Mideast crisis live: Israel says it has killed another senior Hezbollah figure as bombardment of Lebanon continues | Lebanon

The Lebanese state news agency reports an Israeli airstrike on a house in the city of Ain Bekaa ValleyEleven people were killed in eastern Lebanon today. This figure has not yet been independently verified by the Guardian.

Israeli attacks have increasingly targeted Hezbollah's strongholds in southern Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, where the group says it stores thousands of rockets.

The Israeli military said in a post on X that it had killed the top Hezbollah leader. Nabil Kaoukone of the organization's few remaining senior executives. Kaouk was deputy chairman of Hezbollah's Central Council.

Kaouk was reportedly one of those considered a success Hassan NasrallahHezbollah leader killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday.

The choices for who will now lead the organization are becoming narrower, analysts suspect Hashim Safieddinethe chairman of Hezbollah's Executive Council, is the preferred choice. Naeem Qassemthe organization's deputy secretary general, is also reportedly in the running.

Kaouk's death is a further blow to Hezbollah's leadership, already decimated by Israel's relentless killing campaign.

William Christou reported for the Guardian from Beirut

Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel continued throughout the night and early morning, with Israeli warplanes carrying out airstrikes in southern Lebanon and southern Lebanon the Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets at the “Ofik base” using the group’s Fadi-1 medium-range missiles, according to a statement on Sunday morning. It was not immediately clear whether Hezbollah's attacks resulted in Israeli casualties.

Four medics who worked at their medical center were among those killed in the overnight Israeli airstrikes Tair DirbaSouth Lebanon, the national Lebanese news agency reported on Sunday.

The day before, 33 people were killed and 195 injured in Israeli strikes, the country's health ministry reported.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian's live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Israel has continued its attacks on Lebanon, with its military claiming to have hit dozens of Hezbollah targets in recent hours, a day after the Lebanese militant group confirmed its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli attack on Beirut.

Israel killed hundreds of people, including children, in its attacks on Lebanon last week. This included the massive attack on a densely populated area in southern Beirut, in which Nasrallah is believed to have been killed on Friday and several entire apartment blocks were leveled.

Iran vowed on Saturday as US president to avenge his death Joe Biden said his killing was a “measure of justice for his many victims.” Biden did not mention the many civilians Israel killed in this week's attacks, including children.

Lebanon will hold three days of official mourning for Nasrallah starting Monday, according to the prime minister's office. Hezbollah has not yet announced a date for his funeral.

In other developments:

• The Health Ministry said more than 1,000 people have been killed and more than 6,000 injured by Israeli attacks in Lebanon over the past two weeks, and about a million Lebanese have been displaced by the attacks, including hundreds of thousands since Friday, Nasser Yassin, the minister coordinating the government's crisis response, told Reuters.

• According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported last night that 33 people were killed and 195 others were injured in Israeli attacks across Lebanon yesterday.

• Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has confirmed the death of Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, Deputy Commander of IRGC Operations. He was killed on Friday in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon that also killed other senior Hezbollah leaders, including the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah. In its statement of mourning over Nilforoushan's assassination, the IRGC, a major military, political and economic force in Iran, condemned “crimes committed by the Zionist regime” in Lebanon and praised its role in defending the “Resistance Front” and Iran.

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the Lebanese people were the new target of “Israel's policy of genocide, occupation and invasion.” The Turkish leader, highly critical of Israel's ongoing attack on Gaza, said children were among the Lebanese civilians “murdered” by “brutal” Israeli attacks on Lebanon this week.

• “By the grace and power of God, the blows dealt by the Resistance Front to the exhausted, decaying body of the Zionist regime will be even more devastating,” Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. He added: “The vile Zionist regime has achieved no victory by carrying out this atrocity.”

• Commenting on Nasrallah's killing on Sunday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said that what Iran calls “resistance groups” will continue to confront Israel with Iran's help, according to Iranian state media. Iran has called for a UN Security Council meeting on the Israeli attack on Lebanon and the entire region.

• Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to strengthen America's defense position in the region. He said: “The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and all other Iranian-backed terrorist groups.”

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “deeply concerned by the dramatic escalation of events in Beirut over the last 24 hours.” He added: “This vicious cycle of violence must stop now. “All sides must take a step back.”