Middle East crisis live: Israel says it has killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in major escalation of conflict | Israel

• The Israeli military said this morning that it had killed Haasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, in an airstrike on the group’s central headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday.

• The military said the strikes killed Ali Karake, who the statement identified as commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, and an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders.

• Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite militant group, has not yet released a statement in response to the Israel Defense Force’s claim.

• The Israeli military said it was on “high alert” and prepared for a wider escalation.

• On Saturday morning, the Israeli military carried out several strikes in southern Beirut and eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles across northern and central Israel and the occupied West Bank.

• Israel has in recent days shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people and displaced about 118,000 people.

• The Israeli military said this morning it was activating three battalions of reserve soldiers, after sending two brigades to northern Israel earlier in the week to train for a possible ground invasion.

The Israeli military has said it is mobilising additional reserve soldiers. The military said this morning it was activating three battalions of reserve soldiers, after sending two brigades to northern Israel earlier in the week to train for a possible ground invasion.

Israel’s chief of staff, Maj Gen Herzi Halevi, told troops during a visit to Israel’s north on Wednesday: “We are preparing the process of a manoeuvre, which means your military boots, your manoeuvring boots, will enter enemy territory, enter villages that Hezbollah has prepared as large military outposts, with underground infrastructure, staging points and launchpads into our territory [from which to] carry out attacks on Israeli civilians.”

Syrians sat in a line on the sidewalk in downtown Beirut, waiting for taxis to take them back to Damascus. Most had fled their homes the night prior after Israel intensely bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut.

“Lebanon has become worse than Syria, only god knows what will happen next,” Mohammed, a 59-year old Syrian who has lived in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut since 2014, said, holding only a backpack.

Mohammed had left his home after Israel’s initial wave of airstrikes on Dahiyeh last night, and sent his wife and children ahead to Syria while he returned to the home to gather their belongings. He was once again forced to flee as Israel resumed their bombing a few hours later.

Taxis had tripled the fare of a trip to Damascus due to increased demand, charging $150 USD for what usually costs $50. Hezbollah sent out a flyer “for those who want to flee to Syria” listing telephone numbers people could call in each part of the Bekaa valley so that they could arrange transportation to Syria. In 2006, thousands of Lebanese sought shelter in Syria as Israeli planes bombarded the country.

William Christou has been reporting for the Guardian from Beirut

Following Israel’s announcement that it killed Hassan Nasrallah, the streets of Beirut emptied.

Storefronts in Gemayzeh – an upscale neighbourhood in East Beirut – were mostly closed, with one popular brunch restaurant putting up a sign that it was closed “due to the difficult situation”.

Families gathered at home, bracing for what could come next, whether that be more Israeli airstrikes on the capital city or a retaliation from Hezbollah for its leader’s reported death.

Following Israel’s announcement, Hezbollah announced a wide ranging attack on northern Israel, launching a rocket salvo at the cities of Safad, Sa’ar, and Rosh Pinaa, and shelling a group of Israeli soldiers in Sadah with artillery.

The group had still not made any mention of Nasrallah’s condition, instead saying its latest operations were in response to Israel’s attack on “villages, cities and civilians” in Lebanon.

Israel is on high alert for a broader conflict after the military killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, a military spokesperson has told reporters.

“We hope this will change Hezbollah’s actions,” Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said in a media briefing in which he stressed there was still much more of Hezbollah’s capabilities to be degraded.

“We’ve seen Hezbollah carry out attacks against us for a year. It’s safe to assume that they are going to continue carrying out their attacks against us or try to,” he added.

Reuters has been told by two regional officials that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been transferred to a secure location inside the country with heightened security measures in place.

They told the news agency that Iran was in constant contact with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, to determine the next step after Israel announced it had killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on south Beirut on Friday (see earlier post at 09.04 for details).

Iran has been Hezbollah’s ally since the Lebanese armed group’s establishment in 1982. Khamenei, a former president of Iran, is the country’s head of state, responsible for the Revolutionary Guards Corps, and is viewed as the source of religious emulation under Iran’s system of Shia clerical governance.

The Israeli military claims that Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed alongside Hezbollah commanders in Friday’s airstrikes on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, which, before last week was a place rarely targeted directly by Israel.

The military said the strikes killed Ali Karake, who the statement identified as commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, and an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders.

The IDF said fighter jets conducted a “targeted strike” on the central headquarters of Hezbollah located “underground embedded under a residential building in the area of Dahiyeh in Beirut”.

It said the strike was launched while the Lebanese militant group’s “senior chain of command” was operating from the Dahiyeh suburb of southern Beirut. These claims have not yet been independently verified.

In a statement, the Israeli military said of Nasrallah:

During Hassan Nasrallah’s 32-year reign as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, he was responsible for the murder of many Israeli civilians and soldiers, and the planning and execution of thousands of terrorist activities.

He was responsible for directing and executing terrorist attacks around the world in which civilians of various nationalities were murdered. Nasrallah was the central decision-maker and the strategic leader of the organisation.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief, Herzl Halevi, has given comments following the confirmation of Hassan Nasrallah’s death.

“Whoever threatens the state of Israel, we’ll know how to get to him: in the north, in the south and in more distant places,” he said in quotes carried by Hareetz, the Israeli daily.

“This is not the last of the toolbox, there are more tools to go,” he said, adding that the IDF is prepared on all fronts.

Halevi said that the attack on Beirut that killed Nasrallah was planned for a long time and “came at the right time in a very sharp way”.

The Israeli army has officially announced the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah, who had been the leader of the Iran-backed militant group for 32 years, was reported to have been the target of Friday’s strikes on Beirut. Nasrallah had reportedly not been seen in public for years because of fears of being assassinated by Israel.

In a post on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said he “will no longer be able to terrorize the world”. Hezbollah are yet to issue a response to the military’s announcement.

Killing Nasrallah has marked a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. For much of the early conflict with Hezbollah (which began on 8 October – a day after Hamas’ attacks on southern Israel) it was understood Israel would not assassinate the group’s most senior leaders. However, this understanding has not been honoured over recent months, with Israel killing several senior members of Hezbollah.

Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah has helped train fighters from Hamas and militias in Iraq and Yemen, and reportedly obtained missiles and rockets from Iran for use against Israel. You can read more about his policy goals and ideological origins in this profile.

Thousands of residents in Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs slept in parks, on streets or in cars overnight as they flee southern Lebanon to try to avoid Israeli attacks.

Many people fleeing Israeli bombardment ended up camping out in Martyrs’ square, Beirut’s main public space. Hawra al-Husseini, 21, was among those who did. She described a “very difficult night” after fleeing Dahiyeh to sleep in the square with her family.

“Missiles rained down over our home. I will never forget the children’s screams,” she told AFP.

“We’re going back home (in the southern suburbs), but we’re scared. It’s impossible to live in this country any more.”

Hala Ezzedine, 55 also slept in the square. She had fled the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood in Dahiyeh where strikes took place.

“What did the (Lebanese) people do to deserve this?” she asked, adding that her home had been destroyed by Israeli strikes during the 2006 war.

“They want to wage war but what wrong did we do? We don’t have to go through what happened in Gaza.”

South Beirut resident Rihab Naseef, 56, who spent the night in a church yard, spoke to Agence France-Presse (AFP) about his fears of the conflict escalating.

Naseef said:

I expected the war to expand, but I thought it would be limited to (military) targets, not civilians, homes, and children.

I didn’t even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets.

I’m anxious and afraid of what may happen. I left my home without knowing where I’m going, what will happen to me, and whether I will return.

As we have been reporting, Israel launched a series of attacks in the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight. Israel issued fresh warnings for people to leave part of the densely populated Dahiyeh suburbs before dawn on Saturday, forcing many families to spend the night on the streets. Israel’s military have now said jet fighters have attacked “dozens” of Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, with airstrikes continuing in the south. The strikes targeted buildings where weapons were stored and sites where rockets were launched into Israel, the military claimed.

In a statement issued this morning, the Israeli military said:

Over the past two hours, the IAF (air force) conducted extensive strikes on dozens of terror targets belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in the area of Beqaa (east) and in different areas of southern Lebanon.