Key developments amid fears of Israeli three-front war
Israel has sparked fears of a three-front war in the Middle East as it massed hundreds of tanks on its border with Lebanon amid a continued bombardment of the country.
As the Middle East teeters on the brink of all-out war, Israeli forces opened a second front on Sunday as it launched "large-scale" air strikes on Yemen against "military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime".
Israel's third front - its ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza - also intensified when Hamas said its leader in Lebanon was killed in an air strike by the Israeli military.
The latest attacks indicate Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive on multiple fronts even after eliminating the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and much of the militant group's leadership in Lebanon.
Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are all part of a so-called "Axis of Resistance", an informal Iranian-led military coalition in the Middle East led by Iran. In response to the latest wave of attacks, Iran said it would not leave any of Israel's "criminal acts" go unanswered.
Read below for the key developments from our media partners, or click the headline to skip ahead
> Three-front war fear as Israel strikes Yemen power plant
> Israel 'strikes central Beirut' as apartment building flattened
> Israel strikes Houthi targets in Yemen
> Hezbollah leadership ‘wiped out’ by Israel
> Israeli strikes kill Hamas leader in Lebanon
Three-front war fear as Israel strikes Yemen power plant
Israel opened up a war on three fronts with major air strikes on Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen on Sunday. Huge explosions rocked the Red Sea state as Israel took revenge for missile attacks launched by the Iran-backed group.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed the strikes, describing them as “extensive, intelligence-based aerial operation” involving dozens of aircraft, saying they included "power plants and a seaport used to import oil, which were used by the Houthi terrorist regime to transfer Iranian weapons to the region".
Israel 'strikes central Beirut' as apartment building flattened
The first apparent Israeli airstrike in central Beirut in a year of conflict flattened an apartment building as Hamas said one of its commanders has been killed in a separate attack in Lebanon.
The Israeli Defence Force did not provide immediate confirmation on the strike, which hit a residential neighbourhood in the centre of Lebanon’s capital, killing at least one person and wounding 16.
The person killed was a member of the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni political and militant group that is allied with Hezbollah.
Israel strikes Houthi targets in Yemen
Israel launched a wave of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday. The fresh assaults on Iran-backed proxies across the Middle East risk accelerating a slide towards a devastating regional conflict on multiple fronts.
The attack on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen involved dozens of Israeli planes and appears to have targeted fuel facilities, power plants and docks at the Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports, with reports that four people were killed and 33 were wounded.
Hezbollah leadership ‘wiped out’ by Israel
Israel has claimed to have wiped out much of Hezbollah’s leadership in recent air strikes, as Lebanon said the bombing campaign has now forced a fifth of the country’s population to flee their homes.
The Lebanese militant group has now confirmed the deaths of seven senior officials slain by Israel in just over a week, including its leader of 32 years, Hassan Nasrallah, in a strike Israel claimed also killed 20 other Hezbollah members in southern Beirut on Friday.
Those include founding members of the group first established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 1982, who had previously evaded death or detention at Israel’s hands for decades until Israel’s decision this month to launch its heaviest bombing campaign against Lebanon since the 2006 war.
Israeli strikes kill Hamas leader in Lebanon and three Palestinian leaders in Beirut
Hamas said an Israeli strike killed its leader in Lebanon on Monday, while another Palestinian militant group said three of its leaders were killed in a strike on Beirut, the first attack within the city limits.
Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed, along with his wife, son, and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre in the early hours of Monday.
As Israel escalates hostilities against Iran's allies in the region, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said three of its leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut's Kola district.
