Footage of Israeli soldiers pushing Palestinian bodies off roof ‘deeply disturbing’, says US – as it happened

An Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday killed at least 14 people and injured 66 others, in what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said was a targeted assassination of a senior Hezbollah leader.

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• At least 14 people were killed and 66 injured as a result of the Israeli strike in Beirut, according to Lebanese authorities. It was the third time that the Lebanese capital has been hit by an Israeli airstrike since fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started in October last year.

• The Israeli military said the strike killed Ibrahim Aqil, one of the last founder members of Hezbollah’s military wing to have survived more than 40 years of conflict with Israel. Israel said Aqil, the leader of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan special forces, was killed along with 10 other senior commanders of the unit.

• Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Israel’s attacks would continue after the Beirut strike. “The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” Gallant posted on X.

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has postponed his trip to the US by a day due to the security situation in the country’s north. Netanyahu was due to travel to New York on 24 September, during which he is expected to address the annual UN general assembly. He issued a short statement after the Beirut airstrike, saying: “Our goals are clear, and our actions speak for themselves.”

• Friday’s strike was the latest in a series of attacks that rocked Lebanon this week. Earlier this week, at least 42 people were killed and more than 3,000 people wounded in a two-stage operation that made thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies commonly carried by Hezbollah members explode simultaneously.

• On Thursday night, Israel launched the most intense series of airstrikes in southern Lebanon since October. Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes on border villages across the south, marking what the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said was the beginning of a new phase in the war.

• The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, denounced the pager and walkie-talkie attacks in Lebanon, saying that they violated international law and could constitute a war crime. The UN’s political affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, warned that if violence continues between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, then “we risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far.”

• The UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, discussed preparations to evacuate remaining Britons from Lebanon, having already urged UK nationals to leave the country given the hostilities with Israel. The White House said Americans were strongly urged not to travel to Lebanon or to leave if they are already there.

• Downing Street fears it is to be asked to support the issue of an international criminal court (ICC) arrest warrant for the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel submitted on Friday formal challenges to the ICC over its jurisdiction and the legality of arrest warrant requests against Israeli leaders for their conduct of the Gaza war. In the short term, No 10 is said to be most concerned by the explosive political fallout if the ICC issues an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

• The US president, Joe Biden, said a ceasefire deal in Gaza is still realistic amid the escalating tensions in the region. “We’re going to keep at it until we get it done, but we’ve got a way to go,” Biden said in his first comments on the situation since the wave of explosions targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

• The White House said it has seen “deeply disturbing” footage of Israeli soldiers pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the latest in a series of suspected violations by Israeli forces since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that rights groups say show a pattern of excessive force toward Palestinians.

The UN security council has begun its emergency meeting over the wave of explosions targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon this week.

The meeting was requested by Algeria on behalf of Arab states, and comes after the latest Israeli airstrike on Beirut earlier today that killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens.

Friday’s strike was the latest in a series of attacks that rocked Lebanon this week, after a two-stage operation blamed on Israel left more than 3,000 people wounded and at least 42 dead.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 14 people are confirmed dead after an Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday.

Rescue teams continue to search for people under the rubble, it said.

The White House said it has seen “deeply disturbing” footage of Israeli soldiers pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

The White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that it had demanded an explanation from Israel. Kirby said:

We’ve seen that video, and we found it deeply disturbing. If it’s proven to be authentic, it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behavior by professional soldiers.

In the footage, three soldiers can be seen picking up what appears to be a stiff body and dragging it towards the edge of a roof as troops stand on the ground below. The soldiers on the roof peer over the edge before heaving the body off.

On an adjacent rooftop, the soldiers hold another apparently lifeless body by its limbs and swing it over the edge. In a third instance, a soldier kicks a body toward the edge before it falls from view.

The incident took place in the town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, where the Israeli military has been carrying out large-scale raids since late August that the Palestinian health ministry says have killed dozens of people.

Who is Ibrahim Aqil, the top Hezbollah commmander reportedly targeted in the Israeli strike?

Jason Burke

Ibrahim Aqil, who is reported to have been killed by an airstrike in Beirut on Friday, was one of the last founder members of Hezbollah’s military wing to have survived more than 40 years of conflict with Israel.

Aqil, who was in his early sixties, had risen through the ranks and eventually reached a senior position in the organisation. Exact details of his role are unclear, but the Israel Defense Forces described him as “the head of the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s operations team, the acting commander of the Radwan [special forces] unit”.

The US had accused Aqil, as well as Imad Mugniyeh, of being involved in the bombings of the US embassy in Beirut in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and the US Marine Corps barracks in October 1983, which killed 241 US personnel. A French barracks was also bombed at that time, killing 58 people.

A US justice department notice describes him as “ a principal member of Hizballah’s terrorist cell the Islamic Jihad Organization”, which claimed responsibility for the two 1983 bombings in Beirut. The notice also says Aqil directed the taking of US and German hostages in Lebanon and held them there, also in the 1980s.

Read the full profile here: Ibrahim Aqil: a founder member of Hezbollah’s military wing

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said in a statement posted to X that Israel will continue its “sequences of actions in the new phase” of its conflict with Hezbollah until its “goal is achieved” when Israelis displaced by the fighting are able to return to their homes.

Gallant said he had completed a situation assessment with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff and senior officials after the assassination of top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil in Lebanon.

“Even in Dahiyeh in Beirut – we will continue to pursue our enemy in order to protect our citizens,” he wrote, adding:

The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.

The White House said US citizens were strongly urged not to travel to Lebanon or to leave if they are already there.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, speaking to reporters on Friday, said he could not comment on the latest strikes but reiterated that the Biden administration is seeking to avoid an escalation in the region.

As we reported earlier, the White House has repeatedly said that the US had no involvement in the strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon this week.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said about 10 senior Hezbollah commanders were killed along with Ibrahim Aqil in an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut on Friday.

Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, at a press conference, said Aqil and other senior members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan special forces unit were gathered underground when they were targeted and killed.

According to the Times of Israel, Hagari said the individuals targeted in the Israeli strike were “the commanders who drew up and led the Hezbollah terror group’s plan, to be carried out on the day the order was given, to attack into the northern territory of the State of Israel.”

The IDF spokesperson claimed that as part of this invasion, Hezbollah “intended to raid Israeli territory, occupy the communities of the Galilee, and murder and kidnap Israeli citizens — similar to what Hamas did on October 7.”