Israel carries out 2 drone strikes in southern Lebanon; Yemen prime minister resigns | Live

We are closing our LIVE coverage of events in the region for today. We will be back tomorrow with more news updates.

Gaza

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas released a video this afternoon showing what appears to be a wounded Israeli hostage being held in the Gaza Strip, reports AFP.

In the four-minute-long footage, whose authenticity AFP could not immediately confirm, a man appears lying down, his skull and left arm covered in bandages with brown spots. Speaking Hebrew, the man introduces himself as “prisoner number 24” and implies that he was wounded in an Israeli bombardment. He also refers to the fact that Israel will soon be celebrating the anniversary of its independence, suggesting that the video was shot shortly before May 1.

Syria-Israel

The Israeli army has confirmed, via a message posted on X by its Arabic-speaking spokesperson Avichay Adraee, that it attacked last night, “using 12 fighter jets, dozens of infrastructure and combat assets across Syria, including anti-aircraft guns and a surface-to-air missile launch pad.”

South Lebanon

According to local residents contacted by our correspondent, the strike in Khartoum, in the Saida district, injured two people. Ambulances are on their way to the site of the second strike, which targeted the district of Marjayoun.

Lebanon-Syria

Hezbollah has condemned Israeli strikes in Syria, accusing Israel of hiding behind pretexts to destroy the country.

South Lebanon

Israeli aircraft launched two missiles between the towns of Markaba and Talloussa, in the Marjayoun district, according to our correspondent.

South Lebanon

Israeli drones flew at medium altitude over the towns of Mayfadoun, Choukine and Kfar Roummane in the Nabatieh district, according to our correspondent.

Syria

Since last night, there have been conflicting reports claiming that Israeli helicopters landed in Sweida in southern Syria to hand out food to the Druze population.

Citing the Israeli army radio station, Al Jazeera reported that an Israeli military helicopter landed last night in Sweida in southern Syria for the first time and transported equipment and humanitarian aid to the Druze in Sweida and Druze Mountain, about 70 kilometers from Israel.

However, according to Syria TV, sources in Sweida denied these reports. Sky News Arabia reported, citing Syria TV, that no helicopter flights were observed in Sweida's airspace, and no helicopter landing was recorded in the area.

South Lebanon

Israeli drones attacked a car parked on the side of the road in the locality of Khartoum, near the town of Ansar (in the Zahrani area, Saida), without causing any injuries.

South Lebanon

Israeli drones fly intensively at medium and low altitudes over villages south of Saida, according to our correspondent, Mountasser Abdallah.

Syria

⚡ Officials of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) said Syrian authorities had arrested the leader of this group close to the government of ousted President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, AFP reported.

A Damascus-based official of the movement, who requested anonymity, told AFP that “General Secretary Talal Naji has been arrested” in the capital. A second official confirmed the arrest, while a third source within the faction said that Naji “had been summoned by a security service and did not return. He has most probably been arrested.”

Lebanon-Syria

Free Patriotic Movement head Gebran Bassil expressed concern on Saturday about the fate of Christians in Syria, after several days of sectarian violence between the Druze community and the security forces of the new regime in Damascus.

➡️ Read more here

Lebanon

The Vice-Chairman of Hezbollah's Political Council, Mahmoud Qamati, has affirmed that the party will under no circumstances give up its weapons, whatever the pressure, according to the state-run National News Agency.

“We will not give up our weapons, no matter how great the pressure or exaggerations, because these weapons are a strength for Lebanon and Palestine. We will not surrender our homeland to the plots that continue,” said Qamati at a festival held in Taybeh, in the Baalbeck district.

“The logic that drives us to keep our weapons is a sincere national logic, which has nothing to do with the Iranian-American negotiations, the Five Country Talks, or any other national process. It's a purely national logic, which takes into account the threats and asks who is protecting Lebanon in the face of these dangers,” he added.

Yemen

⚡ Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, Prime Minister of Yemen's internationally recognized government, announced on Saturday that he had tendered his resignation, Reuters reports.

In a statement, he said he had encountered “numerous difficulties,” including the impossibility of reshuffling his government.

Syria-Israel

⚡ According to the Al-Mayadeen channel, the Israeli army is bombing central Syria.

SANA news agency's correspondent in Hama reported four wounded, as Israeli occupation fighter jets targeted the vicinity of the village of Shatha, in the northwestern Hama countryside.

Syria-Lebanon-Israel

Sheikh Akl Sami Abi al-Mouna, head of the Druze community in Lebanon, has been in contact with Druze sheikhs in Syria as part of efforts to contain the situation, put an end to attacks on members of the community in Syria and stop clashes between fellow citizens, reports the state-run National News Agency.

The Sheikh also informed his Syrian counterparts of “the efforts being made, in particular with the influential Arab and Islamic countries in Syria, the latest of which was the meeting held on Friday in Deir al-Taifa with the ambassadors of the Arab countries and Turkey in Lebanon, to urge these nations to assume their responsibilities towards our peoples in the affected areas, support them in the face of this great trial and this fateful stage and guarantee their safety while protecting them from the dangers, massacres and terrorist acts to be feared.”

Gaza

The Foreign Press Association, which groups some 130 international media organizations, used World Press Freedom Day to call on Israel to allow journalists access to Gaza, Haaretz reports.

“Eighteen months after the start of Israel's war against Hamas, Israel continues to impose an unprecedented ban preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza,” the statement said. In July, the organization took the matter to the High Court of Justice.

Syria-Israel: The UN calls on Israel to 'immediately' cease its attacks on Syria

The U.N. special envoy for Syria has called on Israel to “immediately” cease its attacks on the country, following further strikes by the Israeli army on Friday night.

“I strongly condemn Israel's continued and increasing violations of Syria's sovereignty, including multiple airstrikes in Damascus and other cities,” said Geir Pedersen in a statement quoted by AFP, demanding "that these attacks cease immediately and that Israel cease endangering Syrian civilians and respect international law as well as Syria's sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and independence."

Gaza

An Egyptian official involved in negotiations over a cease-fire agreement for hostages in Gaza told the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, close to Hezbollah, that talks had reached an impasse.

“There is nothing new to negotiate, and no new concessions that Hamas can be forced to accept,” he said.

This information was picked up by The Times of Israel. The official, who requested anonymity, believes that the real obstacle lies in “the lack of American-Israeli will to end the war.” He also warned against the Trump administration's gamble that Israel could extract more concessions from Hamas, presumably by military force, calling it a “mistake.”

Syria-Israel-Lebanon

Lebanese Druze leader and former head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), Walid Joumblatt, has condemned repeated Israeli attacks on Syria, including those targeting the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, and other areas on Friday evening.

In a statement relayed by the state-run National News Agency, Walid Joumblatt called on Arab nations and the international community to “support Syria” and “put pressure on the Israeli enemy to put an end to its interference, its persistent violations by air and land and its occupation of parts of Syrian territory.”

⚡ Israeli army says 'deployed in southern Syria' in support of Druze.

The Israeli army has announced that it is deployed in southern Syria, where it says it is ready to intervene to protect Druze villages, following sectarian violence earlier this week.

The Israeli army “is deployed in southern Syria and is ready to prevent the entry of hostile forces into the area of Druze villages,” said a military statement, quoted by AFP, without further details on the number of Israeli troops in Syria, or the extent of this deployment.

Israel-Syria

The Israeli army said that on Friday evening, five wounded Druze citizens from southern Syria were “evacuated to the Ziv medical center in Safed, after being injured on Syrian territory, according to Israeli media.

The Israeli army struck Syrian targets earlier on Saturday and throughout the week, citing protection of Druze minorities after sectarian fighting killed dozens.

Early this morning, the Israeli military claimed to have intercepted the latest missile fired by the Houthis from Yemen, without specifying whether the interception had taken place inside or outside Israeli territory.

According to the army statement, warning sirens sounded in several localities in the Jerusalem area, the Dead Sea and the southern Negev, Haaretz reports.

On Friday, the Israeli army announced that it had activated its defense system against two other missiles fired at Israel from Yemen within eight hours of each other, the first of which was claimed by the Houthi rebels.

The situation in Syria is also tense. Since Monday, the country has again been rocked by an outbreak of violence involving Sunni and Druze armed groups, as well as government forces, trying to restore order.

Also, Israeli aircraft strike targets across Syria overnight, reports the Syrian news agency Sana. The attacks focused on the village of Shathah, in the northwestern province of Hama, where four people were wounded. Israeli strikes also targeted the suburbs of Damascus, where one Syrian civilian was killed.

In Gaza, the Gaza Strip's civil defense announced on Saturday that 11 people, including three infants, were killed in a night-time Israeli strike on the Khan Younis Palestinian refugee camp in the south of the small war-torn territory.

AFP initially contacted the Israeli army about the strike, but they did not comment. The Israeli army resumed its bombardment and offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month truce with Hamas in the war triggered by the Palestinian Islamist movement's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

On Friday, the territory's Civil Defense Department reported that at least 42 people had been killed in new Israeli strikes on the small, war-torn Palestinian territory, which Israel has subjected to a total blockade for the past two months.

Since March 2, Israel has cut off all humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

No incidents were reported by our correspondent in southern Lebanon last night, where the Israeli army is still occupying five strategic points.

This morning, however, the Israeli army fired machine-gun fire from its Ramtha position towards the outskirts of Kfar Shuba (Hasbaya). An Israeli helicopter equipped with a loudspeaker also threatened farmers in the Majidieh region (same district), asking them not to use motorcycles.

In the Bekaa, Shiite doctor and activist Hady Mrad, who opposes Hezbollah, reported on X that his home in Brital (Baalbeck district) had been targeted by a rocket “fired by enemies from within ... who are working to destroy the state and reject the unity of the people of this nation.” The doctor published a video of his home to show the damage caused by the shot, and called on President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to look into the incident.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem declared this morning that the party “will strive to meet the challenges by pursuing resistance as a liberation project and rejecting all forms of occupation, resettlement and normalization” with Israel.

He made these remarks in an interview broadcast in the first issue of the online magazine Iqtidar, a publication that Al-Mayadeen presents as focusing on the ideological, cultural and political writings of the party's former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated last September by Israel.

Qassem added that “normalization between the Israeli entity and Arab regimes is aimed in particular at nullifying the Palestinian cause, and Lebanon will be targeted in order to strike at its resistance.”

We are beginning our live coverage of the situation in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon.

We'll also be covering the situation in Yemen, in Gaza, where Israel is continuing its air and ground offensive, as well as in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Syria.