Israeli

Footage captured a massive fire raging at the Shehran oil depot on the outskirts of northern Tehran following an Israeli attack late Saturday night. The Israeli military claimed responsibility for striking fuel storage and related sites it alleges are affiliated with the Iranian armed forces.

People are tracking a shepherd who has been walking with his herd for days across Lebanon, fleeing Israeli strikes in the south of the country.

Multiple Gulf nations, Arab states, as well as Turkiye and Azerbaijan have been caught in the crosshairs of the war.

Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency has reported that overnight attacks on Bahrain’s capital, Manama, targeted the Financial Harbour Towers commercial complex, the location of the Israeli embassy in the city.

The first week of the United States-Israel war on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on nations hosting US forces and assets has engulfed the region and beyond into a broader conflict.

The Reuters news agency reported Friday that an Iranian drone was intercepted and destroyed in the vicinity of the complex.

Multiple Gulf nations, Arab states, as well as Turkiye and Azerbaijan have been caught in the crosshairs of the war.

The Saudi Ministry of Defense on Friday said a cruise missile was intercepted and destroyed to the east of the country’s central al-Kharj governorate. The ministry provided no additional information.

The ministry also said later it had intercepted three drones to the east of the Riyadh region.

Additionally, the Qatari Ministry of Defence announced overnight that its air defence forces successfully intercepted a drone attack targeting the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha that hosts US assets.

Earlier, authorities issued an alert warning that the security threat level had been elevated, requiring people to remain indoors and to stay away from windows and other exposed areas.

Several explosions rang out in Doha on Thursday.

European Union leaders expressed support for Arab countries in the Gulf as Iran continues to launch missile and drone attacks on targets across the region, in response to attacks by the US and Israel.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and other European leaders held talks with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) officials on Thursday in Brussels, denouncing what they described as “Iran’s inexcusable attacks against the GCC countries”.

Elsewhere n Friday, air defences shot down several drones in the Jordanian city of Irb, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground.

New videos show destruction across Iran after US and Israeli air strikes, including damage to government buildings, residential neighbourhoods and Iran’s main sports stadium. Iranian media say dozens of strikes have hit multiple locations as fears grow of a wider regional conflict.

For the first time, an F-35 has shot down a crewed aircraft in combat. According to the Israeli military, an Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-35I Adir brought down an Iranian Yak-130 Mitten combat trainer over Tehran. This would also be the first IAF air-to-air kill against a crewed combat aircraft since November 1985, when an F-15 claimed a pair of Syrian MiG-23 Floggers over Lebanon.

The announcement was made earlier today by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) via their social media channels. There are no further details at this point, but the IDF says the engagement occurred “a short time ago.”

There is at least one unverified video that purports to show the stricken Yak-130 coming down, accompanied by two possible ejections, in a mountainous area north of Tehran.

Previously, unverified videos had been posted to social media purporting to show at least one Yak-130 operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) flying over Tehran, while armed with air-to-air missiles.

The shoot-down of Iranian manned tactical jets follows two others that occurred at the hands of the Qatari Air Force, which swatted a pair of Su-24 Fencers out of the sky.

🇶🇦🇮🇷 Qatar claims its forces shot down two Sukhoi Su-24 tactical bombers operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. pic.twitter.com/vfqmWPZlB1

— Status-6 (War & Military News) (@Archer83Able) March 2, 2026

While the Russian-made Yak-130 was developed primarily as an advanced trainer, the jet has a significant combat capability, with the option to carry gun pods, bombs, and rockets as well as R-73 series (AA-11 Archer) infrared-guided air-to-air missiles.

The Yak-130 is among the newest combat aircraft in the Iranian inventory.

As you can read about here, evidence of Yak-130 deliveries to Iran emerged in late 2023, when imagery published by the Tasnim News Agency showed one of the jets in a hangar displaying a high-visibility IRIAF paint scheme. Another video showed a Yak-130 with the same paint job reportedly taxiing at Iran’s Isfahan Air Base.

Undated image and video leak of Yak-130 in Isfahan, Iran. Yesterday there were rumours that 2 Yak-130s had been transferred to Iran, and today these images have been shared through unofficial sources.

These trainers are Iran’s first observed practical step to adopting Su-35s. pic.twitter.com/osIgwwCNOr

— Aᴍɪʀ (@AmirIGM) September 2, 2023

The delivery of Yak-130s to Iran was one of the signs of Tehran securing new Russian equipment in exchange for supplying Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine. This burgeoning military relationship has also seen Russia acquire Iranian drones starting in 2022, after which Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones (and their Russian-made derivatives) have been a staple of Russia’s raids against Ukraine.

In exchange for drones and other supplies, it was expected that Russia would provide more advanced weapons systems to Iran, among them a batch of Su-35 Flanker multirole fighters. The claimed Su-35 deal has yet to materialize.

House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters in February 2023 that Russia would provide Iran Yak-130s, attack helicopters, and radars. The attack helicopters, in the form of Mi-28NE Havoc rotorcraft, began to appear in Iran last month.

Although not in any way comparable to the Su-35, the Yak-130 is arguably the most advanced fast jet in service with Iran overall. However, its combat capabilities are mainly limited to the light attack role, or drone-hunting. According to unconfirmed reports, the Yak-130 that fell victim to an F-35 today was flying a counter-drone mission over the Iranian capital at the time.

At the very least, the fact that one or more Yak-130s have been operating over Tehran in any capacity indicates the IRIAF’s continued ability to put some aircraft in the sky despite the significant blows delivered on the ground by U.S. and Israeli strikes, which have also targeted Iranian airbases. The video below shows Iranian Su-22 Fitter swing-wing attack jets being destroyed on the tarmac by U.S. strikes.

However, the Yak-130 is clearly no match for the F-35.

The IAF has been at the forefront of introducing the Joint Strike Fighter to combat.

In May 2018, Israel announced that it had become the first operator to use the F-35 on offensive operations, and, since then, it has also recorded success in aerial combat against Iranian drones.

Making History:

Last year, Israeli “Adir” (F-35I) fighter jets successfully intercepted two Iranian UAVs launched towards Israeli territory. pic.twitter.com/FQsEjKzxct

— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) March 7, 2022

This time last year, Israel confirmed that its F-35s had flown airstrikes using external ordnance. The F-35’s so-called ‘beast mode,’ featuring heavier loads on underwing pylons, is familiar, but as far as is known, it had not previously been called upon operationally by any other countries.

It’s also worth noting that Israel’s unique F-35I fleet — locally known as the Adir (Hebrew for mighty) — features various local modifications and has frequently been at the forefront of demonstrating new capabilities.

The IAF F-35 fleet has seen extensive combat action since October 2023. It has been involved in raids on targets in Gaza and Lebanon and has also taken part in long-range strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen and against Iran.

These long-endurance missions have been aided by Israel’s reported development of a means of extending the range of its F-35s, allegedly providing them with enough reach to hit targets in Iran without needing aerial refueling.

The Adir has also been used in an air defense capacity against other uncrewed targets, including against Houthi cruise missiles, as you can read about here.

As it stands, the latest milestone in the Israel Air Force’s Adir story is the first instance of an air-to-air kill of a crewed aircraft — as far as we know — by any F-35 operator.

Update, 11:10 a.m. EST

On its website, the IAF has provided more details of the engagement. These suggest that the kill may have been achieved at beyond visual range.

From the article: “Various types of Israeli aircraft were deployed against the hostile aircraft, and the one chosen to deal with the threat was the F-35I, which was endowed with several features that gave it an advantage in the scenario.”

The article quotes Brigadier General D., commander of Nevatim Base, from where the F-35 was launched:

“It has particularly advanced sensors, which were able to lock onto the target quickly and accurately, and is armed with long-range missiles, which the pilots are particularly trained in, and are suitable for this type of mission.”

Brigadier General D. continues:

“We detected it, got on it — and launched at it. There was no overly complicated air battle here, no dogfight or aerial scuffle. There was a rapid response here — which ended in making history in the skies of Iran.”

Update, March 5:

The IAF has now released footage showing the engagement of the Yak-130 shootdown:

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Washington, DC – On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided a looping justification for the US launching a war against Iran: Israel was planning to strike Iran, which would have prompted Tehran to strike the US assets in the region, requiring Washington to launch preemptive strikes on Iran.

Even as the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to roll back claims made by several officials in recent days, they have continued to spark dismay across the political spectrum.

Rubio’s statement was particularly notable, given the assessment by many Iran analysts that the US-Israel war, which has led to regional retaliation from Iran, serves the interests not of Washington, but of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Washington is seen as having outsized leverage over Israel, to which it has provided more than $300bn in military aid since 1948, including $21bn during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Trump, when asked about Rubio’s statement on Tuesday, appeared to offer a different characterisation, saying he launched the war because he “thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked”.

“They [Iran] were getting ready to attack Israel. They were gonna attack others,” he said.

The US president has spent the days since launching the initial strikes on Saturday arguing that the holistic threat posed by Iran justified the US-Israeli strikes, a position that experts say likely stands in contravention of both US and international law. The administration has provided scant evidence of a planned attack on US assets or that either Iran’s nuclear or ballistic programmes offered an immediate threat.

Rubio on Monday also sought to distance himself from his statements, claiming his words had been taken out of context.

Rubio had, in earlier comments, pointed to the broader threat posed by Iran, including its ballistic missile and drone capacity. But then he turned to what he called the question of “why now?”

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” he told reporters. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

‘Stunning admission’

The shifting messaging on Tuesday was unlikely to allay the condemnation from Trump critics and supporters alike, including several influential figures within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told Al Jazeera that “what he’s basically publicly acknowledging would be that the United States was entrapped by the Israelis”.

“The notion that the Israelis were going to do it anyway, and so we had to do it as well – if that’s the case, then there’s a really serious conversation to be had here in the United States about US and Israeli interests, and where those are aligned and where they diverge,” Grieco said.

Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch, in a post on X, questioned: “Why is it in America’s interest to arm and fund Israel to draw America into an unnecessary war?”

In an earlier post, he said Rubio’s logic “isn’t even close to a legal rationale” for launching the war.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), meanwhile, called Rubio’s words on Monday a “stunning admission”.

In a statement, it said Rubio had revealed “what was clear from the start: the United States did not attack Iran because Iran posed an imminent threat to our nation. We attacked under pressure from Israel for Israel’s benefit”.

The organisation called on Congress to pass war powers resolutions to rein in Trump’s ability to wage war.

Looming war powers vote

Lawmakers have pledged to introduce the legislation in both the House of Representatives and Senate this week, although it is likely to face an uphill battle amid Republican opposition.

Trump’s party maintains razor-thin majorities in both chambers, and most Republican lawmakers have rallied behind the war and the reasons the administration has given for launching attacks.

War powers resolutions would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a presidential veto, although advocates have long argued they offer an opportunity for lawmakers to put their stance on the record.

In a statement on Tuesday, progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders was among the lawmakers condemning the administration’s war.

“Netanyahu wanted war with Iran. Trump just gave it to him,” Sanders said.

The Israeli prime minister has, for more than two decades, called for the toppling of Iran’s government, and has been a leading opponent to diplomacy related to Iran’s nuclear programme.

During that time, Netanyahu has repeatedly pushed claims that Iran was on the immediate precipice of developing a nuclear weapon.

“American foreign and military policy must be determined by the American people,” Sanders wrote. “Not the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government.”

Thomas Massie, a Republican representative who has spearheaded the war powers push, connected Rubio’s statement to Trump’s “America First” pledges to prioritise domestic issues in the US.

“Before it’s over, the price of gas, groceries, and virtually everything else is going to go up,” Massie posted on X. “The only winners in [the US] are defence company shareholders.”

‘Worst possible thing he could have said’

Several influential figures in Trump’s MAGA base said Rubio’s statements were further inflaming the growing discontent over the war.

Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh said Rubio was “flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”

Responding to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s reiteration of Rubio’s claims, former congressman and Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz said: “In making these statements, which are undeniably true, America looks like such a supplicant.”

Pro-Trump brothers Keith and Kevin Hodge, who run the influential pro-Trump X account HodgeTwins, with 3.5 million followers, also decried the administration’s actions.

“We did not vote for send[ing] Americans to die for Israel’s wars,” they posted on Tuesday. “We won’t stay silent about this.”

Ali Harb contributed reporting. 

Explosions have rung out across Tehran as the war entered its fourth day with the United States and Israel continuing to pound Iran’s capital and numerous other cities and locations after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Iran continued on Tuesday to retaliate against Israel and throughout the Gulf where nations host US assets.

At least 787 people have been killed in US-Israeli strikes on a minimum of 131 cities across Iran, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said on Tuesday.

Israel’s military said it had “struck and dismantled” the headquarters of Iran’s state radio and television broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), accusing it of “calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and for the use of nuclear weapons”.

In a post on Telegram, IRIB reported explosions near its headquarters in Tehran but said there had been no disruption to its operations.

Tehran’s streets have been largely deserted as people take shelter during the air strikes.

Iranian media also reported explosions in the city of Karaj, just outside Tehran, as well as in the central city of Isfahan.

Iran held a mass funeral on Tuesday for 165 schoolgirls and staff killed on Saturday in what Iran said was a US-Israeli attack on a school in the southern city of Minab.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 50 people. It says the strikes are a response to Hezbollah rockets and drones fired into Israel to protest the US-Israeli killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Heavy Israeli air strikes have hit multiple parts of Tehran including near the building of Iran’s state broadcaster and the central prison complex. Explosions have been heard across the city.

Secretary of state says he hopes Iranian people would overthrow regime as US military says six service members killed.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has suggested that a planned Israeli attack against Iran determined the timing of Washington’s assault against the government in Tehran.

The United States’ top diplomat told reporters on Monday that Washington was aware that Israel was going to attack Iran, and that Tehran would retaliate against US interests in the region, so American forces struck pre-emptively.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said.

The US secretary of state’s comments came minutes before the US military confirmed that its death toll from the conflict has risen to six after recovering two bodies from a regional facility struck by Iran.

Tehran retaliated against the joint US-Israeli attacks that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, several top officials and hundreds of civilians with drone and missile launches across the region, including against American bases and assets in the Gulf.

Rubio’s assertion highlights the Israeli role in bringing about the war, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking for years.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said the attacks on Iran are happening with the assistance of his “friend”, US President Donald Trump.

“This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years,” the Israeli prime minister said in a video message.

For his part, Rubio told reporters on Monday that an attack on Iran had to happen because Tehran was amassing missiles and drones that it would have used to protect its nuclear programme and acquire an atomic bomb.

Israel and the US launched the war less than 48 hours after a round of talks between American and Iranian officials over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Rubio said the goal of the war is to destroy Iran’s missile and drone programmes, but stressed the US would welcome ending the current ruling system in Tehran.

“We would not be heartbroken, and we hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government and establish a new future for that country. We would love for that to be possible,” he said.

March 1 (UPI) — The Israeli military was attacking Hezbollah targets in neighboring Lebanon, amid worries that its war with the United States against Iran may escalate and spill across the region.

The Israel Defense Forces announced its military offensive hours after sirens triggered by projectiles launched from Lebanon sounded throughout northern Israel.

The Israeli strikes were retaliatory, the IDF said in a statement.

Strikes targeted senior Hezbollah operatives in the capital, Beirut, according to the Israeli Air Force, which said it also struck “a key terrorist” in southern Lebanon.

“Hezbollah opened a campaign against Israel overnight, and is fully responsible for any escalation,” IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said in a statement.

“Any enemy that threatens our security will pay a heavy price — we will not allow any harm to come to the people of Israel and our northern border.”

In an update, the IDF said targets included command and control centers, launch sites and senior Hezbollah operatives.

In the recorded statement, an IDF spokesperson said they were prepared for a Hezbollah response prior to attacking Iran on Saturday.

The spokesperson said Israeli fighter jets were continuing to strike Iran.

According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, at least 31 people were killed and 149 wounded in the overnight attacks in the country’s south and Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, the state-run National News Agency reported.

It said 11 were killed and 58 injured in south Lebanon and 20 killed and 91 injured in the southern suburbs.

The strikes come less than 48 hours after the United States and Israel began their military operation to force regime change in Iran. Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the strikes, along with other senior officials. Iran will form a three-member interim council until a new leader is chosen, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

Iran has responded by attacking U.S. bases throughout the Middle East. Tehran’s proxy militias have also launched attacks, including Hezbollah.

Three U.S. service members were killed and five seriously injured in Kuwait. At least nine Israelis were killed in strikes in Beit Shemesh, located about 20 miles west of Jerusalem, Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said in a statement. More than 20 were injured in the strike.

In Iran, more than 200 people have been killed, according to state media citing the Red Crescent. The Iran Mission to the United Nations said more than 150 school children were killed in a strike on a school in the southern city of Minab.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned the launching of rockets from southern Lebanon toward Israel.

He described the Hezbollah strikes as “an irresponsible and suspicious act that endangers Lebanon’s security and safety and provides Israel with pretexts to continue its attacks.”

“We will not allow the country to be dragged into new adventures, and we will take all necessary measures to stop the perpetrators and protect the Lebanese.”

Videos show heavy bombardment of Tehran after Israel’s military said it had launched another wave of attacks on Iran.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians are leaving areas in Beirut following Israeli strikes and forced displacement orders. Earlier Hezbollah launched a retaliatory attack on Israel. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr is amid the heavy traffic.

The United States and Israel have attacked Iran, and Tehran has retaliated, firing missiles at Israeli targets and US assets in the region.

The attacks come after weeks of Washington’s massive build-up of military assets in the Middle East, as well as indirect talks between the US and Iran over its nuclear programme.

So, how dangerous is the situation?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Daniel Levy – president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator

Mehran Kamrava – professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar

Richard Weitz – senior fellow at the NATO Defense College in Washington, DC

At an emergency UN Security Council meeting in New York on Saturday afternoon, US Ambassador Mike Waltz said the strikes were “directed toward specific and strategic objectives: to dismantle missile capabilities that threaten allies, to degrade naval assets used to destabilise international waters, and to disrupt the machinery that arms proxy militias and to ensure the Iranian regime, never ever can threaten the world with a nuclear weapon”.

Thousands of worshippers attend prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, with others turned away despite carrying required permits.

About 100,000 Palestinian worshippers have prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem for the second Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite Israel imposing severe restrictions on access to the holy site.

Worshippers were subjected to thorough security screening on Friday as they made their way through the Qalandiya checkpoint in the occupied West Bank north of Jerusalem to pray, an Al Jazeera team reported, amid a heavy deployment of Israeli forces around the city.

Israeli authorities imposed rules at the start of Ramadan to limit entry for Friday prayers to just 10,000 Palestinian worshippers with daily permits – a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands who would attend in normal years.

Under the Israeli rules, only men over 55, women 50 years or older, and children under 12, accompanied by a relative, are permitted to enter.

Visitors are also required to complete digital verification procedures at crossings when returning to the West Bank.

Bans on individuals

As well as the restrictions, Israeli authorities recently announced bans on 280 Jerusalem residents, including religious figures, journalists, and released prisoners, from attending prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The push to limit Palestinians’ access to the holy site during Ramadan is widely seen as part of an effort to pressure Palestinian communities and erase the Palestinian cultural identity of occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians view as the capital of their future state.

The restrictions have further increased since the genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Turned away despite permits

Despite the restrictions, attendance at the mosque was considerably higher than the supposed cap of 10,000 visitors, as it was the previous week, when Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf, the religious authority that administers the compound, said 80,000 people attended the first Friday prayers of Ramadan.

Yet many Palestinians who attempted to attend, including some who said they had the necessary permits, found themselves turned away by Israeli authorities.

Najati Oweida, who travelled from Hebron, told Anadolu that Israeli soldiers turned him back despite presenting a permit.

“The occupation claims it has provided facilitation, but the procedures are strict,” he said. “I only want to pray at Al-Aqsa. Why am I being prevented?”

Another man, Ali Nawas, 58, told the news agency that he and his wife had travelled for more than an hour from Nablus in the occupied West Bank, only for his wife to be turned back at the Qalandiya checkpoint, despite her having a permit.

“I was forced to return with her. How could she go back to Nablus alone?” he said.

Hamas says latest attacks show Israel’s ‘blatant disregard for the efforts of mediators, and its complete disregard for the Peace Council and its role’.

At least five Palestinians have been killed in Israeli drone attacks targeting two police posts in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip and the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis in the south, as Israel presses on with its more than two-year genocidal war on the devastated enclave.

The attacks overnight into Friday were condemned by Hamas as undermining mediator efforts during a “ceasefire” phase that Israel has violated almost daily since October 10.

Medical sources at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis reported the arrival of three bodies and several wounded individuals following an Israeli military strike on a police checkpoint at the al-Maslakh intersection in al-Mawasi. The sources said that the strike occurred in an area outside the Israeli military’s control, and described the condition of some of the wounded as critical.

In the central Gaza Strip, two Palestinians were killed and others were injured in a similar Israeli drone strike that targeted a police post at the entrance to the Bureij refugee camp.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said that the rising number of deaths as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombardment across the Gaza Strip reflects “the Zionist occupation’s blatant disregard for the efforts of mediators, and its complete disregard for the Peace Council and its role”.

Qassem added, in a statement, that Israel is continuing its war of extermination against the Palestinian people, despite some changes to form and method, indicating that “the talk of the guarantor states about stopping the war lacks any real substance on the ground”.

One killed and 29 others wounded in latest Israeli attack in violation of ceasefire.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley have killed one person and wounded 29 others, the latest in a series of ceasefire violations.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health announced that a “16-year-old Syrian boy was killed”, the National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday. He was named as Hussein Mohsen al-Khalaf and was killed in a strike on Kfar Dan near Baalbek, the L’Orient news outlet reported.

At least 13 air strikes were recorded, four in Shmestar, five in Boudai, two in Harbata and two in the Hermel and Nabi Chit mountains, according to NNA. Several shops were damaged in the Baalbek Souk in Tallet al-Ajami.

The Israeli military said it targeted eight camps belonging to Hezbollah’s special operations unit, the Radwan Force. It said weapons and missiles were stored there and training was conducted “as part of preparations for emergency situations, and to plan and execute terrorist plots”. It said this activity was a “violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.

Ceasefire violations

Israel’s military has continued to carry out attacks in Lebanon, despite a November 2024 ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that sought to bring an end to more than a year of fighting. More than 300 people have been killed since then, including 127 civilians, according to the United Nations.

Last week, at least 12 people were killed in Israeli strikes on the Bekaa Valley and the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the city of Sidon. Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah and Hamas command centres.

Lebanon filed a complaint with the UN in January, detailing a total of 2,036 Israeli violations between October and December 2025 alone. It called on the UN Security Council to compel Israel to end these actions and to fully withdraw from its borders.

Israel continues to occupy parts of Lebanon, blocking the reconstruction of border villages and preventing people from returning to their homes.

Lebanon’s government has said it has almost completed its ceasefire commitment to disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani River. It said it will need four months to complete the second phase.

However, Hezbollah has rejected this, saying it believes the disarmament in the ceasefire agreement only applies to areas south of the river.

The United Kingdom’s government is investing in spyware developed and tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank despite its public criticism of Israeli action there.

In addition to the Corsight facial recognition technology used to track, trace and detain thousands of Palestinian civilians passing through checkpoints in Gaza and the West Bank, the UK government has disregarded its own public concerns over Israel’s war on Gaza and de facto annexation of the West Bank and has purchased spyware from at least two other Israeli-linked manufacturers: Cellebrite and BriefCam.

Cellebrite

Cellebrite is an Israeli company closely linked to that country’s military. It has developed software that can bypass passwords and security protocols on smartphones and computers and access data from them.

That software has been used extensively by the Israeli military on Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank, including to harvest data from the phones of thousands of detained Palestinians, many of whom have been subjected to systematic torture, a report by the American Friends Service Committee said.

Cellebrite is also reported to have received support from the United States Department of Defense to work on technology designed to map underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip.

Despite its stated public concerns over Israeli action in Gaza and the West Bank, records show the UK has entered into several agreements to take advantage of the technology used by Israel in Palestinian territory.

According to public records, a number of UK police forces have purchased access to Cellebrite software, including the City of London Police, which renewed its one-year contract with the Israeli company for more than 95,000 pounds ($128,600) in June. Leicestershire Police also renewed its contract with the Israeli spyware company in March for 328,688 pounds ($445,300). The British Transport Police, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, Kent and Essex police, and Northumbria Police have also entered into contracts with Cellebrite.

Inquiries from Al Jazeera to the UK Home Office, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and the UK Police’s commercial agent, Blue Light Services, have all gone unanswered.

However, while declining to comment on “specific customer relationships or contracts”, Victor Cooper, Cellebrite’s senior director of corporate communication, rejected the characterisation of the company’s activities as “hacking”, instead saying, “Cellebrite’s solutions are forensic tools used in legally sanctioned investigations and require physical possession of the device. They do not enable remote access.”

Rights groups have raised concerns over Cellebrite exporting its technology to hardline states worldwide, including Myanmar, Serbia and Belarus, where it has been used to extract information from the phones of opposition figures, journalists and activists.

BriefCam

The Israeli-founded company BriefCam, which was acquired by Canon in 2018 and then by the Danish company Milestone Systems last year, has been providing the UK’s Cumbria Police with surveillance software since at least 2022.

A further disclosure by Police Scotland in June confirms that Scotland’s police service is also considering using the service.

BriefCam was founded in 2007 by Shmuel Peleg, Gideon Ben-Zvi and Yaron Caspi based on technology developed at Israel’s Hebrew University.

The company provides video synopsis programmes to law enforcement agencies, governments and companies. Police forces and private firms can use BriefCam’s Protect & Insights platform to sift through and condense hours of CCTV and home-surveillance footage, making it easily searchable.

The system includes facial-recognition and licence-plate search tools and allows police to build “watch lists” of specific faces or vehicle plates.

The technology has been used in East Jerusalem, Palestinian territory illegally occupied by Israel.

According to undated files accessed by the research centre Who Profits, a tender document published by the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction inviting companies to bid for maintenance contracts for 98 security systems within East Jerusalem specified that the successful bidder must be able to maintain BriefCam’s software. Israeli public records also show that in 2021, Israeli police committed to a contract valued at $1m for BriefCam’s video analysis systems.

A May 2023 report by the rights group Amnesty International documented how surveillance technology, such as that provided by BriefCam, was instrumental in maintaining Israel’s subjugation of Palestinians.

According to the report, the use of surveillance software is critical in maintaining the “continued domination and oppression of Palestinians … [w]ith a record of discriminatory and inhuman acts that maintain a system of apartheid”.

While not mentioning BriefCam by name, the report continued: “The Israeli authorities are able to use facial recognition software – in particular at checkpoints – to consolidate existing practices of discriminatory policing, segregation, and curbing freedom of movement, violating Palestinians’ basic rights.”

According to the company, the software can also filter footage by a wide range of characteristics, including gender, age group, clothing, movement patterns and time spent in a given location.

And that, despite the technology’s links to the oppression of Palestinians, is what makes it attractive to UK police forces.

Cumbria Police has said it does not currently use the facial recognition capabilities of BriefCam’s technology.

A spokesperson for Cumbria Police also clarified that the force has been using BriefCam for “several years” and, before introducing the technology, it had “consulted Cumbria’s independent Ethics and Integrity Panel and Strategic Independent Advisory Group”.

A request for a copy of those findings went unanswered.

Corsight

As previously reported by Al Jazeera, the Israeli company Corsight, through a subcontract with UK company Digital Barriers, has also been selected by the UK Home Office to play a key role in its expansion of facial recognition vans.

In March 2024, long before the UK government chose to include Corsight within its rollout of facial recognition technology, The New York Times revealed that misgivings over Corsight’s facial-recognition technology in Gaza had led to various members of the Israeli military voicing objections to its use by Unit 8200, Israel’s cyberintelligence branch.

The expansion of systems such as those marketed by Corsight, Cellebrite and BriefCam is part of a global trade in Israeli spyware, developed and refined through prolonged surveillance of Palestinians, that is now being exported worldwide.

Rights groups warned that techniques pioneered in Israel are being used by governments to target activists, journalists and political opponents as concerns deepen over the spread of unregulated cyberwarfare tools.

“The government and police should not be awarding contracts to Israeli spyware firms under any circumstances,” Palestine Solidarity Campaign Deputy Director Ryvka Barnard told Al Jazeera. “These companies develop and test their products through Israel’s regime of military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. It is unacceptable for public money to be given to these companies, allowing them to profit from and develop new products used to surveil and harm Palestinians.”

A Palestinian mother from Gaza says she recognised her missing son, Mohammed Sharab, when he was shown shackled, blindfolded and listed as ‘for sale’ in a post shared by Israeli soldiers.

US embassy services will be available in the illegal West Bank settlement of Efrat, starting on February 27.

The United States has announced it will soon provide in-person passport services at an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The US Embassy in Jerusalem said it would start providing the service for Efrat, located between the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem and Hebron, on February 27.

It will be the first time the US has “provided consular services to a settlement in the West Bank”, according to a US embassy spokesperson quoted by the Reuters news agency.

The embassy said it would plan similar on-site services in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the illegal Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit near Bethlehem, and in cities within Israel, such ⁠as Haifa.

The US currently offers passport and consular services at its embassy in West Jerusalem as well ⁠as at a Tel Aviv branch office.

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, home to 3 million Palestinians who seek the territory as part of a future state, are illegal under international law.

Nevertheless, far-right Israeli politicians have openly called for Israel to increase settlement expansion, or even annex the Palestinian territory.

This month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government approved measures to expand control over the occupied West Bank and claim large tracts of Palestinian territory as Israeli “state property”.

The move was roundly condemned by more than 80 United Nations member countries.

Much of the West Bank is already under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-government in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

According to the International Court of Justice, about 465,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied Palestinian territory, spread across some 300 illegal settlements and outposts.

Among them are an estimated tens of thousands of dual US-Israeli nationals. The Efrat settlement is home to many American immigrants.

US President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has said he opposes Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank. But his administration has ‌not taken any steps to curb Israel’s expanding settlement presence.

In addition to advancing settlements, Israeli forces regularly carry out violent raids, demolitions, and arrests in the occupied West Bank, where attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have also intensified, often under the protection of Israeli soldiers.

In January alone, at least 694 Palestinians were driven from their homes in the West Bank because of Israeli settler violence and harassment, the highest number since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza erupted in October 2023, according to the United Nations.

Attack on Nablus-area mosque is latest in surge of Israeli settler and military violence targeting Palestinians.

Israeli settlers have defaced and set fire to a mosque in the occupied West Bank during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, marking the latest incident in a wave of Israeli violence against Palestinians in the territory.

The Wafa news agency reported on Monday that settlers graffitied racist slogans on the walls of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq Mosque, located between the towns of Sarra and Tal, near Nablus in the north of the West Bank.

Worshippers arriving for the day’s first prayers found the damage and a smouldering fire that spewed black smoke across the mosque’s entrance and stained the ornate doorway, The Associated Press reported.

“I was shocked when I opened the door,” Munir Ramdan, who lives nearby, told the news agency. “The fire had been burning here in the area, the glass was broken here and the door was broken.”

Ramdan told AP that security camera footage showed two people walking towards the mosque carrying gasoline or petrol and a can of spray paint, and running away a few minutes later.

The attackers spray-painted graffiti denigrating the Prophet Muhammad, as well as the words “revenge” and “price tag” – a term used to describe attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property.

The assault comes amid a wave of intensified Israeli settler and military violence across the West Bank in the shadow of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the nearby Gaza Strip.

At least 1,094 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza war began in October 2023, according to the latest United Nations figures.

Last week, the UN Human Rights Council warned in a new report (PDF) that Israeli policies in the West Bank – including “the systematic unlawful use of force by Israeli security forces” and unlawful demolitions of Palestinian homes – aim to uproot Palestinian communities.

“These violations, together with pervasive and growing settler violence committed with impunity, are fundamental to the coercive environment that induces forced displacement and forcible transfer, which is a war crime,” the report said.

It added that these policies are aimed at “altering the character, status and demographic composition of the occupied West Bank, raising serious concerns of ethnic cleansing”.

Back in the West Bank village of Tal on Monday, resident Salem Ishtayeh told AP that the Israeli settlers’ assault on the local mosque was “directed especially” at Palestinians who are fasting during Ramadan.

“So they like to provoke you with words. It’s not that they are attacking you personally, they are attacking your religion, the Islamic faith,” Ishtayeh said.

According to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, settlers vandalised or attacked 45 mosques in the West Bank last year.

The Israeli military and police said they responded to the latest incident and were searching for suspects.

But human rights groups say the Israeli authorities have allowed the settlers to operate with total impunity in their attacks against Palestinians.

Israeli organisation B’Tselem has accused Israel of actively aiding the settlers’ violence “as part of a strategy to cement the takeover of Palestinian land”.

The UN also warned last year that settler attacks were being carried out “with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces”.