Iran nuclear facilities 'more exposed than ever to strikes': Israel

Newly appointed Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Monday said Iran was "more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities".

"We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal – to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel," Katz added on X.

Israel has for years accused Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, but the Islamic Republic has repeatedly denied the claims.

The United States in 2018 under President Donald Trump -- who won re-election last week -- withdrew from a 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and Western powers including Washington that sought to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Tehran has since enriched uranium up to 60 percent, just 30 percent below atomic weapons grade.

Israel and Iran have traded tit-for-tat missile strikes, triggering fears of a wider Middle East war.

Iran twice fired missiles directly on Israeli territory this year, prompting Israel to retaliate, most recently on October 26 when it hit Iranian military facilities.

Israel has warned Iran against responding to last month's attack.

Israeli strike kills 8 in Lebanon

Israel struck Lebanon's northernmost Akkar region on Monday, killing at least eight people according to authorities, in one of the farthest attacks from the Israeli border since war erupted in September.

A security official told AFP the target of the strike was a Hezbollah member who was part of a displaced family from south Lebanon that had moved into the building.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Ain Yaacoub in Akkar killed eight people and injured 14 others," the health ministry said in a statement, giving what it said was a preliminary toll.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said the strike targeted "a Hezbollah terrorist" and that the "specific missile that was used" was meant to prevent harm to civilians.

Earlier, Lebanese state-run media said Israel struck a house in Ain Yaacoub, a village inhabited mostly by Sunni Muslims and Christians that is far from the Iran-backed Hezbollah's traditional bastions.

Since September 23, Israel has intensified its air campaign against Hezbollah, mainly targeting the group's strongholds in Lebanon's east and south and south Beirut, and very rarely in the north.

"An enemy strike targeted a house in the village of Ain Yaacoub," some 150 kilometres (93 miles) from Israel, said Lebanon's official National News Agency.

Local official Rony al-Hage told AFP that "displaced people lived in the two-storey house", and that it was the northernmost Israeli attack since the full-blown war erupted.

After Israel ramped up its campaign of air raids, it also sent ground troops into south Lebanon on September 30.

"Rescue and rubble-removing operations are still ongoing," Hage said.

Residents of a nearby village heard a loud explosion and ambulance sirens.

A local Facebook page broadcast a live video feed it said was from the scene that showed a destroyed house, with people removing rubble with their bare hands and using their phones as flashlights.

The health ministry earlier said an Israeli strike on the southern town of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven people.

On Sunday, the ministry said an Israeli strike killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Almat north of the capital.

The Lebanon war erupted after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. That attack triggered the ongoing Gaza war.

More than 3,240 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border fire began last year, according to the health ministry, with most of the deaths coming since late September.