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      Wednesday briefing: What Iran’s attack on Israel means for the Middle East

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      Good morning.Iran launched a wave of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening in retaliation for a series of attacks against its proxies. Officials in Tehran cited the assassinations of top Hezbollah and Hamas commanders – including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed on Friday – and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.It is Iran’s second attack on Israel this year, although this one is widely considered to have been more aggressive and is likely to be more consequential.Guardian reporters in Jerusalem witnessed dozens of missiles darting through the sky towards the country’s coastal cities. Most of the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s air defences, supported by western allies, but there have been multiple images of craters in central and southern Israel.Two people have reportedly been wounded in Tel Aviv. Elsewhere, the only reported fatality was Sameh al-Asali, a 37-year-old Palestinian from Gaza living in the occupied West Bank, who was killed by falling shrapnel.Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Iran has “made a big mistake tonight, and will pay for it”, although US officials have said that Israel has not made a decision yet on the scope or timeframe of this reprisal.Meanwhile, overnight, the Israeli military continued to pound Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, with at least five strikes hitting the city’s southern suburbs.Today’s newsletter takes you through the last 24 hours in the Middle East, as the crisis intensifies. That’s right after the headlines.Five big stories

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      In depth: Israel readies for reprisal as ‘forces of restraint’ weakenView image in fullscreenIran’s surprise attack lasted for just under an hour and came after its supreme national security council (SNSC) chair, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, declared that Iran was at war. Around 180 ballistic missiles were launched, just hours after the US warned that Iran was preparing an imminent attack.To bolster Israel’s defence, US forces shot down Iranian missiles. President Joe Biden later said that the attack appears to have been “defeated and ineffective”, and Israel said that most of the missiles were intercepted.Iranian officials, however, announced that 90% of its missiles successfully hit their targets. The extent of the damage caused by the missiles remains unclear.The order to launch the strike was made by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with the backing of the SNSC and the Iranian defence ministry. Iran has said the attack was a “legal, rational and legitimate response to the terrorist attacks of the Zionist regime”.This attack is far more aggressive than Iran’s one in April, which was largely considered a symbolic strike. Iran gave several days’ notice then and the main target was a military base in the underpopulated Negev desert. This time, the missiles themselves seem to be much faster and the targets appear to have included dense cities.The Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh has useful insight into Iran’s military strategy now: “Firing so many ballistic missiles in a few minutes also represents a serious effort to overwhelm or exhaust Israel’s air defences. Because they are sophisticated, the interceptor missiles are expensive – and their stocks uncertain,” he writes.Why did Iran do this?In late September, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, insisted that the country does not “wish to be the cause of instability in the region.” It seems the impending threat of war has lost its deterrent power, with the spokesperson of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission saying that Iran is “not afraid of going to war. We are not warmongers, but we are ready for any war.”Iran’s risky and unprecedented retaliation “reflects a growing consensus inside the Iranian elite that its decision not to mount a military reprisal after the assassination of [Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh] in Tehran in July was a strategic mistake”, Patrick Wintour writes.The perceived inaction has led to a growing frustration among some hardliners in Iran that Tehran has become “passive” in the face of Israeli aggression. Instead of placating Israel, they say, it has emboldened Netanyahu to mount further attacks and has weakened its image as the leader of the “axis of resistance”.Iran held off from ordering a reprisal for the assassination of Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran in July, because of US assurances that a ceasefire deal in Gaza was imminent and restraint from Iran would be key in making sure it happens. (Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s death). No such deal materialised. Early last month, Pezeshkian accused the US of lying, adding that Israel’s actions would not go “unanswered”.Iranian officials were also alarmed by Netanyahu’s announcement last weekend that Israel’s latest actions are steps towards changing “the balance of power in the region for years to come”. To show restraint after the series of escalations would, they believed, put them in an even weaker strategic position.What’s next?Leaders across Europe condemned Iran’s attack and the UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that Britain stands with Israel and recognises “her right to self-defence in the face of this aggression”.The UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemned “escalation after escalation” in the region. “This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire,” he said.Israel has already launched attacks in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria this week, indicating its willingness to keep fighting on all fronts. Analysts have noted that Israel has a much freer hand to respond more comprehensively and aggressively. What little “forces of restraint” there were in the Middle East are “weakening with every passing day,” Julian Borger writes in his analysis. “Politically speaking, the Biden administration cannot be seen as tying Israel’s hands in the face of an Iranian attack on Israeli cities.”The looming fear of this deepening conflict has been a direct confrontation between Tehran and Washington, which gets closer with each attack.As Israel readies for a reprisal and Iran’s leadership vows that any retaliation would be met with a “more crushing and ruinous” response, the cries for peace continue to go unheeded.For the latest news on the region, follow the Guardian’s liveblog.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhat else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

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      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | First-half goals from Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka gave Arsenal a 2-0 win over PSG in the Champions League group stage. Manchester City claimed a regulation 4-0 win against Slovan Bratislava with James McAtee scoring his first goal for the club.Formula One | Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has indicated Liam Lawson has an opportunity to make his case to replace Sergio Pérez and line up alongside Max Verstappen for the team, potentially as early as next season.Tennis| Third-ranked Carlos Alcaraz’s athleticism was again on show as he advanced to the men’s final of the China Open, with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Daniil Medvedev on Tuesday.The front pagesView image in fullscreen“Israel vows to retaliate after Iran launches missile attack” says the Guardian’s splash headline this morning. “Middle East erupts” – that’s the Times while the Daily Express has “US threatens ‘severe’ response as Iran attacks Israel”. “Revenge from above” says the Mirror describing it further as Iran’s retaliation for Israel’s incursion into Lebanon. A dramatic front page of the Daily Mail says “The Iron Dome holds firm against Iran’s 200-missile blitz … now Israel vows vengeance”. The Telegraph says simply “Iran attacks Israel” while the i leads with “Iran missile attack on Israel sparks fears of new war”. Business coverage is displaced on the Financial Times’ front in favour of “Iran fires missile barrage against Israel”. The Metro calls it “Iran’s new blitz at Israel”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenWho were England’s 2024 rioters?Racist chants rang out, and homes, businesses and hotels housing asylum seekers were attacked – for a week this summer English towns and cities seemed on the brink of chaos. Josh Halliday reports on what we know so far about the people at the centre of the violenceCartoon of the day | Martin RowsonView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenCommunal eating is on the menu in the culinary hotspot of Copenhagen, where pulling up a chair alongside strangers is now all the rage, as Shanna McGoldrick writes. At Absalon, a church turned community centre, McGoldrick sampled tomato and lentil soup and fried potatoes in a creamy fennel and chive sauce, as well as breaking bread – quite literally – with a group of Danish nurses, all for the affordable price of 60DKK (about £6.75). “All around us, people are chatting in English and Danish, and though everyone looks very at ease, I’m fairly sure we’re not the only tourists here,” writes McGoldrick of the fællesspisning dinner. “It’s a pragmatic kind of welcome, with all diners expected to get stuck in: at the end of the meal, we all stack our plates neatly and file happily back over to the kitchen.” Adds Ivonne Christensen, one of the nurses: “It’s a wonderful idea … you don’t have to cook, you can come here when you’re tired; it’s easy.”Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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      Biden reaffirms US support for Israel amid Iran’s missile attack

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      Joe Biden has reaffirmed US support for Israel after Iran’s ballistic missile attacks, describing the barrage as “defeated and ineffective” and ordering the US military to aid Israel’s defense against any future assaults.“The attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective, and this is a testament to Israeli military capability and the US military,” the US president told reporters on Tuesday after Tehran launched an unprecedented salvo of 180 high-speed ballistic missiles.US destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea destroyed several Iranian missiles, US defense officials said. Vessels currently in the region include the USS Arleigh Burke, USS Cole and USS Bulkeley. Additional destroyers are in the Red Sea.“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” Biden said.Initial reports suggested that Israeli air defenses intercepted many of the incoming missiles, although some landed in central and southern Israel, and at least one man was killed in the West Bank by a missile that fell near the town of Jericho.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the missile attack was conducted in retaliation for Israel’s killings of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Iranian Revolutionary Guard deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan.The White House National Security Council said that Biden and Kamala Harris were monitoring the Iranian attack on Israel from the White House situation room and were receiving regular updates from their national security team.Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan hailed the response to the attack, which he described as “defeated and ineffective”.But before the missile barrage had even ended, Donald Trump, on his own social media platform, Truth Social, described the current conflict in the Middle East as “totally preventable” and claimed it would never have happened if he were president.In a lengthy statement, the former president and current Republican nominee attacked Biden and Harris, saying the world was “spiraling out of control” and asserting that the US had “no leadership” and “no one running the country”.“When I was President, Iran was in total check,” Trump added. “They were starved for cash, fully contained, and desperate to make a deal.”It remains unclear how the escalating tensions in the Middle East will play into the US election on 5 November.Iran’s attack on Israel comes just hours before the highly anticipated US vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night, 38 days from the US presidential election, and as the conflict in the Middle East appears to continue to escalate.A poll conducted by CNN shortly after the presidential debate between Harris and Trump in September found that more voters who watched the debate viewed Trump as a stronger candidate when it came to handling the role of commander in chief.Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, wrote in a statement that the missile attacks against Israel on Tuesday “should be the breaking point and I would urge the Biden Administration to coordinate an overwhelming response with Israel, starting with Iran’s ability to refine oil.“These oil refineries need to be hit and hit hard because that is the source of cash for the regime to perpetrate their terror,” he added.In another statement, Graham said that he had spoken with Trump, who he described as “determined and resolved to protect Israel from the threats of terrorism emanating from Iran.“While I appreciate the Biden administration’s statement, we cannot forget that when President Trump left office, Iran was weak economically, and he sent the regime the ultimate message with the elimination of Soleimani,” Graham said.Graham continued: “The only thing the Iranian regime understands is strength. Now is the time to show unified resolve against Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism.“We need decisive action, not just statements,” he added.On Twitter/X, Marco Rubio, also a Republican senator, described the attack as a “large scale (not symbolic) missile attack from Iranian regime against Israel” and added that “a large scale Israeli retaliatory response inside Iran is certain to follow”.Bob Casey, a Democrat senator for Pennsylvania, wrote in response to the attacks that he stands “with Israel and unequivocally condemn Iran’s missile strikes”.“The United States must continue doing everything it can to intercept Iran’s missiles and help our ally defend itself,” Casey added.Jerry Nadler, a Democratic representative, condemned the attack in a post on X, adding that his thoughts were “with the Israeli people at this time”. More

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      A History of Israel’s Previous Invasions of Lebanon

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      Israel has invaded Lebanon three times before. On each occasion, it said its aim was to secure its northern frontier and stop militants from launching attacks across the border. And each time, the invasion had unforeseen consequences and achieved less decisive results than Israel’s military planners and political leaders anticipated.The invasions helped fuel the destabilization of Lebanon, a country whose myriad religious sects, including Shia and Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze, fought a 15-year civil war that drew in Syria and caused huge destruction before it ended in 1990. Lebanon has suffered from shaky governments, occasional violence and political assassinations. It currently faces a debilitating economic crisis.“The invasions served to widen the wedge between Lebanon’s political communities, and as they are linked to the country’s sects this has only worsened sectarian tension and fueled the country’s political divisions,” said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based research organization.As Israel invades for a fourth time, here is a brief look at the history of its previous invasions.1978: Three-Month InvasionIsrael invaded southern Lebanon in March 1978, under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, partly in response to an attack by Palestinian militants based in Lebanon who landed by sea and commandeered a bus on a coastal road north of Tel Aviv, leaving 35 Israelis and an American dead. Israeli forces captured territory up to the Litani River, a few miles from Israel’s northern border.Israel withdrew in June, handing control of the ground it had taken to a Lebanese Christian militia and a United Nations peacekeeping force that had been established under a United Nations Security Council resolution. Lebanese officials said 1,200 people died in the invasion. Israel said it had killed 350 Palestinian militants and lost 34 of its own soldiers.The invasion did not solve Israel’s security problems on its northern border and some critics of Mr. Begin argued that Israel had squandered international goodwill by devastating a string of villages in southern Lebanon. Other commentators noted that Arab leaders, despite voluble rhetoric, provided little practical or military assistance to the Palestinians during the fighting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democratic voters want Kamala Harris to stand up for Palestinians. Will she? | Judith Levine

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      Palestinians are used to being unheard. The 1917 Balfour Declaration committed Great Britain to creating a Jewish state in Palestine without mentioning the people who comprised the majority of the people living there. At least four United Nations resolutions of monumental consequence to Palestine – including the ones that established the borders of Israel in 1948 and expanded those borders after the 1967 war – were passed by a body that still does not recognize a sovereign Palestinian entity, much less a state, with voting-member status.Numerous bilateral agreements between Israel and its neighbors spelled out the Palestinians’ fate but did not include them in the negotiations. Donald Trump’s 2020 “deal of the century” was a Hanukah gift to Benjamin Netanyahu that, among other things, opened the way for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and canceled the Palestinians’ right of return.Since the assault on Gaza began, Joe Biden has been unable to acknowledge the horrors on the ground without asserting his administration’s “rock-solid and unwavering” support of Israel. The US president’s rare expressions of sympathy for the people under the bombs elide cause or solution. A short passage about civilian death and displacement in his 2024 State of the Union address ended with: “It’s heartbreaking.” To the UN general assembly in September he declared: “Innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell … Too many families displaced, crowding in tents, facing a dire humanitarian situation.” He named only one agent of the devastation. The Gazans, he said, “didn’t ask for this war that Hamas started”. Meanwhile, he evinces impotence to deliver what Gaza is asking for, in the voices of wailing mothers and the images of flattened cities: an end to it.So the 2024 Democratic national convention was neither the first nor the worst time Palestinians had been erased by somebody claiming to be on their side. After months of negotiations with the people who organized 700,000 primary voters to withhold their endorsements of Biden until he vowed to force an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza by stopping arms shipments, the convention denied a five-minute speaking slot to one Palestinian. After welcoming such deplorables as Georgia’s mercilessly anti-abortion former Republican lieutenant and the chief legal officer of the union-busting Uber to the stage, there was no more room under the big tent.When a definitive “no” reached the demonstrators camping in wait outside the arena, they were deflated if not surprised. For some, enough was enough. Muslim Women for Harris immediately disbanded. “Something kind of snapped,” said Georgia state representative Ruwa Romman, the slated speaker. Romman was not in Chicago for the convention, by the way. She was at a conference scheduled to coincide with it, on a panel called Voices You Will Not Hear at the Convention.After Chicago, uncommitted movement activists huddled over what to do next. Despite the rebuff, the convention was hardly a bust. The movement sent 30 uncommitted delegates; 300 Harris delegates declared themselves ceasefire delegates. The panel on Palestinian human rights was among the best attended events. Some of the biggest applause followed condemnations of Israel’s assaults and support for Palestinian liberation. People were milling around in anti-war T-shirts and keffiyehs.These activists may have been uncommitted primary voters and delegates, but they were committed enough Democrats to stump before the primary and run as delegates. The movement had “mobilized people of [conscience] previously apathetic to the democratic process to civically engage in this election”, the uncommitted website states. “We cannot afford to have this base permanently disillusioned or alienated in November.” They’re as scared shitless as every other sentient human about a second Trump presidency. The struggle continues.Intense debate produced a plan. Uncommitted primary voters had sent a loud message through what they did not say. The strategy continues: turn around a history of being silenced by deploying the power of silence. To pressure the Harris-Walz campaign to signal that a new Democratic administration would assume a new stance toward Israel, uncommitted declined to endorse the ticket. Instead, it is urging people to vote “against Trump” and fascism, and not for a third party, a de facto vote for Trump. This will not be easy; canvassers on the streets are encountering reliable Democratic voters, especially the young, brown or Black, waffling about going to the polls at all. But any experienced anti-war activist knows how hard it is to end a war.For the Democrats, the decision to censor the Palestinian voice was not just morally wrong. It was politically stupid. The Harris campaign must know that of those three-quarters of a million uncommitted ballots, 100,000 came from Michigan, the state that is home to the country’s largest Arab American community and that Biden won by 154,000 votes in 2020. Critical to Harris’s victory, Michigan is considered a toss-up.Aside from stupid, it was unnecessary. In May, Data for Progress found that seven in 10 likely voters, including 83% of Democrats, supported a permanent ceasefire. A majority of Democrats believed Israel is committing genocide. More recently, a poll by the Arab American Institute showed “significant gain and very little risk for Harris” in demanding Israel agree to an immediate ceasefire or calling for a suspension of US arms shipments. Either stand would increase her support by at least five percentage points, pulling in reluctant and undecided voters, including a plurality of Jewish Democrats, AAI says.As the Israel Defense Forces pummel Beirut and bulldoze shops, schools and sewer pipes in the West Bank – punishing unnumbered civilians in pursuit of unnamed terrorists – the US is shocked and confused when the Israeli prime minister raises a middle finger to another temporary truce, this one with Hezbollah. On the front page of Sunday’s New York Times, Paris bureau chief Roger Cohen rehearses the tautology behind this passivity. “The United States does have enduring leverage over Israel,” he explained. “But an ironclad alliance … built around strategic and domestic political considerations … means Washington will almost certainly never threaten to cut – let alone cut off – the flow of arms.” The world’s most powerful nation cannot use its leverage because it won’t use its leverage.A President Kamala Harris could use it. But first she needs to get elected. And to get elected, she’d better open her ears to the silent din – and speak up fast.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept, and the author of five books More

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      US looks unable to talk Netanyahu out of planned invasion of Lebanon

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      The Biden administration is losing influence over whether Benjamin Netanyahu launches a ground invasion into southern Lebanon or not.For more than a year, Joe Biden and his senior advisers have managed to forestall an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon in fear of a larger war that could envelop the entire Middle East.In the days after the 7 October attack, Biden phoned Netanyahu to talk him out of a massive retaliation against Hezbollah, which had begun firing guided rockets against Israeli positions following the Hamas raid.In April this year, Biden also told Netanyahu that the US would not support Israel in an offensive war against Iran after Tehran launched dozens of loitering munitions, cruise missiles and drones toward Israel.But on Monday, US outlets reported that Netanyahu’s administration had told White House officials they were planning a limited ground incursion into Lebanon, essentially escalating a conflict with Hezbollah and its backer Iran to a level that Biden and his team have tried desperately to avoid.The Washington Post reported that Israel was planning a limited campaign – smaller than its 2006 war against Hezbollah – that nonetheless would mark a drastic escalation with Hezbollah and Iran. The New York Times suggested US officials believed they had talked Israel out of a full invasion of Lebanon, but that smaller incursions into southern Lebanon would continue.But Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, has briefed a meeting of local council heads in northern Israel on Monday, according to the Times of Israel. “The next stage in the war against Hezbollah will begin soon … We will do this. And as I said here a month ago [that] we will shift the center of gravity [to the north], this is what I say now: we will change the situation and return the residents home.”Earlier that day, he had told Israel Defense Forces soldiers that to return some 60,000 Israelis to their homes in the country’s north, we “will use all the means that may be required – your forces, other forces, from the air, from the sea, and on land”.The plan to attack comes at a unique moment – with war hawks dominating domestic Israeli politics at the same time as a lame duck Biden administration appears increasingly unable or unwilling to intervene in the conflict. And, according to analysts, Netanyahu believes he has a limited window around the US elections to attack Iranian proxies across the region.With just a month left until the US presidential elections, the Biden administration has launched a tepid effort at a ceasefire that Netanyahu appears to have chosen to ignore – or simply to wait out until US elections that could bring in a Trump administration that would do even less to restrain him than the current one has.“Netanyahu made a calculation, and the calculation was that there was no way that the Democrats between now and November 5th [election day] could do anything that would criticise, let alone restrain him from that,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East.“You saw [vice-president Kamala] Harris’s statement, you saw the White House statement, you saw the Democrat and Republican consensus on the killing of Nasrallah and what the Israelis have done there,” he said. “And since Iran is involved in this, unlike in Gaza, the toxicity of animus against Iran in this town is so intense that the Republican party, which is now the ‘Israel can do no wrong’ party, is just winging for the administration.”Until recently, prominent US officials have thought they still had a chance to conclude a ceasefire and prevent the war from escalating further. Last week, US and French officials along with dozens of other countries called for a ceasefire in Lebanon. US officials briefed on the matter said they believed the “time was right” and that Israel would sign up.A western official last week told the Guardian that the Israeli threat to invade northern Lebanon was probably “psyops” largely designed to force Hezbollah and Iran to the negotiating table.But, at the same time, the official said, the situation in the region was extremely volatile, and could be upset by as little as a single drone strike against a sensitive target.One day later, a massive airstrike launched by the Israeli air force killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, upending security calculations in the region and potentially emboldening Israeli officials to believe they could fundamentally change the security dynamics in the region.“I understand, and happen to be very understanding of the administration position, because I spent almost 30 years inside knowing full the constraints of how to get anything done in this region, which is very hard,” Miller said. “But the notion that a US-French proposal for a three-week ceasefire in the middle of all this could work, I mean, it was, it was simply not well thought out.” More

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      Israel’s Attack in Central Beirut Was Its First There in Years

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      The overnight strike in the Cola neighborhood in Beirut appeared to have been the first known Israeli strike in the city center since 2006. Israel has struck the densely populated Dahiya area to the south many times recently, with most of those strikes coming after a massive bombing attack on Friday that killed the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah there.Strike in Beirut’s Cola neighborhoodThe strike appeared to be Israel’s first in central Beirut since 2006. More

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      Saudi Arabia Pledges to Send Financial Aid to Palestine

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      Saudi Arabia has pledged to send financial aid to the struggling Palestinian Authority, reversing a decision made during the Trump administration to slash funding to the governing body that administers some areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.The promise of a cash infusion won’t resolve the authority’s financial woes, but it reflects the improved relationship between Saudi Arabia and Palestinian leaders, which frayed during the Trump era. It is also a sign that the kingdom is strengthening its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state at a time when the Saudis appear to have shifted their tone on normalizing relations with Israel.For months, the Biden administration and its allies have warned that the Palestinian Authority’s dire financial straits could foreshadow another escalation in the West Bank. Israeli forces have been stepping up raids targeting militants in which they ripped up roads and wrecked shops and homes in the territory.The Saudi foreign ministry announced on Sunday night that it would send a monthly aid package to the country’s “brothers in Palestine” to alleviate the “humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and its surrounding areas,” without specifying the amount or intended recipients. The commitment was made during a recent visit by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to Saudi Arabia, according to one of his aides.“Prince Mohammed affirmed to the president, Abu Mazen, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s support for the Palestinian people politically and materially,” said Mahmoud al-Habbash, a senior adviser to Mr. Abbas. Mr. al-Habbash was referring to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and Mr. Abbas, using his nickname.Saudi Arabia has agreed to deliver $60 million to the Palestinian Authority in six installments, with the first payment expected in the coming days, according to a senior Palestinian Authority official.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Strike in Central Beirut Damages a Building

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      If the explosion is confirmed to be an Israeli attack, it would be the first Israeli strike within the Lebanese capital since the 2006 war with Hezbollah.Footage showed emergency personnel responding to the strike on the Cola neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon.Fadel Itani/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEmergency crews in Beirut were working early Monday in an area of the city where an apparent Israeli airstrike damaged a residential building, The Associated Press reported.If Israel is confirmed to be behind the attack, it would be the first known Israeli strike within Beirut since Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, a militia backed by Iran. Israel has been stepping up its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past two weeks, killing its leader and striking targets nearly daily.The A.P. released videos from the Lebanese capital on Monday that showed people and emergency workers gathering below a damaged multistory building in the largely Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Cola. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.A militant group based in Lebanon and Gaza, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that three of its members had been killed in the strike in Cola. That claim by the group, which is mostly known for a string of airline hijackings and bombings decades ago, could not be independently verified.The intensifying cadence of Israeli strikes has stretched deep into Lebanon. Israel has said that most have been directed at Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed late Friday by Israeli bombs. But the military has also hit other groups, including a strike against Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen.Euan Ward More