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Lebanon death toll rises to 558 people, ministry says
At least 558 people have been killed -- including 50 children and 95 women -- and another 1,853 people wounded by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Monday, according to the latest data from the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

The Israel Defense Forces said it struck at least 1,600 targets in Lebanon over the past 24 hours.

At least 6 dead in Israeli strike on Ghobeiry neighborhood in Beirut
At least six people were killed and 15 others were wounded after Israel carried out a strike on the Ghobeiry neighborhood of Beirut on Tuesday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

It appears the top floor of a concrete apartment building took the brunt of the strike.

Israel claims it killed top Hezbollah commander
Israel claimed it killed a top Hezbollah commander in Tuesday's strike on Beirut, which killed at least six people and injured 15 others, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

The IDF said it targeted and killed Ibrahim Muhammad Kabisi, a commander of Hezbollah's missile and rocket array.

"Kabisi commanded the various missile units of Hezbollah, including the precision missile units. Over the years and during the war, he was responsible for the launches towards the Israeli home front. Kabisi was a central center of knowledge in the field of missiles and was close to the senior military leadership of Hezbollah," the IDF said in a statement.

G7 warns escalation could lead to 'unimaginable consequences' in the Middle East
The foreign ministers of the Group of 7 said they have "deep concern" over "the trend of escalatory violence" in the Middle East, in a joint statement Tuesday.

The statement doesn’t call out Israel by name, it does call for "a stop to the current destructive cycle," warning "no country stands to gain from a further escalation in the Middle East."

"Actions and counter-reactions risk magnifying this dangerous spiral of violence and dragging the entire Middle East into a broader regional conflict with unimaginable consequences," it reads, while calling for the full implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution that implemented a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

Additionally, the statement reaffirms the G7’s "strong support" for the ongoing efforts to broker a hostage release and cease-fire deal in Gaza.

Israel has 'additional strikes prepared,' Gallant says
Israel has "additional strikes prepared" against Hezbollah, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, in a discussion with troops on Tuesday.

"Hezbollah, today, is different from the organization we knew a week ago – and we have additional strikes prepared. Any Hezbollah force that you may encounter, will be destroyed. They are worried about the combat experience you have gained," Gallant said.

Hezbollah fired over 300 projectiles on Tuesday
Hezbollah fired over 300 rockets, missiles and drones on Israel on Tuesday, injuring six soldiers and civilians in Israel, according to officials.

The group tried to fire many more strikes that were disrupted, according to IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari.

Israel said Hezbollah has many capabilities it knows about and is going after, now targeting the threats at the border, according to Hagari.

Hagari said Hezbollah has militarized southern Lebanon and placed missiles and rockets in thousands of homes.

Mediators as far from a cease-fire deal as ever, US officials say
Mediators between Israel and Hamas are as far away from a cease-fire deal as they have ever been, with both sides impeding negotiations, multiple senior U.S. officials told ABC News.

Many officials have long been skeptical that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar would ever sign off on an agreement that involves ceding rule of Gaza, and in recent weeks Hamas has deeply frustrated the Israeli government by adding demands related to Palestinian prisoners that would be released in an exchange.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also become increasingly intractable, according to U.S. officials. While high-level engagements between the U.S. and Israel often moved the needle at the beginning of the conflict, those meetings are now unproductive, officials said -- a major reason Secretary of State Antony Blinken didn't stop in Israel during his last visit to Middle East.

Nearly 500,000 displaced in Lebanon, foreign minister says
The number of people displaced in southern Lebanon as a result of Israeli airstrikes may be approaching half a million, according to Lebanese Foreign Minister Bou Habib, who stressed that "the war in Lebanon will not help the Israelis return to their homes, and negotiations are the only way to do so."

Habib spoke at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Tuesday while attending the United Nations General Assembly.

He expressed his "disappointment" over U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech at the U.N., saying it was "neither strong nor promising and will not solve this problem," but said he "hopes that Washington can intervene to help."

"Lebanon cannot end the fighting alone and needs America's help, despite past disappointments," Habib said, adding that the U.S. is "the only country that can truly make a difference in the Middle East and with regard to Lebanon."

52 killed in Gaza in past 24 hours, officials say
Israeli forces targeted eight residential homes in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, killing at least 52 people, spokesperson Major Mahmoud Basal of the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense said Tuesday.

At least five of those people were killed after a house in the town of Al-Nasr, northeast of Rafah, was targeted, the civil defense spokesperson added.

The IDF said they were conducting "precise, intelligence-based operations in the Rafah area" in a statement Tuesday.

Hezbollah confirms death of division commander
Hezbollah has confirmed the death of rocket and missile division commander Ibrahim Qubaisi in a post on their Telegram channel.

Hezbollah said he was killed in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah targets Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv
Hezbollah claimed the launch of a Qadir-1 ballistic missile targeting the Mossad intelligence agency's headquarters on the outskirts of Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning.

"It is the headquarters responsible for the assassination of leaders and the bombing of pagers and hand-held radios," the militant group said in a statement, referring to last week's communication device explosions in Lebanon and Syria.

Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv amid the attack. "One surface-to-surface missile was identified crossing from Lebanon and was intercepted," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

The launch at Tel Aviv is the first time Hezbollah has attacked the city in central Israel since the war in the Gaza Strip began on Oct. 7.

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Examining the death toll of Israel's attack on Gaza, refuting denialist arguments, and providing the context that they leave out to manipulate you & attempt to justify the unjustifiable.

The body of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was recovered from the rubble following an IAF strike in the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut, a medical source and a security source told Reuters on Sunday.

According to Reuters, there were no signs of injuries on his body, indicating that the blunt force of the explosion had killed him

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was furious with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israel when he was informed with very little notice that the IDF was about to kill Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the Jerusalem Post has learned.

Throughout the war, Gallant informed Austin before major developments has been a signature part of how the two governments have communicated, especially given the low level of trust between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The IDF hit Yemen's Houthis with the most powerful counter-strike against them of the war on Sunday, even exceeding the massive strike on Hodeidah in July, sources told The Jerusalem Post<and the IDF confirmed shortly thereafter.

Dozens of Israeli aircraft participated in the operation, striking 1,800 kilometers from Israeli territory, after the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles on the Tel Aviv and central Israel areas in recent weeks, including one on Saturday.

The targets included power plants and a seaport used to import oil, which the Houthis used to transfer Iranian weapons to the region, in addition to military supplies and oil, IDF reported.
According to Hezbollah-affiliated outlet Al Mayadeen and confirmed by the IDF, the targets of the strikes were oil reserves in Ras Issa and also the port of Hodeidah.

Yemeni oil company statement
Al Masirah reported that the Yemeni Oil Company issued a statement reassuring citizens that all necessary precautions had been taken, stressing that the supply in all areas under their control was completely stable.

Hodeidah's electricity station and airport have both been targeted
Additionally, Al Mayadeen reported that Hodeidah's electricity station and airport have both been targeted by IDF strikes.

Moody's on Friday downgraded Israel's credit rating two notches to "Baa1" from "A2" and maintained a negative outlook amid escalation of the conflict in the region with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

"The key driver for the downgrade is our view that geopolitical risk has intensified significantly further, to very high levels, with material negative consequences for Israel's creditworthiness in both the near and longer term," Moody's said.

The downgrade kept Israel's rating three notches into investment grade. However, Moody's warned that uncertainties over the country's security and its longer-term economic growth prospects "are much higher than is typical at the Baa rating level." A drop below that level would mean Israel would lose its investment grade rating.

"The ratings would likely be downgraded further, potentially by multiple notches, if the current heightened tensions with Hezbollah turned into a full-scale conflict," Moody's said.

Typically, a loss of investment grade rating means a spike in the cost of servicing debt, and it could force some investors to sell their holdings - further pressuring lower the market price of Israel's bonds.

Major distrust in the ability of Israel’s government, and especially its finance minister, to bring about a responsible budget and a serious plan to reduce the deficit is a significant factor behind Friday’s Moody's credit ratings drop, Tel Aviv University Economist Prof. Dan Ben-David explained.

Ben-David, who established and heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, said that it is “difficult to overstate the significance” of Big Three ratings agency Moody’s downgrade of Israel’s rating by two notches from A2 to Baa1 on Friday.

Israel was assigned its first Moody’s rating in 1995, and over the nearly three decades since it has been upgraded twice, Ben-David explained, emphasizing that “not even the horrendous Second Intifada led to a reduction [in the credit rating] because we had clearly defined and internationally acceptable military and economic plans.”

“Within just a few months this past year, Israel not only lost the two ranks that it took us decades to earn, it even fell below where we were when our first credit ratings [came out] 30 years ago,” he added.

Considering the ratings drop in the context of Israel’s current economic situation paints a bleak picture. The Israel-Hamas war has demanded massive government spending as it has slowed growth, and Israel’s deficit has swollen.

Smotrich has “not internalized that when this war ends, we’ll need to spend tens of billions more per annum on defense, along with an additional tens of billions more to rebuild the South and North. And now, because of the need to borrow at higher rates today because of the drop in credit ratings, we’ll need to spend a further tens of billions more that we had not planned on, just to fund all of the above and much more,” he said.

Moody's highlights risks in security, gov. instability
Listing additional factors, Moody’s “are very explicit about the risks emanating from tensions between the government and the security services, about the government’s delay in drafting Haredim and thus reducing the reserve duty burden on those already serving, and the justice minister’s continued disregard for Supreme Court rulings,” Ben-David added.

Ben-David stressed the magnitude of the interest that the country pays on its deficit in a “good year,” emphasizing how impactful the increase of interest due to the rating drop could be.

Offering an example of an economically “good year,” Ben-David explained that interest payments in 2022 cost more than the nation’s entire primary and secondary school systems combined.
“Similarly, our total expenditures on all of Israel’s hospitals and all of the country’s higher
education system combined were less than our interest payments,” he added.

“And now, thanks to the major drop in credit rating, we will be paying a whole lot more when we borrow.”

“Imagine what we could do with that money if we simply had a functioning government that radiated confidence – domestically and internationally – in its professional approach to the crisis,” he said.

Ben-David stressed that Israel’s long-term future could continue to deteriorate if the government does not “understand the gravity of the moment.”

“Since the 1970s, Israel changed its budgetary priorities from national objectives to sectoral and personal political directions.” This has caused a productivity gap between Israel and the G7 countries that has tripled since the mid-70s, Ben-David explained.

This gap has caused a steady, if slow, brain drain, he explained. A brain drain is a situation in which professionals and the educated leave a country, taking the training that they have acquired in their home country and that could benefit them.

“What the past year and a half has done is turbocharge this process,” said Ben-David. He explained that while the picture is not yet complete, there are anecdotes of a potential brain drain from Israel in which those who leave are “those with many options abroad – physicians, hi-tech innovators, and scientists – the very people who have kept Israel at the top tier of the developed world.”

Iran is preparing to launch a ballistic missile attack at Israel after its invasion of southern Lebanon, White House and Defense Department officials say. Washington is actively supporting preparations to defend its ally, the White House official said, warning of "severe consequences for Iran."

Israel earlier announced the invasion of southern Lebanon, launching what it calls a "limited, localized and targeted" ground operation aimed at pushing Hezbollah forces farther away from the border.

Intense Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced as many as 1 million in recent weeks, Lebanese officials say. The country "is facing one of the most dangerous stages in its history," its prime minister said this morning.

President Joe Biden called for a cease-fire “right now” but U.S. officials appeared to offer their support to a limited Israeli operation just days after Washington outlined a truce proposal

Displaced families search for safety as shelters fill up
Displaced families searching for safety in Lebanon are struggling to find sanctuary as shelters fill up, with a growing number of people having to sleep in streets, playgrounds and parking lots, according to humanitarian workers.

“Yesterday, we had a terrible night,” Nazih Yahya, a member of the Kafarchouba municipality in southern Lebanon told NBC News. “An Israeli raid hit our next-door house, which was completely demolished.”

She added that she “left in the middle of the night” for the village of Hassbaya, around 10 miles north, before moving on to Saida, Lebanon’s third largest city, around 40 miles east.

“I am talking to you as I drive my car, looking for a place to stay,” Yahya said, adding much of the south appeared to be “empty of people” along the way

Sirens rang out in Tel Aviv and across Israel and loud booms were heard late Tuesday after the Israel Defense Forces said missiles were launched from Iran toward the country.

"The IDF is doing and will do everything necessary to protect the civilians of the State of Israel," the military said in a statement, adding that people in Israel should stay in protected areas "until further notice."

"The explosions you hear originate from interceptions or falls [of missiles]. The air defense system detects and intercepts threats all the time," the IDF said.

The U.S. Embassy in Israel issued a security alert Tuesday telling all U.S. government employees and their families to shelter in place "as a result of the current security situation."