Middle East crisis live: ‘hell is breaking loose in Lebanon’, Guterres tells UN security council

Just before this meeting got under way, Israel’s envoy to the United Nations said his country would prefer a diplomatic solution in Lebanon, but added that if diplomacy fails Israel would use all means at its disposal.

Danny Danon also said that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to arrive on Thursday and address the UN general assembly on Friday.

The representative from Slovenia – which holds the security council’s rotating president has opened the meeting and handed over to UN secretary general António Guterres.

Guterres begins by saying “hell is breaking loose in Lebanon: and that the country is on the brink.

He has called on the communities of norther Israel and southern Lebanon to be able to return to their homes.

The UN security council is getting set to meet to discuss the Middle East. As we wait for that meeting to begin, here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• At least 72 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Wednesday and hundreds were wounded, according to figures by the Lebanese health ministry. The geographic scope of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah has widened, after Hezbollah aimed a long-range missile at Tel Aviv and Israel targeted the mountains north of Beirut for the first time in the war, drawing an Israeli warning that it was preparing a major response. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it hit more than 2,000 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in the past three days.

• Three days of Israeli bombardment has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon, according to authorities. At least a quarter of them are women and children. The UN said 90,000 people had been displaced since Monday, on top of more than 200,000 people who had left their homes in southern Lebanon over the past year as Hezbollah and Israel exchanged fire over the border.

• Israel’s top general has said the country is preparing for a possible ground operation into Lebanon. As an intense bombing campaign inside Lebanon stretched in to a third day, Maj Gen Herzi Halevi said the airstrikes aimed to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and prepare for the possibility of Israeli troops crossing the border. “We are preparing the process of a manoeuvre,” he told troops during a visit to Israel’s north on Wednesday.

• The Pentagon said an Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon did not appear “imminent”. Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the US was making “a full-court press” for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. She referred reporters to Israel for questions about its operations and plans.

• Israel’s Maj Gen Halevi’s comments came amid growing international pressure for a negotiated ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. The US is in “active discussions” with Israeli officials as well as other countries to negotiate a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah, a US official said. A US-led initiative to secure a ceasefire has the support of France and Arab countries, but it relies on Hezbollah agreeing to stop firing on Israel before any ceasefire in Gaza is secured. France has called a UN security council meeting on Lebanon for Wednesday to discuss ideas around de-escalation.

• The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel is delivering blows to Hezbollah that it could never imagine, promising not to rest until residents of northern Israel return home. Netanyahu is due to be out of the country to travel to the UN general assembly in New York.

• With Israel and Hezbollah now in effect at war, world leaders repeatedly warned of the dangers of a full-blown regional conflict at the UN general assembly in New York on Wednesday. But as they called for de-escalation, they prepared for the opposite: from Moscow to London and Washington, governments told citizens in Lebanon to return home while they could, as airlines cancelled flights from Beirut.

• The US president, Joe Biden, warned over the need to avoid “all-out war” in the region. “An all-out war is possible,” Biden said on Wednesday, adding that he believed an opportunity also existed “to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region”. Biden has been widely criticised for mishandling the escalating Middle East crisis. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Washington and its allies were working tirelessly to avoid a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah. Blinken claimed Israel has a legitimate interest in seeking to remove Hezbollah from the borders of northern Israel and rebuffed calls to take a tougher line over the Israeli bombardment.

• The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, called for an end to Israel’s “escalation” in Lebanon along with the rocket attacks by Hezbollah on Israel. Macron said he would send his newly appointed foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, to Lebanon this week as part of efforts to prevent a full-fledged war. The White House said Biden met with Macron on the sidelines of the UN general assembly on Wednesday to discuss “efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah and prevent a wider war”.

• The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he was “very concerned” about the increasing escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. The UK is closely monitoring Beirut’s international airport amid fears it may be forced to close due to escalating fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which would probably lead to an evacuation of British and other foreign nationals from Lebanon. The UK government announced it would send £5m ($6.6m) in aid to Lebanon.

• Israel continued to bombard the Gaza Strip as well as Lebanon. The health ministry in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday reported the killing of 85 people and the injury of 104 others by the Israeli military in the last 24 hours. The total figures since 7 October, given by the ministry, are as at least 41,495 Palestinians killed and 96,006 wounded.

• Israeli forces detained at least 35 people in the occupied West Bank in the last 24 hours, according to a statement from the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society. The latest figure takes the total number of arrests since 7 October to more than 10,900.

The White House said the US president, Joe Biden, met with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York on Wednesday.

The two leaders discussed “efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah and prevent a wider war”, according to the White House.

At least 72 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Wednesday in Lebanon and hundreds were wounded, according to a Reuters compilation of Lebanese health ministry statements.