Hezbollah fires at Tel Aviv as Israel bombards Lebanon

Despite pledging a “battle without limits” against Israel, Hezbollah’s response to back-to-back Israeli attacks appears to have been carefully calibrated.

Its strike Wednesday that was intercepted near Tel Aviv managed to be both unprecedented and understated. It marked many firsts:

But given the strength of Israel’s air defenses, a single missile – even a ballistic one – was always likely to have been shot down.

Why, then, launch just one? As the risk of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah – and their respective American and Iranian backers – grows each day, the lone shot on Tel Aviv could be taken as both a threat and a cease-and-desist. We have powerful weapons at our disposal, and a powerful friend at our beck and call – don’t try us, Hezbollah seemed to say.

The militant group’s gloves are far from fully off – the group has a range of medium and long-range missiles in its arsenal, but Wednesday’s strike appeared to be a signal to indicate how powerful a punch it could pack.

While both sides have refrained from declaring that they are at war with each other, their ramped-up goals may make that moot. Hezbollah insists there will be no ceasefire in Lebanon until there is one in Gaza. Netanyahu’s government not only insists there will not be a ceasefire in Gaza – but its pivot to Lebanon makes the possibility of a deal even more remote.

Read more about how Hezbollah is stepping up its response to Israeli attacks here.

The Israeli military is preparing for a possible ground incursion into Lebanon, its top general said on Wednesday.

“You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Chief of the General Staff, told troops while visiting the northern border, according to a military press release. “This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”

It is the second time Wednesday that a top Israeli general has said that a ground operation may be imminent. Israel’s top general in the north, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, said that the military “must be fully prepared for maneuvers.”

It also comes just hours after the Israel Defense Forces said it was calling up two reserve brigades because of the conflict with Hezbollah.

Halevi told troops that in order to return 60,000 Israelis to their homes in the north, “we are preparing the process of a maneuver.”

It “means your military boots, your maneuvering 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 and carry out attacks on Israeli civilians,” he said.

“Your entry into those areas with force, your encounter with Hezbollah operatives, will show them what it means to face a professional, highly skilled, and battle-experienced force. You are coming in much stronger and far more experienced than they are. You will go in, destroy the enemy there, and decisively destroy their infrastructure. These are the things that will allow us to safely return the residents of the north afterward.”

President Joe Biden speaks with hosts Ana Navarro, left, and Joy Behar, right, during a commercial break on ABC's "The View" on Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden said “all-out war” is possible in the Middle East but that the window is still open to pull the region back from the brink of escalating conflict.

“An all out war is possible,” Biden said on the ABC daytime talk show “The View.”

“But I think there’s also the opportunity — we’re still in play to have a settlement that could fundamentally change the whole region,” he continued.

Biden was speaking as tensions were ratcheting up between Israel and Hezbollah and as American officials described ceasefire and hostage talks in Gaza as stalled.

The president reiterated the importance of finding a two-state solution and said a pathway was still open to securing such an outcome.

“There’s a way to do it, and they have a possibility – I don’t want to exaggerate it, but a possibility — if we can deal with a ceasefire in Lebanon, that it can move into dealing with the West Bank, but we also have Gaza to deal with,” he said.

“But it’s possible,” he said, “and I’m using every bit of energy I have with my team…to get this done. There’s a desire to see change in the region.”

Dozens of US troops have been deployed to Cyprus amid sharply escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, and they are preparing for a range of contingencies including a possible evacuation operation from Lebanon for US citizens should a full-blown war erupt, two US officials told CNN.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said earlier this week that the US military would be deploying “a small number of US military personnel forward” to the region “out of an abundance of caution.” But he declined to say how many troops were deployed, where they were sent, and what branch they belonged to.

Some background: Cyprus played a key role in helping to evacuate foreign nationals from Lebanon during Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, facilitating the departure and accommodation of tens of thousands of people at the time as they fled the conflict.

Cyprus’s deputy government spokesperson, Yiannis Antoniou, told Reuters last month that the island nation is again on standby to help if needed.

The UK announced on Tuesday that it was sending 700 troops to Cyprus to prepare for a possible emergency evacuation of British citizens from Lebanon if one becomes necessary.

“The most important message from me this evening is to British nationals in Lebanon, to leave immediately and I just want to reinforce that,” said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The US State Department has also repeatedly warned US citizens to leave Lebanon while commercial travel options are still available.

Seeking shelter from Israeli bombardment, thousands who had been living in southern Lebanon are reportedly now trying to enter Syria.

The UN refugee agency reported Wednesday that the main highway leading to the Lebanon-Syria border was choked with hundreds of cars, as it observed rising numbers fleeing “in desperation.”

One man told CNN that he had been driving for two days seeking shelter after his house was bombed by Israel.

“We tried to escape to Beirut, but there was no housing or anything. We hope that they open the borders so we can go to our people in Syria. That is it really!,” he told CNN at the checkpoint to enter Syria border.

When asked if they knew anyone in Syria, the man replied:

“We want to go and see if there is someone [to help us].”

People displaced by conflict from southern Lebanon wait outside a temporary reception shelter in the northern city of Tripoli on September 25.

More than 90,000 people are newly displaced in Lebanon, the United Nations said on Wednesday, as the “exodus of people from south Lebanon to north of the Litani River” amid Israel’s large-scale air campaign continued.

“At least 90,530 newly displaced people have been reported including nearly 40,000 in 283 shelters,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

Some of these people will “likely” include those who fled their homes since Israel and Hezbollah traded fire in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel last year.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the US is “working tirelessly” on diplomatic efforts to prevent a “full-blown war” as Israel continues to ratchet up its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Risk of escalation in the region is acute, and I know that we are all very much focused on that,” Blinken told his counterparts in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The top US diplomat also acknowledged efforts on a Gaza ceasefire deal, telling the foreign ministers, “each of us has to continue to press all of the parties to make the decisions necessary to get this deal over the finish line.”

Blinken also called on the regional organization, comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, to work “to deter destabilizing activities by Iran.”

“We also look to the West Bank to ensure that violence against innocent Palestinians stops. That too is critical,” he said.

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Kfar Rouman, south Lebanon, on September 25.

At least 51 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Wednesday, the Lebanese minister of health said.

“As of now, there are 51 martyrs and 223 injured in today’s various strikes on Al-Muaisira, Jounieh, Baalbek-Hermel, and southern areas,” Dr. Firass Abyad told reporters.

“Large waves” of people have been displaced across Lebanon, he said, including hospital patients who had been undergoing dialysis in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa valley.

The government would provide medicine and infant formula to those who need it, the minister added.

The death toll has risen throughout the day. Earlier Wednesday, the ministry of health said 23 people had been killed by Israeli strikes.

Israel’s security cabinet will convene at the Kirya – the Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv – at 8 p.m. (1 p.m. ET) on Wednesday, an official told CNN as the country said it launched a third day of “extensive” strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

The Israeli military said it hit more than 280 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Wednesday – the third day of its “extensive” strikes.

“In total, over 280 Hezbollah terror targets have been struck today in Lebanon, and the IDF is continuing to conduct strikes against additional targets,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

The IDF said its targets included rocket launch sites used to fire projectiles toward the northern Israeli cities of Safed and Nahariya on Wednesday morning. Fighter jets hit 60 targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence unit and destroyed surveillance equipment, command rooms and intelligence-gathering infrastructure.

At least 23 people were killed in the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Nearly 600 people have been killed and almost 1,700 injured in the strikes since Monday, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing Lebanese government figures.

Israel struck more than 1,300 targets on Monday and around 250 on Tuesday, according to the IDF.

People fleeing Israeli bombings in Lebanon wait to cross the border with Syria through the Masnaa crossing is eastern Lebanon, on September 24.

At the peak of Syria’s devastating civil war, its neighbors took in millions of refugees. A decade on, Lebanon is still housing more than 1.5 million people from that country, according to UN data.

Now though, people are heading in the opposite direction as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates. The UN refugee agency reported Wednesday that the main highway leading to the Lebanon-Syria border was choked with hundreds of cars, as it observed rising numbers fleeing “in desperation.”

“Hundreds of vehicles are backed up in queues at the Syrian border. Many people are also arriving on foot, carrying what they can,” the UNHCR said in an update Wednesday.

“Large crowds, including women, young children and babies are waiting in line after spending the night outdoors in falling temperatures. Some carry fresh injuries from the recent bombardments.”

UN staff deployed to border crossings have been providing supplies including food, water, blankets and mattresses and “guiding them towards support available once in Syria,” the UNHCR said.

Thousands of people have been displaced by Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon in recent days with the UNHCR warning Tuesday that numbers are only set to rise. “Over 27,000 people have been displaced over the past 48 hours, and more are abandoning their homes by the minute,” UNHCR stressed in its Wednesday update.

Israeli tanks in southern Israel on October 13.

The Israeli military is calling up two reserve brigades over its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Wednesday.

“In accordance with the assessment of the situation in the IDF, it was decided to recruit two reserve brigades for operational missions in the northern sector,” the military said in a statement.

“Their recruitment will allow the continuation of the fighting effort against the terrorist organization Hezbollah, the protection of the citizens of the State of Israel and the creation of the conditions for the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.

The military last week said that it was moving the elite 98th division from Gaza to northern Israel. A brigade typically consists of several thousand troops.

The commander of the IDF’s Northern Command, Major General Uri Gordin, said Tuesday that the operation in Lebanon had reached a “different phase.”

“We need to be very strongly prepared to enter the maneuver and into action,” he said while visiting troops of the 7th Brigade in northern Israel.

The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday also hinted at the possibility of ground maneuvers.

“You understand that the moment may come when we give an order and the system will have to move forward, so preparations must be made,” he said. during a visit with troops.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at an event on the Lobito Corridor, on September 24, in New York.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Hamas has not engaged in the ceasefire and hostage negotiations over the past few weeks as he again argued that they are very few issues that need to be resolved on the potential agreement.

“We have a piece of paper an agreement. It’s got 18 paragraphs — 15 of those paragraphs have been agreed between Hamas and Israel,” Blinken said on NBC’s Today Show.

“But what’s happened over the last few weeks is Hamas has simply not been at the table, not been willing to engage on the remaining outstanding issues, that if we close them, we’ll close the deal, we’ll get it over the finish line.”

The top US diplomat noted that “Israel would have some hard decisions to make in the very end game, too, so we have to look to that.”

CNN reported Wednesday that senior US officials had largely stopped making a vigorous push on the ceasefire negotiations in recent days, having determined there is currently no political will on either side — Hamas or Israel’s — to end the conflict.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called Hezbollah’s attempt to fire a ballistic missile near Tel Aviv “deeply concerning” in an interview on CNN Wednesday.

Israel said that they intercepted the Hezbollah missile — which would mark an unprecedented attack by the militant group that reached deep into Israel’s commercial heartlands and marked a new escalatory step in the conflict between the two sides.

“It’s certainly deeply concerning, obviously, to the Israelis, of course, but also to us, because, as Secretary (Antony) Blinken just said a little bit ago, we really have been working hard since the beginning of this conflict to prevent it from escalating and deepening and broadening, and one of the key areas that we’ve been trying to prevent escalation is between Israel and Hezbollah up along that border with Lebanon,” Kirby told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Kirby also appeared to push back on CNN’s reporting this morning that the Biden administration has all but paused a push for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal. Kirby told CNN that in his view, the Israelis “continue to talk to us about moving this thing forward.”

“The proposal on the table was an Israeli proposal. It’s the one that the prime minister and his team put forward, and they continue to talk to us about moving this thing forward. I would just tell you that Mr. Sinwar is the main obstacle,” he said.

Yahya Sinwar is the head of Hamas.

Sources told CNN earlier that senior US officials had largely stopped making a vigorous push on the ceasefire negotiations, having determined there is currently no political will on either side — Hamas or Israel’s — to end the conflict.

Families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday said they fear the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could “overshadow” the plight of their loved ones.

“The recent escalation of tensions in northern Israel has heightened our anxiety and deepened our concerns. We fear that this new crisis may overshadow the plight of our 101 loved ones, who have been held by Hamas in horrific conditions for 355 days,” Israel’s Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement published ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the United Nations in New York.

“We expect that the release of hostages will be a central topic in both the discussions at the UN General Assembly and PM Netanyahu’s speech,” the Forum added.

“Securing a deal to bring them all back [must be] treated as the utmost priority.”

As Israel’s campaign continues in Lebanon, thousands of civilians have fled their homes and many have sought shelter inside schools.

“We are all civilians and many people were martyred while sitting in their homes,” Helme Mahmoud told CNN.

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Hear from Lebanese civilians sheltering in Beirut

01:13 - Source: CNN

A Hezbollah missile intercepted near Israel’s economic center Tel Aviv is the first fired by the militant group to reach close to the city, the Israeli military said.

Hezbollah said it had targeted the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad, which it blames for attacks targeting its members, including the explosions of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies last week.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded waves of strikes since Israeli attacks targeting the militant group killed more than 500 people on Monday, the deadliest day in Lebanon in more than two decades.

Here’s what to know:

• People flee southern Lebanon: People are fearing for their lives as they flee Israeli airstrikes. “There were dead bodies strewn on the side of the road, people with their arms blown off. Even the ambulances that tried to reach them were struck,” one man told CNN in Beirut. The city is providing shelter for about 10,000 people displaced by recent Israeli attacks.

• Wednesday death toll: The death toll from Israel’s airstrikes on Lebanon on Wednesday has risen to 23, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Health.
• Children under rubble: Many children remain “missing under rubble” after Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, warned. More children were killed in Lebanon in one day on Monday alone than in the past year.
• Senior commander killed: An Israeli airstrike killed one of Hezbollah’s senior commanders, Ibrahim Qubaisi, yesterday. The Israeli military said Qubaisi commanded various missile units and was killed along with two other commanders in southern Beirut.
• What’s next? Israel’s military has vowed to speed up its “offensive operations” against Hezbollah without reprieve. Troops held exercises simulating ground combat in Lebanon, which the military has not ruled out.

A cloud of smoke erupts during Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon on September 25.

The death toll from Israel’s airstrikes on Lebanon on Wednesday has risen to 23, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Health.

Most of the deaths were reported in the south of the country: Four are in Joun, three in Ain Qana, two in Tibneen and three in Bint Jbeil.

Another three were killed in the mountain village of Maaysrah north of Beirut. Meanwhile, four people died in what the ministry described as “consecutive Israeli airstrikes” on towns in Baalbek-Hermel region in the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

Dozens of people were also injured in the strikes.

Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza and military offensive in Lebanon took place across the United States on Tuesday evening.

Here are some photos from the scenes:

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters are gathered outside of a federal building to protest Israeli attacks on recent attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, in San Francisco, US, on September 24.

Demonstrators gather during a protest against Israel's attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon during a rally near the White House in Washington, D.C., on September 24.

A protester waves a Lebanese flag as demonstrators gather to protest against the war on Gaza and Israeli military strikes on Lebanon in front of the Los Angeles Federal Building on September 24, in Los Angeles, California.

People gather to protest the escalation of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, in New York City, on September 24.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, on September 25.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged that Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leaders is “definitely a loss” for the group — but won’t be enough to destroy it, state-run IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Khamenei held the United States responsible for Israel’s attacks in Lebanon, saying Washington “pretends that it isn’t involved” but needs Israel to win the war ahead of elections this year.

The foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and Iraq have “condemned the Israeli aggression on Lebanon” in a joint statement and warned that Israel is pushing the region toward an “all-out war.”

The ministers met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday, where they urged the international community and the Security Council to “assume their relevant responsibilities to stop the war.”

“Israel bears full responsibility for this deterioration, which will have serious consequences for the entire region,” they said Wednesday.

Stopping the “ongoing dangerous escalation” in the Middle East “begins with stopping the Israeli aggression on Gaza,” the officials said.

Some background: Israel has vowed to speed up its military offensives against Hezbollah without reprieve as it executes a new war objective: to return tens of thousands of residents evacuated from their homes in the north due to cross-border attacks.

With the Biden administration pausing work on ceasefire negotiations to end the war in Gaza, Israel’s fresh assaults on Hezbollah in Lebanon this week add a layer of complication, making prospects for a near-term deal all the more difficult – if not impossible – at least while the bombs are falling.

In recent days, senior US officials had largely stopped making a vigorous push on the ceasefire negotiations, sources told CNN, having determined there is currently no political will on either side – Hamas or Israel’s – to end the conflict.

Even as President Joe Biden and top aides refuse to abandon the effort entirely, a senior Democrat close to the White House summed up the sentiment among some officials involved in those deliberations this way:

This person also cited a line from former Secretary of State James Baker, who in 1990 said in a message directed at the Israeli government about a Middle East peace deal: “When you’re serious about this, call us.”

Another quote circulating among American officials as they assess the stalled talks is George Mitchell’s description of the process that eventually brought about the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland: “We had 700 days of failure and one day of success.”

Ending the Gaza conflict is Biden’s top foreign policy goal as he nears the end of his one-term presidency, but the stalled ceasefire talks are threatening to sink the president’s other priorities in the Middle East.

Read the full story.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, on February 18.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has delayed his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly debate due to the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Netanyahu was set to fly today and speak tomorrow, but his office said he would now fly to New York on Thursday and return Saturday. He is expected to speak at the UN on Friday.

US President Joe Biden only briefly mentioned the widening of fighting in the Middle East in his speech to the UN General Assembly yesterday, which came after cross-border strikes killed hundreds. While acknowledging “the situation has escalated,” Biden said, “a diplomatic solution is still possible.”

It is unclear whether Israel intends – or will feel compelled – to launch a ground invasion into Lebanon. But the question looms: Can the country take on a second front?

Since the day after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel last year, there has been regular cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military. Hezbollah first fired at Israel to protest the war in Gaza, demanding a ceasefire there as a condition to end its attacks.

The stakes were raised last week when Israel wounded thousands of people across Lebanon, detonating pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah. Escalating exchanges of fire have followed.

Should Israel enter full-scale war with Hezbollah, experts say it will face a much stronger threat than Hamas – and commensurate costs.

Read the full analysis.

Hezbollah’s main base is on the Israel-Lebanon border, where the militant group and Israel have seen near-daily clashes since the war in Gaza began.

Here’s what to know about their decades-long conflict

Israeli invasion: Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanon’s territory when it invaded in 1982. This included Beirut, where Israeli forces, along with right-wing Israel-allied Christian Lebanese militias, laid siege to the western part of the capital to drive out Palestinian militants.

Israel’s operation led to the deaths of over 17,000 people, according to reports and an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at a Beirut refugee camp. The investigation held Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre that was carried out by the Christian Lebanese fighters.

The rise of Hezbollah: As droves of Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, a band of Shia Islamist fighters trained by Iran burst onto the scene. In 1983, two suicide bombers linked to the faction attacked a US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing almost 300 US and French personnel and civilians.

A year later, Iran-linked fighters bombed the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, those militants coalesced around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.

Support for Gaza: Hezbollah is part of a larger Iran-led alliance of militant groups spanning Yemen, Syria, Gaza, and Iraq that has increasingly clashed with Israel and its allies since the war with Hamas started — and has vowed to continue until the war ends.

Killing of key leader: Tensions escalated when Israel said it killed Hezbollah’s most senior military commander, Fu’ad Shukr, with a strike on Beirut in July. In retaliation, Hezbollah launched hundreds of drones and missiles into Israel.

Displaced residents: The increase in cross-border fighting has forced people from their homes in both Israel and Lebanon. On Tuesday, Israel made it a new war objective to return tens of thousands of Israel’s northern residents to their homes near the border. More than 100,000 people have been displaced from southern Lebanon.