Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday acknowledged his group had suffered an "unprecedented" blow after the explosion of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, but still pledged to defeat any Israeli ground invasion.
The two waves of device detonations on Tuesday and Wednesday killed 37 people and maimed thousands of others. Most of those killed were members of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which acknowledged the deaths in individual statements commemorating each one.
"There’s no doubt that we have been hit, security-wise, in an unprecedented way," Mr Nasrallah said in his first comments on the attacks that rocked Lebanon and filled hospitals with thousands of wounded. "This level of aggression might be unprecedented in our conflict with the Israeli enemy." The attacks "may even be seen as a declaration of war”.
Mr Nasrallah accused Israel of carrying out "terrorist attacks" by hitting at least "5,000 people in two minutes" with the detonations of wireless devices. The number of eye injuries "is high and hospitals are not equipped to handle such a high influx", he said.
He said an internal investigative committee had been formed to look into the details of the attacks from the production of the devices to the moment of detonation.
According to a security source in Beirut, the joint assessment of the Lebanese security agencies is that the devices were rigged “with a small amount of an unknown type of explosives, either at the storage place in Budapest or even in Israel”.
“The bigger probability is that they took them to Israel, rigged them with explosives, and then sent them back to the storage location before Hezbollah shipped them to Lebanon,” the source said.
The attacks came after Israel announced it was shifting its focus to the war with Hezbollah, which has forced tens of thousands of Israelis to abandon their homes in the north of the country.
The Israeli government stated it was determined to change the situation, while the heavily armed militant group declared it would not stop attacking Israel until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.
Despite the recent attacks on Hezbollah members that could disrupt the group's long-term communication, Mr Nasrallah said his heavily armed group was ready to face and defeat an Israeli invasion of south Lebanon.
Any "security belt" set up by Israel will be turned into "hell" and will only push more Israelis out of their homes in the country's north, he said.
As Mr Nasrallah spoke, low-flying Israeli jets released flares over Beirut and generated a massive sonic boom that shook the ground, sending residents into panic.
Hours after his speech Israel conducted dozens of intense, widespread air assaults across southern Lebanon, with the Israeli army saying it struck about 30 rocket launchers and Hezbollah sites.
The attack was preceded by Hezbollah launching a barrage of Falaq missiles into the northern Israeli town of Metula, causing fires and heavy damage to homes. A woman was lightly wounded, Israeli media reported.
Earlier in the day two Israeli soldiers were killed in Hezbollah attacks on Israeli military posts near the border, the military said. The first, in which eight other soldiers were injured, was caused by a barrage of anti-tank missiles. The second Israeli soldier's death was caused by an explosive-laden drone, Israeli media reported.
Key Points
- Protests against President Omar Al Bashir enter their sixth day
- Reports of President Bashir's resignation and arrests of senior government officials
The specs: 2018 BMW R nineT Scrambler
Price, base / as tested Dh57,000
Engine 1,170cc air/oil-cooled flat twin four-stroke engine
Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 110hp) @ 7,750rpm
Torque 116Nm @ 6,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 5.3L / 100km
The biog
Favourite Emirati dish: Fish machboos
Favourite spice: Cumin
Family: mother, three sisters, three brothers and a two-year-old daughter
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
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War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
Fighting with My Family
Director: Stephen Merchant
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Nick Frost, Lena Headey, Florence Pugh, Thomas Whilley, Tori Ellen Ross, Jack Lowden, Olivia Bernstone, Elroy Powell
Four stars
EA Sports FC 26
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3/5
Polarised public
31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all
Source: YouGov
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
THREE
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Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater
Rating: 4/5
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
