gaza.

Four people have been killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA).

NNA says that the four people killed in the village of Jarjouh were a family.

The strike is one of several that Israel has launched in southern Lebanon today, NNA reports, adding that areas including Hanine, Khiam and Taybeh have also been targeted.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah says it continues to fire rockets into Israel, and that ground clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces are ongoing.

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, Getty Images

UN humanitarian workers say they are hoping that 30 more lorries of food aid will enter northern Gaza today.

Distribution points are still working in some areas, they say, although Jabalia remains impossible to reach because of the ongoing Israeli military offensive, which it says is to target Hamas operatives who are regrouping.

Yesterday evening, the Israeli body which manages crossings into Gaza, COGAT, said that it had allowed in 30 lorries carrying flour and food from the World Food Programme.

That broke a two-week stretch during which the UN says that aid levels completely dropped off.

“The situation is desperate. We have no shelter supplies, very little food and zero assurances from Israel on getting anything into Jabalia where more than 100,000 people are trapped,” says Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, in Gaza.

About 400,000 Palestinians remain in northern Gaza, according to the UN.

Tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes in the Jabalia area, while others remain stranded amid increasing bombardment and fighting.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says 55 people have been killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours, and 329 others have been injured.

In the ministry's latest update, it says at least 42,344 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli military action in Gaza since the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, with 99,013 wounded.

We can bring you some pictures now from the site of an Israeli air strike in northern Lebanon.

Yesterday, at least 21 people were killed and eight others injured in the predominantly Christian village of Aitou.

Clean-up begins in the area today.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Huge crowds have gathered in Tehran, Iran's capital, for the final funeral ceremony of the Abbas Nilforoushan, the operations commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC).

Nilforoushan is believed to have been killed alongside former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli strikes in Lebanon on 27 September.

Yesterday, two separate funeral ceremonies took place in Iraq before the body was returned to his home country.

The IRGC's commander, Esmail Qaani, attended the service, as shown on Iranian state TV, putting an end to speculation about his whereabouts.

On Friday, the IRGC announced they had recovered Nilforoushan's body. He will be buried in his hometown of Isfahan, Iran, according to news agency AFP.

Joel Gunter
Reporting from Beirut

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Monday that Israel would continue strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon “without mercy”, including targeting of the capital Beirut.

His warning came a day after the Iran-backed group killed four Israeli soldiers and wounded dozens in a drone attack on a military base in northern Israel.

Any fresh strikes on Beirut would break a four-day pause in what had become daily Israeli attacks on the capital.

Unconfirmed reports said Netanyahu had suspended attacks on Beirut at the urging of the US government, following strikes in the centre of the city on Thursday night that killed 22 civilians, according to the Lebanese government.

Lebanon’s National News Agency on Tuesday reported dozens of Israeli strikes overnight in the Beqaa Valley area in the centre of the country.

Warning: The footage contains some distressing scenes

After 7 October last year, two Palestinians began filming their daily lives for the BBC. Aya fled to the south of the territory to find safety, Khalid chose to stay in the north.

Between them, they document explosions, multiple evacuations, deaths and the trauma experienced by children caught up in the conflict.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it is looking into a strike in northern Lebanon yesterday that killed at least 21 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The strike hit a residential building in Aitou, a predominantly Christian village far from the areas where the Israeli military has carried out thousands of strikes targeting the armed Shia Islamist group Hezbollah.

In response to the incident, the IDF says that the target belonged to Hezbollah.

"The claim that Lebanese civilians were killed as a result of the strike is under review. The incident is being examined," IDF adds.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has hit more than 230 targets in southern Lebanon and Gaza in the past day.

In a statement, the group says it "eliminated dozens of terrorists" in both close-quarters combat and air strikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

The IDF "located vast quantities of weaponry and equipment, including rifles, helmets, communications devices, ammunition, and more", the statement says.

It also says it continued an operation in Jabalia, a northern Gaza refugee camp. In recent days, at least 10 people were reportedly killed there by Israeli artillery fire.

Former Foreign Secretary David Cameron has told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was working up a plan to sanction two Israeli ministers until the UK election this summer intervened.

Cameron, who served in the last Conservative government, believes that Labour should pursue action against Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir - the minister for national security.

"I think there are other things we can do to put pressure on [Israel's PM] Netanyahu, and say, 'of course we respect your right to self-defence but we do want you to act within the law'," he says.

"Saying to Netanyahu, 'yes we support your right to self-defence, no we're not going to end our sale of arms, but actually when there are ministers in your government who are extremists and act in this way, we're prepared to use the sanctions regime to say this simply isn't good enough and has to stop'."

He says he's "concerned that nothing has happened" since he was foreign secretary and the government "needs to look again at this sanctions issue".

"We all want to see this conflict end, but it's got to end in a way that's sustainable," he adds, saying it's right to back Israel's right to self defence, but it's not "a blank cheque".

It's important that aid gets into Gaza and that UN peacekeepers in Lebanon are respected, he says.

You can listen to the full interview with Lord Cameron on Today at 08:10 BST.