Key events
Muslims around the world are observing Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, the second major festival in Islam. In Lebanon, war and displacement have overshadowed celebrations, as Israeli attacks continue to inflict death and destruction on the beleaguered country.
The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said Eid has come as Lebanon “is still enduring the most difficult circumstances, of war, destruction, and tragedies”.
“Yet Eid remains an occasion to hold fast to hope and confidence in our ability to achieve our goal of building a strong and just state to raise Lebanon up,” he wrote on X.
Opening summary
Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Israel pounded Lebanon with more than 120 airstrikes on Tuesday in one of the heaviest days of bombing in weeks, Lebanese security sources said, as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his military was deepening its operations in the country.
The bombing raids further strained a ceasefire announced on 16 April that was meant to halt fighting between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, and came as Iran said the US had violated a separate truce by striking southern Iran.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes had killed 31 people and wounded 40, state news agency NNA reported on Wednesday. It said 14 people were killed in the town of Burj al-Shamali in southern Lebanon, including two children and three women.
In a statement on Tuesday, Netanyahu said the Israeli military “is operating with large forces in the field and capturing and controlling areas”.
“We are fortifying the security strip to protect the northern communities,” he said in a reference to a self-declared security zone occupied by Israeli troops several kilometres inside southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said on Tuesday it had targeted Israeli forces and tanks advancing toward the southern Lebanese town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya with explosive drones, rockets and artillery.
Here are the main developments in the Middle East conflict:
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On Monday Netanyahu said Israel was “intensifying” its military operations in Lebanon, with the IDF operating with “large forces on the ground” in order to take control of “strategic areas”.
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Meanwhile, the proposed peace agreement between Iran and the US seemed to remain on the table despite US bombings of Iranian targets. The Iranian foreign ministry denounced the US attack – aimed at missile launchers and efforts to lay fresh mines in the strait of Hormuz – as “an act of bad faith” and “a definitive violation of the ceasefire” and said it would not leave aggression unanswered. But Iran did not pull out of talks that were continuing under the joint mediation of Pakistan and Qatar. Here’s our report.
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US president Donald Trump will hold a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, with the Iran war expected to be at the top of the agenda. All cabinet members, including outgoing director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who leaves her post on 30 June, were expected to attend the meeting.
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US Central Command denied reports that that US navy has “quietly” resumed so-called ‘Project Freedom’ in the strait of Hormuz. “US forces are not currently escorting commercial vessels through the strait of Hormuz,” Centcom said in a statement shared on X.
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Oil rose back above $100 a barrel on Tuesday, after the fresh US strikes on Iran dashed hopes of a breakthrough, with experts saying that whatever the outcome of peace talks, the global energy market may now be past the “point of no return”.
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In Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed to have killed Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Odeh in an airstrike, 11 days after killing his predecessor. In a statement on X, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, praised the IDF and intelligence agency Shin Bet for their “brilliant execution”.
