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

William Christou has been reporting for the Guardian from Beirut

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati will chair a meeting of the government emergency committee this afternoon, along with several ministers.

The meeting comes as Lebanon deals with successive waves of displacement, with 90,000 fleeing Israeli bombardment of the south and the Bekaa Valley last Monday, and many more evacuating the southern suburbs of Beirut after intense Israeli airstrikes on Friday.

Beirut’s public spaces are filled with families, gathered on sidewalks and small parks across the cities with their belongings.

Many have spent the last two nights homeless and hungry, with the Lebanese state unable to respond to the scale of the humanitarian crisis.

Private initiatives have sprung up to fill the gap, with small NGOs and even individuals distributing food and water in areas where the displaced have gathered.

Lebanon’s state news agency reports that an Israeli airstrike on a house in the town of Ain, in the Bekaa valley, eastern Lebanon, killed 11 people earlier today. This figure has not been independently verified by the Guardian yet.

Israeli strikes have increasingly targeted Hezbollah’s strongholds in southern Beirut and the Bekaa valley, where Israel claims the group stores thousands of rockets.

The Israeli military said in a post on X that it killed top Hezbollah leader, Nabil Kaouk, one of the few remaining senior leaders of the organisation. Kaouk was the deputy head of Hezbollah’s central council.

Kaouk was reportedly one of those being considered to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday, as the head of Hezbollah.

The choices of who will now lead the organisation are narrowing, with analysts suggesting that Hashim Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, is the favored pick. Naeem Qassem, the deputy secretary general of the organisation, is also reportedly in the running.

Kaouk’s death is a further blow to Hezbollah’s leadership, already decimated from a relentless Israeli assassination campaign.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it has launched an emergency operation to provide food for up to 1 million people affected by the conflict in Lebanon.

“Further escalation of the conflict this weekend underscores the need for urgent humanitarian response,” the WFP said in a post on X.

The WFP has operated in Lebanon for 10 years. Its says workers are dispatching food, hot meals, “ready-to-eat rations” and cash for civilians, including displaced people who have fled Israeli attacks and those staying in shelters.

As of yesterday, there were well over 200,000 people who had been displaced inside Lebanon, according to the UN high commissioner for refugees.

“Lebanon is at a breaking point and cannot endure another war,” WFP regional director Corinne Fleischer said.

William Christou has been reporting for the Guardian from Beirut

Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel continued through the night and early morning, with Israeli warplanes carrying out airstrikes across south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley.

Hezbollah launched a rocket salvo at the “Ofik base” using the group’s medium range Fadi-1 rockets, according to a statement on Sunday morning. It was not immediately clear if Hezbollah’s attacks resulted in any Israeli casualties.

Among those killed by Israel’s overnight airstrikes were four paramedics while they were working in their medical centre in Tair Dirba, south Lebanon, Lebanon’s national news agency reported on Sunday.

The day prior, Israeli strikes killed 33 people and injured 195, 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 the past hours, a day after the Lebanese militant group confirmed its leader Hassan Nasrallah had been killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut.

Israel has killed hundreds of people, including children, in its attacks on Lebanon over the past week, which included the massive strike on a densely populated area of south Beirut that is believed to have killed Nasrallah on Friday and levelled several entire apartment blocks.

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

Lebanon is to hold three days of official mourning for Nasrallah from Monday, according to the prime minister’s office. Hezbollah has yet to announce a date for his funeral.

In other developments:

• More than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 6,000 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks in the past two weeks, the health ministry said, and about one million Lebanese people have been displaced by the strikes, including hundreds of thousands since Friday, Nasser Yassin, the minister coordinating the government’s crisis response, has told Reuters.

• The Lebanese ministry of public health reported last night that the Israeli attacks across Lebanon yesterday killed 33 people and injured 195 others, according to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.

• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has confirmed the death of Brig Gen Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of IRGC operations. He was killed in the Israel’s air strikes on Lebanon on Friday which also killed other senior Hezbollah figures, including the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. In its statement mourning Nilforoushan’s killing, the IRGC, a major military, political and economic force in Iran, condemned “crimes of the Zionist regime” in Lebanon and praised his role in defending the “resistance front” and Iran.

• The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said Lebanese people are the new target of “Israel’s policy of genocide, occupation and invasion.” The Turkish leader, who has been highly critical of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, said children were among Lebanese civilians who have been “murdered” by “brutal” Israeli strikes conducted on Lebanon this week.

• “By the grace and power of God, the blows struck by the Resistance Front on the worn-out, deteriorating body of the Zionist regime will become even more crushing,” said Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei about Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. He went on to add: “The foul-natured Zionist regime has not become victorious by carrying out this atrocity.”

• Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, commenting on the killing of Nasrallah, said on Sunday that what Iran terms “resistance groups” will continue to confront Israel with the help of Iran, according to Iranian state media. Iran has called for the UN security council to meet over Israel’s assault on Lebanon and across the region.

• Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to enhance America’s defence posture in the region. He said: “The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups.”

• UN secretary general António Guterres said he is “gravely concerned by the dramatic escalation of the events in Beirut in the last 24 hours”. He went on to add: “This cycle of violence must stop now. All sides must step back from the brink.”