War and Armed Conflicts

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      Key Moments in the Middle East War Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 Attack on Israel: Timeline

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      Near dawn one year ago, the militant group Hamas began an assault from Gaza into Israel.It signaled the start of a series of events that have shaken the Middle East. Here are some key moments:Hamas attacks IsraelOn Oct. 7, armed paragliders took off from Gaza. Militants used drones to destroy Israeli surveillance stations and began to fire thousands of rockets. Commandos in trucks and on motorbikes sped into southern Israel.Rockets are fired from Gaza City toward Israel on Oct. 7.Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn an hourslong assault, Hamas and other Gaza-based groups killed up to 1,200 civilians and security personnel across the border in Israel, committed atrocities, and took more than 250 people back to Gaza as hostages.In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared war on Hamas. Israel sealed Gaza’s border and started a campaign of airstrikes, a bombardment that would be one of the most intense in 21st-century warfare and kill tens of thousands of Gazans over the months to come.Iran allies join the fightHezbollah, a Lebanese militant group supported by Iran, began firing missiles and drones at Israeli positions on Oct. 8 in support of Hamas. Israel responded with its own airstrikes, with both sides initially calibrating tit-for-tat attacks to avoid escalation. The fighting would force about 150,000 people on both sides of the border to flee their homes.Others in Iran’s network of armed groups, which it calls the “axis of resistance,” would soon join the fight against Israel and its allies. The Houthis of Yemen disrupted global shipping by attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea in support of Hamas, and launched a drone strike on Tel Aviv, killing one person.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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      On Social Media, Gazans Share Advice for Those Under Fire in Lebanon

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      Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon has forced thousands of people there to grapple with some urgent questions: What should I pack before I evacuate? What should stay behind? And where can I go that might be safe?Gazans have some hard-won answers, and some are sharing them on social media.One of them is Hala Bassam Al-Akhsam, better known as Chef Hala, a Gazan TV and social media personality with 20,000 followers on TikTok. Ms. Al-Akhsam has evacuated from her home in Gaza City three times since Israel invaded Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack last Oct. 7, so she has plenty of experience.In a recent post, she advised Lebanese evacuees to start with a lightweight pouch for valuables and important documents — gold, cash, diplomas and birth certificates. Make one member of the family responsible for holding onto it at all times. Everyone should have their own small bag of clothes, books, hygiene products and a reusable water bottle. And make sure everyone has a coat, she says, because “winter is coming.”Once a prolific poster of cooking hacks and recipes, Ms. Al-Akhsam now uploads scenes of the war’s devastation alongside practical advice for staying safe and sane amid chaos. “Have a predetermined safe location in mind,” she said. “A house or an area to move to, without losing time deciding.”Israeli airstrikes, raids and evacuation warnings have sent hundreds of thousands of Lebanese fleeing their homes, with no certainty of when they would be able to return or what might remain when they do. For the uprooted and those who soon might be, Ms. Al-Akhsam’s displacement tutorials have become a source of solace and solidarity.Lebanese viewers have reached out with thanks on public forums, and private requests for more specific advice. In one recent video, she obliged with a packing list of essential medicines. “I have faced starvation, famine, and extreme pollution,” Ms. Al-Akhsam explained in an interview. “My struggle throughout this war has inspired me to share with the people of Lebanon what to expect.”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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      Israel Steps Up Attacks in Lebanon as Fighting Spreads

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      With the region on edge about a possible Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran, U.S. Central Command hit targets in Yemen, and Israel ordered evacuations in Gaza.As Israel escalated its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Saturday, much of the Middle East was on edge, with many expecting an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran as payback for its missile barrage on Israel earlier this week.Fighting expanded across the region, with the United States Central Command striking Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen and Israeli forces warning residents in two areas in the central Gaza Strip to evacuate, presumably in preparation for stepped up military action there.In Lebanon, a huge strike earlier in the week reportedly targeted Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who was recently assassinated by Israel. It was not clear whether Mr. Safieddine had been killed.Israeli strikes appeared to hit the Dahiya, an area south of Beirut, where Hezbollah holds sway and where the Israeli military late on Friday again issued evacuation warnings for civilians. At least four hospitals across southern Lebanon are now out of service as a result of Israel’s bombardment, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. The Saint Therese Medical Center near the Dahiya has also suspended services, saying that Israeli strikes inflicted “huge damage.”Hezbollah on Saturday fired more rockets into northern Israel, though most seem to have been intercepted by Israel’s air-defense system.Concern has been building over whether the broadening war would further draw in Iran, which supports both Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday that Iran could carry out additional attacks on Israel “if necessary.”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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      Israeli Strikes on Gaza Schools and an Orphanage Kill Scores of Palestinians

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      Israeli forces stepped up their attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday, killing scores of people at several schools and homes across the enclave and at an orphanage sheltering displaced civilians, local officials and the Gaza Health Ministry said.An Israeli military operation that began in several parts of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, early on Wednesday morning killed at least 51 people and injured 82 by midafternoon, the Health Ministry said. Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said that the operation had included an incursion by Israeli ground troops as well as intense airstrikes, and that several women and children were among the dead.In the north, near Gaza City, at least eight people were killed and several others injured by Israeli bombardment of an orphanage building owned by al-Amal Institute for Orphans where hundreds of displaced civilians were staying, the institute said in a statement. A majority of those sheltering in the building, which was heavily damaged by the attack, were women and children, the institute said.An injured man comforting a woman during a funeral for victims killed by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, on Wednesday.Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAnd across the enclave, the Israeli military said it had bombed four school buildings during the day. The strikes killed at least 17 people at a school east of Gaza City, and at least five people at a school sheltering displaced people in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, the Palestinian Civil Defense said.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the locations of the other two schools. The military said, without providing evidence, that all four schools were being used as Hamas command and control centers — a claim it has repeatedly made to justify increasingly frequent strikes on school buildings in Gaza.The strikes on the schools and orphanage on Wednesday were condemned by the French Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement that the Israeli forces had “repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure where people are seeking refuge.” Action on Armed Violence, an advocacy group that focuses on the effect that conflict has on civilians, said in a new analysis on Tuesday that, on average, explosive Israeli weapons had hit civilian infrastructure in Gaza every three hours since the war began. More

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      Israel Confirms 1st Military Fatality in Lebanon Invasion

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      Israel’s military said Wednesday that one of its soldiers had been killed in combat in Lebanon, as Israeli ground troops and fighter jets pounded Hezbollah sites across a broad swath of southern Lebanon and the Lebanese militia lobbed dozens of rockets at towns in northern Israel.The military identified the fallen soldier as Capt. Eitan Itzhak Oster, 22, from the city of Modi’in Maccabim Re’ut in central Israel, but did not specify where he was killed. He is the first soldier confirmed to have died in Lebanon since the Israeli military announced Tuesday that it had begun an invasion of the country.The military said Captain Oster was a squad commander in the commando brigade of the elite Egoz Unit. Earlier in the day, it said members of that unit were engaged in “targeted operations in several areas of southern Lebanon” that included “close-range engagements” with Hezbollah militants.In a series of statements posted online, Hezbollah said it had fought Israeli soldiers on Wednesday in Yaroun, Odaisseh and Maroun al-Ras, a border village that was the scene of a major battle during Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon, in 2006.Maroun al-Ras is roughly one mile from the Israeli town of Avivim, which Hezbollah said it had targeted with “a salvo of rockets” earlier in the day. Avivim was evacuated last year because of such attacks.In Yaroun, Hezbollah said it had detonated an explosive device on Wednesday afternoon, resulting in injuries to Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military did not comment on the report of injuries, and it could not be independently verified.Al-Manar, a television network owned and operated by Hezbollah, said fighters from the group’s elite Radwan Force had ambushed Israeli soldiers near Odaisseh after they crossed the border from the Israeli village of Misgav Am.Lebanon’s army — which is not a party to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — said in a statement that Israeli forces had crossed the border and traveled roughly a quarter of a mile inside Lebanon in the areas of Yaroun and Odaisseh, “then withdrew after a short period.” 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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      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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      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