Middle East updates: IDF strikes kill Hezbollah commanders

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday that their airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed a second commander of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as well as a Hezbollah "operative," raising the death toll of Hezbollah members killed on Tuesday to three.

An airstrike near the Shehabiya area in southern Lebanon killed Mohammed Hussein Shehouri, the IDF said on X, formerly Twitter.

It described him as a Hezbollah commander of the rocket and missile unit, adding that he was responsible for the planning and execution of many rocket launches toward Israel.

Hezbollah member Mahmoud Ibrahim Fadullah was also killed in the same attack. The IDF described him as an operative within the same unit.

Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF had said it killed another Hezbollah regional commander in a separate attack on the Ain Baal area in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah confirmed the deaths of its three members in separate statements, saying it struck several Israeli military bases "in response to the Israeli enemy's attacks" on Lebanese villages.

Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu against escalation in the Middle East following an Iranian attack on Israel over the weekend.

Sunak's office said the prime minister stressed in a Tuesday call that  "significant escalation was in no one's interest and would only deepen insecurity in the Middle East. This was a moment for calm heads to prevail."

He also reiterated his country's "steadfast support for Israel's security and for wider regional stability."

"The prime minister said Iran had badly miscalculated and was increasingly isolated on the global stage, with the G7 coordinating a diplomatic response." 

EU foreign ministers condemned last weekend's Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel, the bloc's foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell said.

"The region is at the edge of an abyss," Borrell said. "We have to move away from it."

Borrell added that, as requested by some EU member states, the EU's diplomatic service would start working on potential ways to expand the bloc's sanctions on Iran. His comments came following a video conference of EU foreign ministers.

Borrell said the proposal would expand sanctions that aim to limit the supply of Iranian drones to Russia to include missiles and could also cover deliveries to Iran's proxies in the Middle East.

Germany, France and several other EU members have publicly backed such a proposal.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also said her country was considering additional sanctions on Iran.

Israel would not attack civilian targets in Iran, Israel's ambassador to Germany said on Tuesday, adding that Tehran's weekend attack on Israel meanwhile targeted civilians.

Speaking to German news channel Welt TV, Ron Prosor said the Israeli response would be "against these military facilities of the mullahs and the ayatollahs," stressing that Israel would have to react and describing it as an act of "self-defense."

Iran launched some 300 drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday, saying it was in retaliation for what it called an Israeli strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus that killed seven people. 

Prosor said that it must be clear that those who attack Israel must "pay the price," adding that Iran poses a threat not only to Israel but also to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.

There is an "understanding among the pragmatic Sunni states that Iran is actually a terrorist regime," Prosor said.

Prosor did not provide any additional details on what Israel's next steps might be. 

"When, where and how — that's something for our war Cabinet to decide," Prosor said.

He also called on Israel's allies to impose further sanctions on Iran, a matter US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has implied is imminent.  

The ongoing war in the Gaza Strip has killed 10,000 Palestinian women during the past six months, UN Women said on Tuesday.

In its latest Gender Alert on Gaza, the UN agency added that those killed included some 6,000 mothers, leaving behind 19,000 orphaned children.

"Women who have survived Israeli bombardment and ground operations have been displaced, widowed, and facing starvation," the alert read, describing the war as "also a war on women."

The alert cited the lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene services, threatening women's "health, dignity, safety, and privacy."

UN Women said over a million Palestinian females face "catastrophic" hunger and stressed that breastfeeding and pregnant women are in especially critical need of clean water. 

The agency also highlighted the struggles women face during their menstrual cycles, estimating that 10 million disposable menstrual pads or four million reusable sanitary pads are required each month to cover the needs of 690,000 women and girls in Gaza.

"The war in Gaza is no doubt a war on women, who are paying a heavy price for a war not of their making," Susanne Mikhail, Regional Director of UN Women in the Arab States, said in a media briefing in Geneva.

Iran's weekend attack on Israel could prompt additional Western sanctions on the Islamic Republic, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday, addressing the potential global economic damage from the rising tensions in the Middle East.

Yellen said the United States and its allies won't hesitate to impose sanctions on Tehran for  Iran's "malign and destabilizing activity" in the Middle East.

"From this weekend's attack to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, Iran's actions threaten the region's stability and could cause economic spillovers," Yellen said. "I fully expect we will take additional sanctions actions against Iran in the coming days."

Tehran's attack on Israel, the first of its kind from Iranian territory, was in retaliation for what Iran says was an Israeli strike on its consulate in Syria earlier this month that killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Israel Defense Force (IDF) carried out a strike on southern Lebanon, killing a regional commander of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The IDF identified the commander as Ismail Youssef Baz, saying he was a senior official of Hezbollah's military wing, with a rank "equivalent to the rank of brigadier general." He was killed in the Ain Baal area in Lebanon.

A source close to the group confirmed the news to the French AFP news agency.

"The field commander in charge of the Naqura region has been martyred in an Israeli strike," the source told AFP. Naqura lies a few kilometers south of Ain Baal.

The Lebanese state agency NNA also reported one death in an Israeli strike on a car in Ain Baal.

Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Shiite political party and militant group in Lebanon. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group.

Israel's Venice Biennale participant Ruth Patir has closed her pavilion and says she will open it only when a hostage deal and cease-fire in the war with Hamas are reached.

The video installation, called "(M)otherland," was supposed to be open Saturday at Israel's national pavilion at the   Biennale in Venice, one of the world's most prominent contemporary visual art exhibitions.

"If I am given such a remarkable stage, I want to make it count," she wrote in an Instagram post. I prefer to raise my voice with those I stand with in their scream: ceasefire now, bring the people back from captivity. We can't take it anymore."

Earlier this year, a petition signed by thousands of artists, architects, and curators urged Biennale organizers to exclude Israel due to its ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. 

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will head to Israel on Tuesday for talks on how to de-escalate the situation following Iran's drone and missile attack over the weekend.

Baerbock is expected to hold talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Israel Katz and War Cabinet member Benny Gantz, according to a spokesperson from the German Foreign Ministry.

Baerbock heads to the region days after Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel in which hundreds of drones and missiles were fired. Nearly all the missiles and drones were shot down, but one child in Israel was seriously injured in the Iranian attack.

Iran says the attack was in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in which high-ranking military officers were killed.

Baerbock has led calls for a tightening of sanctions targeting Iran's drone program.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Tuesday called for "all states with influence" to do everything possible to stop "the increasingly horrific human rights and humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

A statement issued by Türk's office said that action was also necessary to halt "rising violence and targeted attacks in the West Bank."

"Resolving the catastrophic situation of civilians in Gaza must remain a priority," Türk said.

The human rights chief said Israel "continues to impose unlawful restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance, and to carry out widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure."

Israel has denied delaying deliveries of aid to the Palestinian territory.

Türk repeated his call for an immediate cease-fire and also for hostages held by Hamas to be released and said "unfettered humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow immediately" and that those delivering humanitarian aid "must never be attacked."

On April 1, a convoy belonging to World Central Kitchen was hit in an Israeli strike, killing seven members of its staff.

Israel said it was responsible for the strike and that it had been unintentional. 

More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Tuesday called for the European Union to tighten sanctions on Iranian drone technology following Saturday's attack on Israel.

"I campaigned in late autumn together with France and other partners within the European Union for this drone sanctions regime to be extended further... I hope that we can now finally take this step together," Baerbock said in Berlin after talks with Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi.

The EU introduced sanctions in December in response to Iran producing drones that Russia has used in its war in Ukraine.

Germany's top diplomat also said she would travel to Israel to discuss how to de-escalate the situation. 

"We will discuss how a further escalation with more and more violence can be prevented," Baerbock told journalists.

Former UN rights chief Navi Pillay says Israel is preventing UN investigators from speaking to witnesses and victims of the October 7 terror attack in southern Israel.

Pillay is chairing a UN-mandated commission of inquiry to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Israel and Palestinian territories.

"I deplore the fact that people inside Israel who wish to speak to us are being denied that opportunity, because we cannot get access into Israel," Pillay said.

"So far as the government of Israel is concerned, we have not only seen a lack of cooperation, but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims to the events that occurred in southern Israel," said Chris Sidoti, one of three members of a commission of inquiry.

Sidoti appealed to the government of Israel, as well as victims and witnesses of the attack, to assist with the work of the commission as it conducted its probe.

The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva said it had been carrying out its own investigation, and that representatives of the UN and other institutions had been to Israel and met with survivors and victims.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that 33,843 people had been killed in the territory since the start of the war more than six months ago.

The Palestinian territory's health authorities reported the deaths of 46 people over the past 24 hours and added that 76,575 people had been injured since the war began.

Israel launched an air and ground offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led terror attacks of October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and some 250 people were taken hostage.

Israel's ongoing offensive was gradually expanded throughout the territory, with more than a million Gaza residents displaced to Rafah in the south, considered one of the last safe places in the strip.

Israel's leadership last week said a date had been set for a planned offensive in Rafah. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by many countries including US, Germany and Israel.

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has warned Israel it will face a "painful response" if it takes the "slightest action" in response to Iran's drone and missile attack at the weekend.

"We firmly declare that the slightest action against Iran's interests will definitely be met with a severe, extensive and painful response," Raisi said in a call late Monday with Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. 

Raisi reiterated that Iran was acting in "self-defense," saying the operation targeted Israeli bases used to carry out the consulate strike, a statement from his office said. 

Iran's first-ever direct attack on Israel, which began Saturday, was in response to an April 1 airstrike on Tehran's consulate in Damascus that was widely blamed on Israel.

The strike leveled the five-story consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, two of them generals.

Israeli armed forces chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi vowed on Monday to respond to the unprecedented attack, even after appeals for restraint poured in from world leaders fearing wider regional conflict.

Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said he was leading what he termed "a diplomatic offensive" in comments made on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

"Alongside the military response to the firing of the missiles and the UAVs, I am leading a diplomatic offensive against Iran," Katz said.

"This morning I sent letters to 32 countries and spoke with dozens of foreign ministers and leading figures around the world," Katz wrote.

Israel's top diplomat called for sanctions to be imposed on Iran's missile program and for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be declared a terrorist organization, which he said was a way of weakening Iran.

Katz stated that this diplomatic effort would run alongside the military response.

Israel's military leadership has indicated that it does not plan on letting Iran's attack go unanswered.