Live: Israel ramps up strikes on Gaza after Iran attack

The United States and France have been working together to draft an agreement for a temporary truce between Israel and Hezbollah, after Israel launched a major military escalation against Lebanon on Monday.

Reuters reported that the plan would be made public "very soon".

US, French and Arab officials believe the reality on the ground in Lebanon is different from that of Gaza and might make a truce between Hezbollah and Israel more achievable.

“Israel has put Hezbollah on their backheels. They aren’t in a good position,” a former senior US official told MEE.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said that Israel would use all the means at its disposal in Lebanon if a diplomatic solution were to fail.

One Arab official and a former US official told MEE that the Biden administration is rushing to achieve a 21-day truce between Hezbollah and Israel, in the hopes it can provide an offramp to full-scale regional war.

The United States is working on a statement calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon, Reuters reported citing a US official.

The official said the statement, an attempt to avoid a broader war in the Middle East, would likely be released later on Wednesday.

The Biden administration is rushing to achieve a weeks-long truce between Hezbollah and Israel that it hopes can provide an offramp to full-scale regional war, one Arab official and former US official told Middle East Eye.

The US is aiming for a 21-day pause in fighting, the former senior US official told MEE. The Arab official said that Biden administration officials are speaking with Lebanese and French officials to push for a deal.

A US official in the region also confirmed to MEE that a “big push” was underway to stop the fighting.

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US pushing for 21-day truce between Hezbollah-Israel to avert wider war

Emgage Action, a Muslim American political organisation, announced in a statement on Wednesday it is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming US presidential election.

The endorsement is a departure from other Muslim American groups, who have called on Muslims to vote third-party in the election, citing outrage over the Democratic Party's support for the war on Gaza.

"To prevent Trump from returning to the White House, Emgage Action is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz for President and Vice President," read the statement from Emgage.

"This endorsement is not an agreement with Vice President Harris on all issues, but rather, an honest guidance to our voters regarding the difficult choice they confront at the ballot box."

The endorsement from Emgage caused a controversy on social media, with users criticising Emgage for telling voters not to cast their ballots for a third-party candidate.

Abdul Majid al-Awad, an official in Hamas's political and media relations office in Lebanon, told the Quds Network that Hamas has been in "full coordination with Hezbollah" since the beginning of the war on Gaza.

"Hamas has been in full coordination with Hezbollah and all resistance forces since the beginning of the battle, and it confirms that it is concerned with the necessity of a comprehensive halt to the Israeli aggression in Gaza and Lebanon, based on the conditions of the resistance," the official said.

Israel's General Herzi Halevi told troops to prepare for a potential ground incursion of Lebanon. Halevi told soldiers that Israel’s air strikes on Lebanon were being conducted “to prepare the ground for your possible entry” into Lebanon.

“We are preparing the process of a manoeuvre, which means your military boots, your manoeuvring boots, will enter enemy territory, enter villages that Hizbollah has prepared as large military outposts,” according to a statement from the military.

Halevi’s remarks came as Israel called up two reserve brigades to serve in the north, saying their activation would “enable the continuation of combat” against Hezbollah.

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Israel puts troops on alert for possible ground incursion into Lebanon

Israel's military killed four people in an air strike on a house near Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city.

Two of those killed were women, the Palestinian civil defence agency said.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters that the US is not providing any intelligence or other support to Israel in its recent attacks on Lebanon.

"No," Singh said in response to a question from a reporter on whether Washington was providing any sort of support to Israel's military's actions in Lebanon.

The Islamic Resistance, an Iraq-based umbrella group of militias, claimed the recent drone attack on Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat. The attack injured at least two people, according to Israeli reports.

Lebanon's National News Agency is reporting that the country's civil defence managed to retrieve the bodies of three people killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maaysra, a town north of Beirut.

The bodies were of two women and a man, and the civil defence is continuing rescue operations.

An explosion was reported in Israel's port city of Eilat, located off the Red Sea. Israeli media is reporting, citing Israel's military, that the explosion was caused by an armed drone.

At least two people were injured in the explosion.

Israel sent a truck filled with the decomposed bodies of nearly 90 Palestinians to Gaza on Wednesday, which the territory’s health ministry refused to bury, citing Israel's failure to disclose details about who they are and where they were killed.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health, which has worked tirelessly to treat wounded Palestinians and get humanitarian assistance into the enclave, said in a statement that it was refusing to accept the latest arrivals after the Israeli military sent them without providing "their names, ages, genders, or the areas in which they were killed and kidnapped".

Iyad Qadeeh, a media official at the Ministry of Health, said that Wednesday's arrival was the fifth time that authorities had received a truck load of unidentified corpses.

He told Middle East Eye that from now on health officials would refuse to accept any more bodies without identifying information.

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Palestinians demand answers after Israel sends truck full of decomposed bodies to Gaza

Amid the ongoing Israeli escalation in Lebanon, Middle East Eye's Nader Durgham goes through and debunks a number of claims about Lebanon and Hezbollah.

As Israel expands its attacks on Lebanon, MEE's @NaderDurgham reporting from Mount Lebanon, debunks several claims made by Israel about Lebanon and Hezbollah pic.twitter.com/B9JIWxtNtT

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 25, 2024

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, released video footage showing a group of fighters targeting a convoy of Israeli armed vehicles near Rafah with rocket-propelled grenade fire (RPG).

The video, which the group says is from 23 September, shows two vehicles being hit with RPGs - one tank and one bulldozer.