September 29, 2024 - news on the Israel-Hezbollah war

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad speaks during a press conference in Damascus, Syria, on July 16, 2023.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a path toward resistance and dignity.

Assad’s first comments on Nasrallah’s killing were published Sunday by Syrian state news agency SANA.

In a message to the Lebanese National Resistance, as well as Nasrallah’s family, al-Assad said that “resistance is an idea and a doctrine, and the martyr Nasrallah is its memory and history.”

“He will never be just a legend, but rather a path that continues to create a reality whose core is resistance and whose essence is dignity,” al-Assad continued.

Some background: Nasrallah was one of the founders of Hezbollah, which formed four decades ago and became the most powerful Iranian proxy in its axis of aligned militant groups spread across Yemen, Syria, Gaza and Iraq.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is considered a “resistance” group tasked with confronting Israel, and Nasrallah was revered by a loyal base of followers as a religious and political leader.

The US and much of the Western world has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, holding Nasrallah and the organization responsible for its bloody attacks over the last 40 years.

US strikes in Syria: Separately, the US Central Command said it killed at least 37 members of ISIS and al Qaeda in two strikes on parts of Syria this month. The operatives killed included a senior lead of an al Qaeda affiliate overseeing military operations in the country, and “at least four senior leaders” at an ISIS training camp in central Syria.

CNN’s Aileen Graef contributed reporting to this post.

An Israeli airstrike on a school compound in northern Gaza has killed at least four people, according to Gaza Civil Defense.

A number of people were also injured, it said. Casualties were being taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to its director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.

The strike was carried out on Umm al-Fahm school in Beit Lahia.

The Israel Defense Forces claimed that Hamas had established a “command and control center embedded inside a compound that previously served as the ‘Umm al-Fahm’ School.”

The IDF said that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”

Remember: While Israel is at war with Hezbollah to its north, it continues its months-long military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and there remains a spiraling humanitarian crisis.

Israel and Hezbollah have been in conflict for decades, but clashes across the Lebanon-Israel border intensified after Hamas launched its October 7 attacks on Israel. In the time since, fears have grown that the fighting could grow into a broader regional conflict involving Israel, Iran and its proxy groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

Nabil Qaouk, the commander of Hezbollah’s Preventive Security Unit and a member of the group's central council, is pictured in Beirut's southern suburb of Burj al-Barajneh in Lebanon on September 18.

Hezbollah acknowledged Sunday that Nabil Qaouk, the commander of its Preventive Security Unit and a member of Hezbollah’s central council, has been killed.

It said in a statement that it confirmed “the martyrdom of the esteemed mujahid scholar Sheikh Nabil Qaouk,” who had been killed in an Israeli raid on the Chyah area on the outskirts of Beirut. It gave no further details.

Hezbollah said that Qaouk had been “consistently present in the arenas of jihad, close to the mujahideen on the front lines.”

Israel had announced earlier Sunday that it killed Qaouk, with the country’s military describing him as “directly engaged in promoting terrorist designs against the State of Israel and its citizens, even in recent days.”

The United States designated Qaouk a global terrorist in October 2020, saying he had represented Hezbollah at events commemorating deceased Hezbollah terrorists as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, who died in a US drone strike in January 2020.

The Israeli military says that Hezbollah continued to fire rockets across the border Sunday.

In a brief statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that following sirens in the western Galilee and HaAmakim areas, “approximately 10 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted.”

It also said that over the past few hours, IDF fighter jets “struck Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon, including launchers directed toward Israeli territory, weapons storage facilities, and terrorist infrastructure sites.”

Earlier Sunday, the IDF said multiple projectiles had been fired into Israel from Lebanon, landing in open areas near the northern city of Tiberias.

The Israeli military says it has carried out another strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, which have seen multiple airstrikes on the area in the last few days.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a brief statement that it “conducted a precise strike” in the Dahiyeh area.

A CNN team in Beirut heard the explosion from some distance away, and smoke could be seen rising in the area.

Israel’s killing of a senior commander from Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “will not go unanswered,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday.

Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut, Lebanon on Friday, alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and a number of other Hezbollah commanders.

“There is no doubt that this horrible crime committed by the Zionist regime will not go unanswered,” Araghchi said in a statement.

The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said Sunday that Iran-aligned armed groups would continue to confront Israel after the killing of Nasrallah.

“We will not hesitate to go to any level in order to help the resistance,” Qalibaf said.

He also claimed that the US is “complicit in all of these crimes and… has to accept the repercussions.”

The body of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was recovered on Saturday, a Lebanese security source told CNN Sunday.

He added that the corpse was in one piece.

People who fled Israeli bombardment gather with some of their belongings in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 28.

An escalation of the conflict in Lebanon would have “extremely dire consequences” for the already deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country, the aid agency Relief International said on Sunday.

Giacomo Lapo Baldini, Lebanon Country Director for Relief International, told CNN that the aid sector’s capacity in the country is already “limited,” as around one million people have been displaced by Israeli attacks.

Around 300,000 people don’t have access to clean water after facilities were hit by Israel, Baldini said. Lebanese citizens are also in major need of bedding and mental health services, he added.

On Sunday, the World Food Programme (WFP) launched an emergency project to scale up food assistance for those in need in Lebanon, setting up kitchens and food distribution centers in several parts of the country. But the aid accounts for just 66,000 people, a small fraction of those affected.

“Lebanon is at a breaking point and cannot endure another war,” Corinne Fleischer, WFP Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, said.

Pope Francis holds mass in Brussels, Belgium, on Saturday, September 29.

Pope Francis on Sunday called for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon amid the “intensification of the conflict” between Israel and Hezbollah.

Addressing the crowd during the Angelus prayer, following a mass for 40,000 people at the King Baudouin stadium in Brussels, Belgium, Pope Francis said he is following “with pain and with great concern the widening, the intensification of the conflict in Lebanon.”

“Lebanon is a message, but at this moment it is a tormented message. This war has devastating effects on the population,” Francis said.

“Let us pray for peace. I ask all parties to immediately cease fire in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the rest of Palestine, in Israel. Let the hostages be released and humanitarian aid be allowed,” he added.

On asymmetrical war: When asked later Sunday about the Israeli airstrikes on Israel and Gaza, Francis called countries which use disproportionate force in response to a threat “immoral.”

The 87-year-old pontiff has repeatedly called for peace in the Middle East and for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. He has also called many times for the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

This post has been updated with additional comments from the Pope.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks during a press conference in London on September 26.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reiterated US support for Israel’s right to defend itself and said the US is committed to preventing Iran and Iranian-backed partners from further escalating the conflict in Lebanon, during a call on Saturday with Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

It was Austin’s third call in two days with his Israeli counterpart, following intensified Israeli strikes in Lebanon this week, which killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday in Beirut.

Austin also emphasized that the US “remains postured to defend U.S. forces in the region,” according to a readout from the Department of Defense.

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza continued over the past 24 hours, with the Civil Defense Directorate reporting that eight people have been killed.

Civil Defense Spokesman Mahmoud Basal said that residential buildings across the strip were struck, including in Gaza City in the north, the Nuseirat area of central Gaza, and the Al-Nasr neighborhood near the southern city of Rafah.

On Saturday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said that the bodies of 52 people had been brought to hospitals in the previous 48 hours, with 118 people injured, as a result of Israeli military operations. The ministry said the cumulative death toll since October 7 has risen to 41,595.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not provided an update on current operations in Gaza on Sunday, but released details of what it said was a one-kilometer tunnel used by Hamas in central Gaza.

It said troops had “discovered, mapped, and dismantled an underground tunnel route approximately one-kilometer long located in the center of the Gaza Strip, embedded near residential buildings and civilian spaces.”

“Inside the tunnel, several rooms and equipment used by Hamas terrorists for prolonged stays were discovered,” the IDF said.

The head of the biggest Christian community in Lebanon has condemned Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, saying that it opened “a wound in the heart of the Lebanese.”

“The blood of the martyrs cries out to us to defend Lebanon against all aggression, and to elect a president of the republic who will restore Lebanon’s place among the nations,” the Patriarch of the Maronite Church, Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, said at Sunday Mass.

Lebanon has a complicated political system in which power is shared along sectarian lines among Christians and Sunni and Shia Muslims. By convention, the president is supposed to be a Maronite Christian but the position is vacant after parliament failed to agree multiple times on a candidate.

In the past, al-Rahi has been one of the most prominent critics of Hezbollah within Lebanon. In January, he implicitly criticized Hezbollah for dragging the south of Lebanon into conflict with Israel due to its cross-border rocket and drone attacks.

On Sunday, al-Rahi urged the international community “to work seriously to stop the cycle of war, killing and destruction in our country.”

He also condemned “the culture of death that has brought nothing but imaginary victories and shameful defeats to our country.”

Lebanon’s army has called on the Lebanese people “to preserve national unity” during what it described as a “dangerous and delicate stage in our country’s history.”

In a strongly-worded statement released Sunday, the Army Command said that it urged its citizens “not to be drawn into actions that may affect civil peace” following the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the killing of more than 1,000 others.

“The Israeli enemy is working to implement its destructive plans and spread division among the Lebanese,” it added.

The Army Command said it was carrying out its “national duty to preserve civil peace and calls on citizens to respond to these measures and act in accordance with national unity.”

Hezbollah chief Nabil Qaouk during an interview with AFP in Tyre, Lebanon on September 16, 2006.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has claimed Sunday that it killed Nabil Qaouk, the commander of Hezbollah’s Preventive Security Unit and a member of Hezbollah’s central council, in an airstrike Saturday. It gave no detail on where the strike took place.

The IDF said that Qaouk was “considered to be close to the top of” Hezbollah and “was directly engaged in promoting terrorist designs against the State of Israel and its citizens, even in recent days.”

Hezbollah has not yet commented on the IDF’s claims.

The United States designated Qaouk a global terrorist in October 2020, saying he had represented Hezbollah at events commemorating deceased Hezbollah terrorists as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, who died in a US drone strike in January 2020.

Approximately eight projectiles have been launched from Lebanon into Israel on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

The projectiles fell in open areas near the city of Tiberias, which is in the north of the country.

Thousands of Israelis evacuated from communities close to the Lebanese border to Tiberias last year, swelling the city’s population by 20%.

Exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have occurred consistently since October 8, the day after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel. Hezbollah first fired at Israel to protest the war in Gaza, demanding a ceasefire there as a condition to end its attacks.

The situation has ramped up since last week, when Israel wounded thousands of people across Lebanon by detonating pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members, followed by a ferocious bombing campaign that has left hundreds dead.

People gather at the site of the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, on September 29, 2024.

Israel’s military said Sunday morning it was continuing to strike Hezbollah targets and “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanon – part of its ramped-up onslaught against the Iran-backed militant group.

It has also raised the possibility of a ground incursion into Lebanon which, if undertaken, would be the fourth Israeli invasion of the country in the past 50 years.

Hundreds of thousands have been displaced within Lebanon in the recent escalation, while more than 1,000 have been killed since airstrikes escalated last week, according to Lebanese government officials.

Here’s what you need to know:

Four people were killed and an unknown number of others wounded in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the town of Tayr Debba in southern Lebanon, Lebanese state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported early on Sunday.

The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday morning it was continuing to strike Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including “launchers that were aimed toward Israeli territory, structures in which weapons were stored and additional Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure.”

In a video shared along with the statement, the IDF said strikes were conducted on several areas in southern Lebanon, including Marjayoun, Deir Aames and Jouaiyya, as well as towns in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel and Bekaa regions.

“Over the past day, the IDF struck hundreds of Hezbollah terror targets throughout Lebanon,” the IDF statement said, adding it continues to “operate to degrade and dismantle Hezbollah’s capabilities.”

Lebanese state media reported Israeli warplanes targeted a civil defense center and conducted a series of airstrikes on the city of Hermel and its surroundings, in the Baalbek region.

In Beirut, live pictures from Reuters news agency on Sunday morning showed smoke rising above the skyline. The capital has been struck by multiple Israeli airstrikes in recent days, including one that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

More than 1,000 people in Lebanon have been killed since Israeli attacks escalated last week, Lebanon’s health minister Dr. Firass Abiad said on Saturday.

Supporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah carry his pictures as they gather in Sidon, Lebanon, following his killing in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 28, 2024.

Hassan Nasrallah’s death marks a major moment in recent Middle East history, but the long-term consequences are uncertain. It raises a key question: Do “decapitation strikes” killing the leaders of terrorist groups cripple them? The short answer is not really.

Israel should know from its own history that such strikes don’t always succeed in crippling a militant group. In 2008, Israel killed Hezbollah’s military leader, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus, Syria, yet the group only gathered strength in the years that followed.

Four years earlier, Israel killed a founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in an airstrike. Yet, the group did not collapse, and almost two decades later it still carried out the October 7 attacks in Israel, killing some 1,200 Israelis in a single day.

The US has its own history of killing terrorist leaders in the hope that it will cripple its foes. When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a US bombing raid in 2006, it was treated as a major breakthrough because al Qaeda in Iraq was significantly contributing to the civil war that was then tearing the country apart.

Yet eight years later, al Qaeda in Iraq eventually morphed into ISIS, which took over territory the size of Portugal and presided over a population of some eight million people in Iraq and Syria.

What actually ended ISIS’s geographical “caliphate” was not a strike on its leadership but a ground campaign against the terrorist army from 2014 to 2019 waged by the Iraqi military and Syrian Kurdish forces backed by thousands of US troops and significant American airpower.

The killing of Nasrallah is a key prize for Israel as part of its larger wave of attacks on Hezbollah that intensified earlier this month with its covert action exploding thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies followed by massive airstrikes that have taken out infrastructure and other senior leaders.

But it’s too early to write the militant group off, though it’s clearly in disarray. History suggests it will reorganize and appoint other leaders to continue its long fight against Israel.

Read the full analysis here.

A woman watches over sleeping children as they shelter outside after being displaced by Israeli airstrikes on September 28, 2024 in Beirut, Lebanon.

Hundreds of families have resorted to sleeping on beaches and in public squares in Beirut after seeking shelter following the Israeli military’s airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Among those displaced were some who had fled to Lebanon to escape deadly conflict elsewhere.

Syrian refugee Fatima Chahine told the Associated Press that she, her husband and their two children fled Dahiyeh – where Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed on Friday – on a motorbike in the night and went straight to the Ramlet al-Bayda public beach.

There was “bombing below us and strikes above us,” she said.

“We only want a place where our children won’t be afraid,” she said. “We fled from the war in Syria in 2011 because of the children and we came here, and now the same thing is happening again.”

Talal Ahmad Jassaf, a Lebanese man who slept on the beach with his family, said they spent “more than three hours going in circles between schools and shelters and we didn’t find one with room.” He said he is considering going to the relative safety of Syria, but he worries about airstrikes on the journey.

Families were also seen camped out overnight around the Martyrs’ Square plaza and sleeping on streets in downtown Beirut, scenes reminiscent of when Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel went to war in 2006.

The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for residents of Dahiyeh, but left little time between the orders and the commencement of additional strikes.

Nasser Yassine, head of the Lebanon Crisis Observatory, told CNN on Saturday that “more than 100,000 have been officially registered (as displaced), but many more – up to 250,000 – are estimated to be in formal and informal collective shelters.”

The increase in cross-border fighting has forced people from their homes in both Israel and Lebanon. One of Israel’s stated war aims is to return tens of thousands of its own displaced civilians to northern Israel.

Israeli troops deploy in northern Israel on September 27.

The US sees the possibility of a limited ground incursion into Lebanon as Israel moves forces to its northern border, according to a senior administration official and a US official. But the officials stressed that Israel does not appear to have made a decision on whether to carry out a ground incursion.

The US assessment was based on the mobilization of Israeli troops and the clearing of areas in what could be preparation for the launching of a ground incursion, one of the officials said.

Earlier Saturday, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Peter Lerner said the military was preparing for the possibility of a ground incursion, but it was only one option being considered. Israel’s stated goal is to return more than 60,000 residents to their homes in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon.

And on Wednesday, Israel’s top general, Herzi Halevi, said the country was preparing for the possible entry of ground forces into Lebanon.

Shortly before news of the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a senior Israeli official said Israel hopes not to carry out a ground incursion into Lebanon.

Iranian Ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani at the UN headquarters in New York on April 14, 2024.

Iran’s envoy to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to “condemn Israel’s actions in the strongest possible terms.”

The letter comes after an Israeli attack in Beirut on Friday that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and a key Iran ally.

In a letter to the council’s president on Saturday, Iravani urged members of the Security Council to “take immediate and decisive action to stop Israel’s ongoing aggression” and prevent it from “pushing the entire region into an all-out catastrophe.”

“On 27 September 2024, Israel perpetrated a flagrant act of terrorist aggression against residential areas in Beirut, using US-supplied thousand-pound bunker busters to assassinate Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader,” Iravani said, adding that “many innocent people” and an Iranian general were also killed in the attack.

Iravani also “strongly” warned against “any attack on [Iran’s] diplomatic premises and representatives in violation of the foundational principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises.”

“Iran will not hesitate to exercise its inherent rights under international law to take every measure in defense of its vital national and security interests,” he added.

Some background: In April, Iran accused Israel of bombing its embassy complex in Syria. The airstrike destroyed the consulate building in the capital Damascus, killing at least seven officials including Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, and senior commander Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, according to Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

In response, Iran launched a brief but unprecedented large-scale drone and missile attack at Israel. No one was killed in Israel by the attack.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaks with CNN.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said there was now a “huge opportunity” for Israel to “remove this whole threat” of Hezbollah, and for the Middle East to reject it and other militant Iranian proxies.

The former prime minister called on the people of Lebanon to “rise up” and “take back” their country.

“Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, hijacked your nation 30 years ago, and it’s made everyone’s life miserable. Now is your time to kick them out – don’t let them come back,” he said.

He also framed the current moment, in which Israel says it has weakened Hezbollah, as well as Hamas in Gaza, as an opportunity for Iranian proxies across the region to be “thrown away.”

“For the first time in decades, this is actually possible. It’s achievable but we have to be determined about it,” he said, referring to eliminating Iranian proxies. “It’s time for the whole region to kick out the Iranian regime. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it can happen over the next few years,” he said.

Some context: The Israel Defense Forces have said the military is preparing for the possibility of a ground incursion into Lebanon, but it was only one option being considered as Israeli forces have ramped up strikes on Hezbollah targets in the country. Israel’s stated goal is to return more than 60,000 residents to their homes in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon.

Smoke rises after what Hezbollah's Al-Manar tv says was an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Now that Hezbollah has confirmed the death of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the coming days will likely see the group’s commanders assessing who is left, how safe it is to communicate and meet, and exactly what level of pain tolerance it retains as it tries to formulate a response.

But while the world awaits Hezbollah’s — and Iran’s — next move, it is Israel’s next steps that matter most.

The country has shown that it has the intelligence advantage, military might and tolerance for international condemnation of civilian casualties to continue to strike at will. But this risks turning a fortnight of brutal strikes into another longer-term loss to Israeli prestige.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a defining choice to make. Does the past fortnight salvage his domestic reputation for security and leave him better placed to face the music of the cases against him? Or does he again calculate that an ongoing war without clear strategic direction is his best way forward?

Ultimately a wider field of vision must win out. Lebanon’s civilians — and its southern neighbors — need political accommodation and a ceasefire now, regardless of what it means for the fate of Israel’s current political elite.

Read Nick Paton Walsh’s full analysis here.

US President Joe Biden disembarks from Air Force One upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, September 27, 2024, as he travels to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for the weekend. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

The death of Hassan Nasrallah has caught President Joe Biden in a bind: While no one in the White House shed any tears for the longtime Hezbollah leader, the Israeli airstrike that took him out has only worsened fears of an escalating conflict, something Biden says he’s actively working to avoid.

In the immediate aftermath of the operation, Biden was quick to alert the public that he hadn’t received any advance warning and wasn’t involved. It was only 24 hours later, after both Israel and Hezbollah had confirmed Nasrallah was killed, that Biden released a carefully worded statement declaring the death a “measure of justice” but repeating that his “aim is to de-escalate.”

For Biden, the moment amounts to another high-tension balancing act — this time, only six weeks before a US presidential election. Already at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the nearly yearlong war in Gaza, the president is now working to calm two fronts at a moment when his influence on Netanyahu’s decision-making appears to be at an all-time low.

Ahead of Friday’s strike, Netanyahu brushed off a ceasefire proposal brokered by the United States and France that called for a 21-day pause in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border, infuriating American officials who had been led to believe he was on board.

Israel informed the US it was launching its major operation in Beirut only after it was underway — again, to the frustration of some American officials.

In his initial remarks Friday, Biden repeated his fear — which has ebbed and flowed over the course of the past year, but is now at a high point — that a wider conflict could be on the horizon: “I’m always concerned about that,” he said.

Read more about the US president’s response to Nasrallah’s killing here.

The Jordanian Armed Forces says a rocket launched from southern Lebanon landed in an uninhabited desert area of Muwaqqar, east of the capital Amman, on Saturday.

Teams were dispatched to the site, but no casualties or material damage were reported, it said in a statement.

Air defense systems were ready to intercept any projectiles or drones attempting to enter Jordanian airspace, it added.

“The armed forces are continuing to protect the skies, land and borders of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from any danger intended to destabilize its security and stability,” it said.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gives a televised address, Lebanon, September 19, 2024, in this screenshot taken from a video.

The Israeli killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut has dramatically inflamed fears of a full-scale war in the Middle East — a possibility that US President Joe Biden’s administration has been desperately seeking for months to forestall, according to current and former US officials.

“I don’t see how this doesn’t go much wider soon,” said one senior Western official.

Hezbollah will almost certainly respond, according to Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior intelligence official specializing in the region, and Iran is likely to play a role.

“The response is likely to be big enough that the odds it will prompt a full-scale war will skyrocket,” Panikoff said.

Hezbollah, which the US designates as a terrorist organization, is Iran’s most powerful and capable proxy militia in the region. There are some indications Tehran had already grown alarmed about the degree of damage Israel has been inflicting on the group, according to a US military official.

A senior US official said the US believes Iran will intervene in the conflict if they judge that they are about to “lose” Hezbollah. The combined effects of Israel’s operations against Hezbollah had already taken hundreds of fighters off the battlefield, according to that official and another person familiar with the intelligence.

US officials have long assessed that senior Hezbollah leadership has wanted to avoid all-out war with Israel, even as fighting has intensified in recent months. The killing of Nasrallah is categorically different, however.

Hezbollah’s rank-and-file have long been agitating to play a bigger role in the fighting with Israel since October 7, and it now risks losing legitimacy in the eyes of its fighters and supporters if it does not offer a maximalist response to the killing of its leader, according to Panikoff.

The strike was also a clear signal of Israel’s willingness to risk a broader conflict, and that it was not close to accepting a ceasefire proposal backed by the US, according to Mick Mulroy, a former top Middle East official at the Defense Department. Hezbollah is also now unlikely to be interested in the negotiations.