Fears of a regional war in the Middle East spiked after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets towards Israel. The rocket attacks came after Israeli strikes killed a senior Hezbollah commander and the killing of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Hezbollah on Saturday said it launched dozens of rockets at Israel as tensions in the Middle East soared with Iran and its allies reading their response to the killing of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this week. Amid fears of a regional war, US President Joe Biden hoped that Iran would “stand down” despite its threats to attack Israel.

Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, said its rocket attacks on Moshav Beit Hillel in Israel injured civilians there, The Times of Israel reported. It also said it was a retaliatory attack to Israel’s strikes on Kfar Kela and Deir Siriane in Lebanon and after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a senior military commander from Hezbollah.

Three US and Israeli officials said they had expected Iran to attack Israel as early as Monday, according to an Axios report.

Israel said its famed Dome system intercepted most rockets fired by Hezbollah. Israeli authorities said several impacts were recognised near Beit Hillel. According to local media, fires were reported in the area.

The US, Israel’s ally, said it was boosting its military presence in the Middle East to protect its personnel and defend the Jewish nation amid soaring tensions. Washington said it would deploy an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers and a new fighter squadron in the region.

The US Embassy in Beirut has asked its people to immediately leave Lebanon on “any ticket available” amid fears of a fresh war in the region. The advisory came after UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned that the regional situation “could deteriorate rapidly”. Several countries, including Jordan, Canada and India, have issued similar advisories for their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Iran, which blames Israel for the killing of Haniyeh, said it expected Hezbollah to strike deeper inside Israel and that the group would no longer be confined to military targets.

Significantly, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups from Yemen, Iraq and Syria are already involved in the nearly 10-month-old war between Israel and Palestinian outfit Hamas in Gaza.

In another related development, an Israeli drone strike in the southern Lebanon town of Bazourieh killed Ali Abd Ali, a prominent Hezbollah operative, The Times of Israel reported. According to the Israeli military, Ali was a “central terrorist” in Hezbollah’s Southern Front.

Hezbollah confirmed Ali’s killing in the strike and warned of retaliation on Israel. According to Lebanese media, two people were injured in the Israeli strike that killed Ali.

Violence spread to West Bank as Israel traded fire with Hezbollah on Saturday. Israeli strikes on a school compound in Gaza City, ruled by Hamas, killed 17 people.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to his French and British counterparts – French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy – on Saturday about the situation in the Middle East and all agreed on the need by all sides to exercise restraint, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

‘Stop bullshitting me,’ furious Biden tells Netanyahu

Days after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in an Israeli strike in Iran, US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop bullshitting me” during their conversation on Thursday, Channel 12 News reported without citing any official sources.

This comment came after Netanyahu informed Biden that Israel was advancing negotiations on a hostages-for-ceasefire deal with Hamas and would soon send a delegation to resume talks. President Biden concluded the conversation by saying, “Don’t take the president for granted.”

As per the report, this remark was made in the context of Israeli-US cooperation in anticipation of a possible full-scale war with Iran and its proxies.

Responding to the report, the Israel Prime Minister’s Office issued an official statement later on Saturday, stating, “The prime minister does not interfere in American politics and will work with whoever is elected president, just as he also expects the Americans not to interfere in Israeli politics,” The Times of Israel reported.

Meanwhile, after President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the US presidential election race, Benjamin Netanyahu is feeling emboldened to take stringent action against Iran, a senior Israeli official told The Telegraph.

The official stated that the US President was trying to “restrain” Netanyahu while he was still running for re-election.

“He told him not to respond too harshly to Iran’s attacks. And Iran knew this, which is why they exploited the situation to attack Israel,” the official was quoted as saying by The Telegraph in its report.

‘Short-range projectile’ killed Hamas chief

Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a “short-range projectile” launched from outside of his accommodation in Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said. “This terrorist operation was carried out by firing a short-range projectile with a warhead of about 7 kilograms – causing a strong explosion – from outside the accommodation area,” the Guards said in a statement.

The Guards again blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s killing, adding that it was “supported by the United States”. They said Haniyeh’s death would be avenged and that Israel would receive “a severe punishment at the appropriate time, place and manner”.

Death toll inside Gaza nearing 40,000

The death toll inside Gaza is now nearing 40,000. At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in nearly 10 months of fighting since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel which triggered the war.

Most of Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million is displaced, many people multiple times, as Israel’s military returns to areas where it says Hamas militants have regrouped. 

Health services and sanitation have largely collapsed across the territory as hunger grows.

Harris campaign says Trump is ‘running scared’ after he offers Fox debate

US Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took turns insulting each other Saturday over a weeks-long dispute about when and where they would debate each other.

The former president has refused to agree to a previously-scheduled September 10 debate hosted by ABC News. He has instead tried to pressure Harris, the de facto Democratic presidential nominee, to accept an earlier debate in a vastly different setting on Trump-friendly Fox News.

Trump on Friday announced on Truth Social that he had agreed with Fox News to do a September 4 debate against Harris with Fox News moderators and a full audience in attendance.

The Harris campaign on Saturday mocked Trump for walking back his commitment to the ABC News debate.

“Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out,” Harris campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said in a statement.

Trump quoted ongoing litigation with ABC News as creating a “conflict of interest”.

“He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on September 10. The Vice President will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience,” Tyler said.

Later, Trump fired back in several Truth Social messages, calling Harris a “low IQ individual”. “Kamala Harris doesn’t have the mental capacity to do a REAL Debate against me, scheduled for September 4th in Pennsylvania,” Trump wrote in another Truth Social post. “I’ll see her on September 4th or, I won’t see her at all.”

The Harris campaign has said that the vice president will show up at the September 10 debate whether Trump is there or not.

Harris’ husband acknowledges affair during first marriage

Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff acknowledged Saturday in a statement to CNN that he had an affair during his first marriage after the alleged details of the relationship were published by London’s The Daily Mail.

“During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions. I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side,” Emhoff said in a statement provided exclusively to CNN.

The statement came after the Daily Mail reported that Emhoff had a relationship with one of his then-young daughter’s teachers, which resulted in the end of his first marriage.

The relationship and the circumstances around it were known four years ago to Joe Biden’s vetting committee as Harris was herself going through the running mate process before being picked for the ticket, a person familiar with the conversations told CNN. The person also said that Emhoff had told Harris about the affair well before they got married. The relationship ended years before Emhoff began dating Harris.

Renewed rioting sweeps British cities in wake of child murders

Rioters will “pay the price” for the wave of violent clashes that has spread across the UK, ministers warned on Saturday, after a day in which police battled rival groups of demonstrators in the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Britain for more than a decade.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the police would have the government’s full support to take the strongest possible action. “Criminal violence and disorder have no place on Britain’s streets,” she said.

“Anyone who gets involved in criminal disorder and violent thuggery on our streets will have to pay the price and they should expect there to be arrests, prosecutions, penalties, and the full force of the law including imprisonment and travel bans. There are consequences for breaking the law.”

The widespread nature of the clashes poses the first major challenge to Keir Starmer’s new government, which is now facing demands to introduce emergency powers to stop further violence and to recall parliament.

In the protests that spread across the nation, bricks were hurled at police officers in Stoke-on-Trent, fireworks were thrown amid tense exchanges between an anti-Islamic group and an anti-racism rally in Belfast, and windows of a hotel which has been used to house migrants were smashed in Hull, where three police officers were injured and four people arrested.

Several officers were also injured during “serious disorder” in Liverpool city centre, where bricks, bottles and a flare were thrown and one officer hit on the head with a chair. Greater Manchester police said a dispersal notice had been authorised for the city centre and scuffles broke out as opposing groups faced each other in Nottingham’s Old Market Square with bottles and other items thrown from both sides.

7 EU countries urge Caracas to publish voting registers

On the initiative of Giorgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron, the leaders of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Poland have asked the Venezuelan authorities to “promptly publish all voting registers to guarantee full transparency and integrity of the electoral process”, a note from Palazzo Chigi says.

Leaders from around the world, including the US, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and Uruguay, US, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, have cast doubt on Nicolas Maduro’s claim that he won the election, and protesters have clashed with police in the streets of the embattled South American nation.

Mass protests against President Maduro’s contested re-election

Thousands of people took to the streets across Venezuela on Saturday to protest against the widely disputed re-election of President Nicolas Maduro.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado made a surprise appearance at the rally in Caracas after spending much of the week in hiding, saying that her life and freedom were at risk. Presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez was not seen at Saturday’s event as remains in hiding.

Later in the day, thousands of government supporters gathered in front of Maduro’s office at the Miraflores national Palace. Addressing them, Maduro vilified the opposition, claiming they “represent the hatred, the division, of fascism”. He vowed to continue to use a heavy hand against his political opponents, saying 2,000 of them have been arrested already. “This time there will be no pardon, this time there will be Tocoron,” he said, referring to a notorious prison.

Tennis: Djokovic clashes with Alcaraz for Olympic gold

Paris is gearing up for the tennis men’s singles ‘clash of the Titans’ between Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, set for mid-day today at Roland Garros. Djokovic is the oldest man in an Olympic tennis singles final while Alcaraz is the youngest.

Djokovic is considered by many to be the greatest men’s tennis player in history, a stance bolstered by statistics such as his 24 Grand Slam titles (more than any other man) and his 400-plus weeks spent at No. 1 in the rankings (more than any man or woman). There is basically just one thing missing from his resume: an Olympic gold.

Djokovic and Alcaraz have previously met a total of six times and each man has won three of those matches.

Olympic Football: Women’s quarter finals results: USA v Japan 1-0; Spain v. Columbia 2-2 (Spain win 4-2 on penalties); Canada v. Germany 0-0 (Germany win 2-4 on penalties); France v. Brazil 0-1.