Live: 15 killed in Israeli bombing of camp in central Gaza

Iran’s supreme leader stated that his country will not “procrastinate or rush to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel.

He also voiced support for Palestine, declaring, “the Palestinian people have a lawful right to defend themselves. To stand up to those criminals – the occupation forces. There is not a single court or international organisation that can blame the Palestinian people for simply defending their homeland,” Khamenei said during his Friday sermon.

Iran’s supreme leader asserted that every nation has the right to defend itself against aggressors. He emphasised the need for Muslim nations to prepare their “defense against the common enemy”.

Khamenei described Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on 7 October, along with Iran’s recent ballistic missile strike, as “legal and legitimate”.

“Each and every country, each and every people have the ultimate right to defend themselves against the ultimate tyranny,” Khamenei told a large crowd in Tehran.

Ayatollah Khamenei addressed a large crowd of Iranians in the capital, Tehran, stating: “The policies adopted by our enemy are to sow the seeds of division and sedition, to drive a wedge among all the Muslims. They are the same enemies to the Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians, and the Iraqis. They are the enemy to the Yemeni and Syrian people.” 

“Our enemy is one,” Iran’s supreme leader declared.

This sermon marked Khamenei's first in nearly five years.

Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, addressed a large crowd in Tehran days after Iran's attack on Israel. This marked a rare sermon for the 85-year-old leader - his first since Iran's missile strikes on Israel and also the first since Israel began its campaign against Hezbollah strongholds.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli warplanes dropped approximately 73 tons of bombs on a the alleged Hezbollah headquarters located in the southern suburb of Beirut. 

Unicef, the UN’s children’s agency, has called for a ceasefire, highlighting a significant increase in “physical injuries and psychological suffering” among children in Lebanon. 

“This catastrophic conflict is taking a heavy toll on children. Doctors tell us of treating children bleeding, bruised and broken suffering both physically and psychologically,” said Adele Khodr, Unicef’s regional director, in a statement.

“Many are suffering from anxiety, flashbacks, and nightmares related to the explosions. No child should be exposed to such horrific situations.”

According to Unicef the most prevalent injuries include concussions, shrapnel wounds, and hearing loss due to blasts.

The former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has said that a bugging device was discovered in his bathroom following a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In his new memoir, Johnson recounts that the device was found while he served as foreign secretary.

He claimed that his security team uncovered the device during a sweep of the toilets after Netanyahu had used them during a 2017 meeting. Johnson described the bathroom as "a secret annex... a bit like the gents in a posh London club," noting that Netanyahu excused himself during discussions at his former office to use the facilities.

Johnson stated: "Thither Bibi (Netanyahu) repaired for a while, and it may or may not be a coincidence but I am told that later, when they were doing a regular sweep for bugs, they found a listening device in the thunderbox."

Israeli forces killed 18 Palestinians on Thursday after bombing a coffee shop in the occupied West Bank using fighter jets, in the first such attack since the Second Intifada during the early 2000s. 

At least one missile hit a busy cafe in the al-Hamam neighbourhood in the crowded Tulkarm refugee camp late at night as citizens gathered there, according to official Palestinian news agency Wafa. Ambulances and first responders rushed to the scene after the raid, it added. 

Video from the site posted on social media showed what appeared to be a corpse suspended in the air and rubble spewed across the street with cries in the background.

A source within the Palestinian security services told AFP this was the deadliest single attack in the occupied West Bank since 2000.

“We condemn the Tulkarm camp massacre and hold the occupation government fully responsible for its repercussions,” the Palestinian Authority’s presidency office said in a statement on Thursday.

Read more: Israeli fighter jets bomb West Bank coffee shop, killing 18 Palestinians

The Israeli military has issued a warning to residents in over 30 villages in southern Lebanon, telling them to leave their homes immediately and move north of the Awali River in Lebanon.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi arrived in Beirut on Friday, Lebanese state media reported.

A Reuters live feed captured an Iranian-flagged plane landing at Beirut's airport, just hours after airstrikes struck areas near the airport overnight.

Araqchi is scheduled to meet with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a known ally of Hezbollah.

The US Department of Defence plans to allocate around $1.2 billion for the upkeep of military vessels stationed in the Red Sea, according to recently released budget documents.

This funding will also be used to replenish missile stockpiles, which are essential for protecting Israel as it continues its war on Gaza.

The spending is linked to “costs incurred by the Department of Defence within the US Central Command region in responding to the situation in Israel or to hostile actions in the region as a direct result of the situation in Israel,” one of the documents says.

Al Jazeera reported that nine people were killed in Israeli air strikes on multiple areas across the Gaza Strip since early this morning.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said in an interview with CNN that both Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a temporary truce just before Israel killed Nasrallah in a massive air strike in Beirut.

"[The US] also agreed on the Biden-Macron statement that calls for the implementation of a 21-day ceasefire," Bou Habib told CNN's Christine Amanpour.

"And they told us that Mr Netanyahu agreed on this. And so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that. You know what has happened since then," he added.

Bou Habib, who is currently in New York following September's UN General Assembly, said the agreement to the truce was confirmed before Israel launched a massive air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, killing Nasrallah and wiping out entire buildings.

Before Israel killed Nasrallah, the US and France said last Wednesday they were releasing a statement urging for a 21-day temporary truce between Hezbollah and Israel, after a week of Israel launching escalatory air strikes on Lebanon.

Read more: Nasrallah, Netanyahu agreed to a truce before Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader: Report

Lebanon’s Transport Minister, Ali Hamieh, said an Israeli airstrike on Friday morning hit near the Masnaa border crossing with Syria.

The strike cut off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Israeli bombardments in recent days.

The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned Israel's airstrike on the Tulkarm refugee camp early today, calling it a "flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law."

In its statement, the ministry emphasised that Israel's escalating attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, combined with its ongoing aggression in Gaza and Lebanon, reflect a clear intention to expand the conflict regionally, which threatens the security and stability of the region.