Hezbollah defiant, but significantly weakenedpublished at 09:46 British Summer Time 9 October

09:46 BST 9 October

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Beirut

Naim Qassem, the deputy head of Hezbollah, is now one of the few senior members of the group still alive.

Yesterday, he reappeared in a televised speech, delivered from an undisclosed location, to mark one year since Hezbollah started firing rockets at Israel.

The group has always said it is acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid Israel’s war against Hamas, and that its attacks would only stop with a ceasefire there.

Now, Hezbollah is fighting its own war against Israel at home.

There were, unsurprisingly, defiant words in his speech but perhaps the most significant part was what he did not say. Qassem said he supported efforts of the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, a Hezbollah ally, to secure a ceasefire.

He did not, however, mention a pause in hostilities in Gaza as a pre-condition.

It is still not clear whether this marks a change in Hezbollah’s position. But the group has been significantly weakened, with its infrastructure battered and most of its leadership eliminated.

More than 2,000 people have been killed across Lebanon in the past year, and 1.2 million forced to flee their homes more recently. A country already exhausted by years of crises is now under even more pressure.

But that does not mean a ceasefire could be imminent. From an Israeli perspective, there is no incentive for one.

This campaign has been extremely successful in degrading the group - Hezbollah seems unable to organise any significant response, and it is very likely that Israeli military officials are saying it is time to continue and expand this offensive, not to stop.

Joel Gunter
Reporting from Beirut

In the Saint Therese hospital, on the edge of the Dahieh area in southern Beirut, a core team of nurses continues working while the bombs fall around them.

"These are very stressful days, we are not doing good at all," the hospital’s nursing director, Rita Sulieman, tells me.

"We have not had a direct hit yet but we hear the missiles hitting near us all the time. They are very heavy and very close."

Early on Monday, there was a large Israeli air strike directly next to the Saint Therese, smashing windows and buckling ceilings in parts of the hospital, Sulieman says.

Normally a bustling centre offering a variety of inpatient care, the Saint Therese has been reduced to just its emergency ward since Israel began bombing the Lebanese capital two weeks ago.

The Dahieh area, where Hezbollah is the dominant force, has been heavily targeted. Israel has killed Hezbollah leaders there from the air and says it is destroying munitions dumps hidden under buildings.

Most of the neighbourhood’s 500,000 residents have now fled, but a small team of doctors and nurses continues to work at the Saint Therese.

"This is our role," Sulieman says. "Our fate is to work not only through peace but through war."

Image source, EPA

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have just issued a new warning to people in southern Lebanon, telling them to "be careful" as troops are attacking targets in the region.

"For your own safety you are prohibited from returning to your homes until further notice," IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee says on X. "Anyone who heads south is putting his life in danger".

Israel has already issued evacuation orders to more than 100 villages and neighbourhoods across southern Lebanon - with one quarter of Lebanese territory now under Israeli military "displacement" orders, according to the UN., external

Our map below shows some of the evacuation orders as of Monday - although more have been issued in the past 24 hours:

The Israeli army says it intercepted two rockets fired from Lebanon this morning towards the Carmel and Menashe areas, south of the port city of Haifa.

Air raid sirens also sounded in the town of Caesarea, located on the coast between Haifa and Tel Aviv.

On Tuesday, Israel said it detected 180 rockets fired from Lebanon.

Some 100 were targeted at the Haifa area - most were intercepted, but some hit the suburbs of Kiryat Yam and Kiryat Motzkin.

Image source, Reuters

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, EPA

It’s expected that US President Joe Biden will speak to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later, as Washington appears to be trying to limit Israel's response to Iran’s missile attack last week.

The Middle East has been on edge since the attack, in which Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel.

While the US has defended the right of its close ally to retaliate, it’s also sent the message that Israel shouldn’t hit Iran’s nuclear or oil production sites.

It’s understood that President Biden and Netanyahu haven’t spoken directly for several weeks - with suggestions that the two leaders’ relationship has become increasingly testy and mistrustful.

Differences have emerged over Israel’s conduct of its year-long war against Hamas in Gaza. There appear to be growing concerns in Washington that fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon may also turn out to be wider in scale and more prolonged than expected.

Carine Torbey
BBC Arabic correspondent, in Beirut

For many Lebanese people listening to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech last night, the threat is clear, and the options are both extremely grim:

Either face the fate of Gaza; or be drawn into civil war.

The idea of the Lebanese rising up against Hezbollah is recurrent in speeches from Israel. It plays on the deep divisions in the country between pro and anti-Hezbollah groups.

But even for the harshest opponents of Hezbollah internally, such calls seem ominous. What does rising against Hezbollah really mean?

There are many groups who publicly and ferociously oppose Hezbollah. This is part of the ongoing political debate in the country.

But for people opposed to Hezbollah to take any action against the group can only mean bloody confrontations between the people of the same country.

This translates into yet another civil war for a country that is still reeling from one that lasted for 15 years between 1975 and 1990.

For many in Lebanon today, hearing Netanyahu’s speech, the choices today are between the worst and the worst.

That is, if they have any choice to start with.

Hezbollah says it ambushed Israeli troops with an IED (improvised explosive device) overnight, as Israeli soldiers tried to move towards the town of Blida, close to the Israel-Lebanon border in the east.

Separately, Hezbollah says it pushed back an Israeli platoon trying to enter the Labouneh area, close to the coast in western Lebanon.

Israel has not commented on the specific incidents. Earlier, it said a soldier had been "severely injured" in combat in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, and that two others were "severely injured" on Tuesday.

As a reminder, Israel said yesterday that troops were entering western Lebanon. The invasion, which began last Monday, had previously been concentrated in the east.

Lebanese media reported several air strikes overnight on Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut controlled by Hezbollah.

People in the city said the bombing seemed less intense than recent nights, with fewer than a dozen strikes reported.

Al-Arabiya TV reported that Israel attacked the Lebanese capital from the sea, launching three missiles from warships, although this has not been confirmed by the IDF.

Image source, Reuters

Good morning from London, as we resume our live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Last night, several air strikes were reported in Hezbollah's stronghold of Daheia in southern Beirut - although residents said the night seemed "relatively" calm, compared to previous nights.

Further south, Hezbollah says it ambushed two Israeli platoons close to the border as they tried to push forward.

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Lebanese people to rise up against Hezbollah and "save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza".

This page will have all the latest news and analysis from our teams in Beirut, Jerusalem, and across the region - so stay with us.

Image source, Reuters