The Times of Israel is liveblogging Monday’s events as they happen.
PFLP says three of its leaders killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) says in a statement that three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli strike that targeted Beirut’s Kola district after midnight on Monday.
There had been earlier reports claiming that the strike targeted the leadership of another terror organization al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), which has issued a denial.
IDF says it hit dozens of Hezbollah sites in Bekaa Valley in overnight strikes
The IDF says its fighter jets have finished striking dozens of Hezbollah sites in the Bekaa Valley region of Lebanon over the past two hours.
Among the sites attacked were rocket launchers and buildings where Hezbollah was storing weapons, the army says.
The IDF also struck other sites in southern Lebanon being used by Hezbollah for terror operations against Israel, it adds.
Senior Democrats call for sanctioning settlement development group Amana
Three senior Democratic senators are urging the Biden administration to sanction Amana, the development arm of the settler movement.
Amana is behind the establishment of settlements along with illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are often built on private Palestinian land.
Senior US officials have told The Times of Israel that Amana has already been considered a candidate for previous rounds of sanctions announced following an executive order signed by US President Joe Biden in February that targets extremist individuals and entities destabilizing the West Bank through violent attacks and land grabs.
Sanctioning Amana would likely have major implications on the settler movement whose leaders have been scrambling to try and prevent such a move, the US officials said.
In a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Ben Cardin, Senate Armed Services Committee Jack Reed and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chair Mark Warner argue that the step against Amana should be taken.
“We urge you to “follow the money” and consider sanctions against other perpetrators and their supporters like the Amana organization,” the senators write.
“Amana has a long and well-documented history of supporting extremist settlers who expropriate Palestinian land and threaten Palestinian landholders, farmers, and shepherds. Amana has played a central role in forming and sustaining hill-top outposts illegal under Israeli law, often by granting loans to bankroll their start.
IDF says it intercepted suspicious aerial target that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon
IDF air defense fighters successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon a short while ago, the army says.
Rocket sirens were activated in the area of the northern border town Ramot Naftali due to falling fragments from the missile interceptor, the IDF adds.
Saudi Arabia calls for Lebanon’s sovereignty to be respected
Saudi Arabia expresses its “great concern” at the conflict in Lebanon, calling for the country’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” to be respected.
A foreign ministry statement says, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is following with great concern the developments taking place in the Republic of Lebanon.”
“The Kingdom calls on the international community to assume its responsibilities towards protecting regional peace and security to spare the region and its people the dangers and tragedies of wars,” it adds.
Israel has carried out several days of deadly strikes on targets in Lebanon, killing the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group Hassan Nasrallah on Friday and other senior figures in the movement.
IDF says it hit Hamas terrorists operating from building previously used as school in north Gaza
Israeli fighter planes targeted Hamas terrorists operating a command center from a building that was previously used as a school in northern Gaza, the IDF says.
The army says it took many steps ahead of time to reduce harm to civilians in the strike, including choosing more precise weapons and conducting aerial observations of the site ahead of time.
“The Hamas terror group systematically violates international law, brutally exploiting civilian institutions and the population as a human shield for terror operations,” the IDF says in a statement.
Israeli drone strike in Beirut said to kill two members of Sunni terror group
Two people were killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut shortly after midnight on Monday, a Lebanese security source says, the first strike in a part of the city that wasn’t in the Dahiyeh Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs.
An Israeli drone targeted an apartment belonging to two members of the Lebanese terror group al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), says the source.
Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya, like Hamas, is a Sunni faction that forms part of the broader Muslim Brotherhood political network. The armed wing of the group, the al-Fajr Forces, has repeatedly targeted Israel from Lebanon in the current war, often working in conjunction with the Shi’ite Hezbollah.
The IDF has yet to comment on the strike, but does tweet that the army is targeting Hezbollah sites in the Bekaa Valley region of Lebanon.
Blast heard, smoke seen in southwest Beirut
An Israeli strike early Monday hit an upper floor of an apartment building in the Kola district of Beirut, Reuters witnesses say, in what would be the first Israeli strike within Beirut’s city limits since the escalating hostilities with Hezbollah began earlier this month.
Reuters witnesses heard a bang and saw smoke rise from a hole in the upper floor, which seemed to have been specifically targeted.
לילות ביירות pic.twitter.com/CuRndOKjbu
— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) September 29, 2024
Jordanian FM: Arab world willing to guarantee Israel’s security if Palestinian state established
In a recent press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi insisted that Arab and Muslim countries will guarantee Israel’s security if Jerusalem agrees to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, while blasting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to do so.
“The Israeli prime minister came here today and said that Israel is surrounded by those who want to destroy it,” Safadi said at a Friday press conference shortly after Netanyahu finished his speech at the UN General Assembly.
“We’re here — members of the Muslim-Arab committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries — and I can tell you very unequivocally, all of us are willing to guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state,” Safadi passionately argued.
Netanyahu “is creating that danger because he simply does not want the two-state solution. If he does not want the two-state solution, can you ask Israeli officials what is their end-game — other than just wars and wars and wars?”
“All of us in the Arab world here, want a peace in which Israel lives in peace and security, accepted, normalized with all Arab countries in the context of ending the occupation, withdrawing from Arab territory, allowing for the emergence of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 lies with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Safadi continues.
“The amount of damage that this Israeli government has done — 30 years of efforts to convince people that peace is possible, this Israeli government killed it. The amount of dehumanization, hatred, bitterness, will take generations to navigate through,” the Jordanian foreign minister says. “We have no partner for peace in Israel, there is a partner for peace in the Arab world, and that’s why the international community needs to move.”