Middle East latest: Huge blasts in Beirut after IDF issues evacuation orders (2024)

There has been "intense bombing over the past hour", ourspecial correspondent Alex Crawford, who is in Beirut, reports.

She says "large plumes of smoke" and "big explosions" have lit up the skies.

"We have seen real intense bombing over the past two weeks but that has moved up a gear or two over the past few days," she says.

"We are seeing no let up at all.

"We understand there are lots of airstrikes as well down south on the border."

Four blasts have been heard in southern Beirut in the last hour, local media is reporting.

The reports come as images emerge of smoke and flames rising over Beirut's southern suburbs.

The IDF has tonight issued further evacuation orders for the southern parts of the Lebanese capital.

The Israeli army has issued a new evacuation order for two south Beirut neighbourhoods.

The military has warned residents in Bourj al-Barajneh and Hadath that they are "located near Hezbollah facilities" and the IDF will operate "against them in near future".

The IDF spokesperson for the Arab Media, Avichay Adraee, said on X: "For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate this building and the buildings adjacent to it immediately and stay away from it for a distance of no less than 500m."

We brought you reports earlier from Syrian state television that Syria had confronted "hostile targets" in the country's central region (see post at 6.38pm).

Now, Syria's defence ministry has said the strikes in the central region caused "material damage".

In a statement, the ministry said Israel had attacked Syria from the direction of northern Lebanon, targeting a number of military sites.

It did not provide more details.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the war inGaza.

Israel is not allowing a search for senior Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine to progress, a Hezbollah official has claimed tonight.

The group's political official Mahmoud Qmati also told Iraqi state television that picking a new Hezbollah head would take some time.

For context: On Friday, reports suggested Safieddine had been targeted in an Israeli strike in Beirut .

His fate is currently unknown and a Lebanese security source reportedly told the Reuters news agency he has been "unreachable" since Friday.

Following the death of Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah, his cousin Hashem Safieddine was the frontrunner to take his place.

Kamala Harris has given a revealing insight into the strained relationship between Benjamin Netanyahu and the Biden administration, Sky's US correspondent Mark Stone reports.

Asked if the US had a close ally in Mr Netanyahu in an interview with the CBS news show 60 Minutes, she said: "I think the better question is do we have important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people and the answer to that question is yes."

In the interview, Ms Harris also reiterated Washington's position to support Israel's right to self defence.

By Tom Cheshire, data and forensics correspondent

The gathering was not about protest but memory.

Amid heavy security, thousands assembled in Hyde Park to mark a year since the brutal 7 October attack, to mourn the hundreds killed in it, to hope for the hostages still held by Hamas.

One of those is Emily Damari, a British citizen kidnapped from her kibbutz, a year on still in captivity in Gaza.

Her mother Mandy spoke for the first time in public, her voice occasionally faltering: "My beautiful, funny and brave daughter who I love to the moon and back deserves to come home, I need to hug her again and I need to see her smile."

One of those in the crowd told me: "October the 7th is the trigger but it has been forgotten as the reason all this hell has broken lose."

Amid so much sound and fury, in the Middle East, and in protests in London and around the world, the mood was quiet and reflective.

The organisers lit 23 candles to mark all the communities and places attacked on 7 October and they held a minute's silence.

It was a powerful memorial.

A man whose four family members are being held held captive in Gaza has described how he is "afraid" and "wants them back as soon as possible".

Yair Keshet's nephew Yarden Bibas was taken during the terror attack on Israel last year along with his wife Shiri and their two children Kfir and Ariel.

Kfir was nine-months-old at the time he was taken and Ariel was five.

Speaking to Sky's Anna Botting in Tel Aviv, Mr Keshet said "nobody believes that it will be one year" tomorrow.

"I'm afraid, I'm totally afraid," he said.

"Two little children, what is happening with them? What is going on with Yarden and Shiri?

"I can't believe it."

He went on to say: "We miss them so much.

"We need everybody back. We are afraid, we want them back as soon as possible. We have no time."

Syria has confronted "hostile targets" in the country's central region, the Syrian state TV is reporting.

No further information has been given.

The report comes hours after the Syrian state news agency claimed that an Israeli airstrike had targeted three cars carrying medical and relief materials in the industrial city of Syria's Homs.

Families have been visiting the site of the Nova festival in Reim, southern Israel, where people were killed and kidnapped during the 7 October attack by Hamas.

It comes on the eve of the one year anniversary of the 7 October attacks last year which triggered the war in Gaza.