Netanyahu warns Iran there is no place Israel can't reach

Belligerent leader addresses UN as Hezbollah's HQ targeted

- RACHEL HAGAN BEL TREW

A defiant Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel seeks total victory against the Iran-backed militant groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon - as he warned Tehran that "there is no place" his country's military assets "cannot reach".

Facing growing pressure over the need for a ceasefire on the Israeli-Lebanon border, and long-running calls for a truce in Gaza, the Israeli prime minister laid out a bombastic defence of his actions at the UN General Assembly in New York, containing lots of fiery rhetoric but no mention of putting an end to either conflict.

Firmly rebuffing Western pressure for a truce with Hezbollah, he declared instead that “we are winning”. As if to make the point, not long after he finished his speech, explosions rocked Beirut, with the Israeli military announcing that it had launched a strike targeting Hezbollah’s central headquarters. Reports suggested that Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was the possible target.

As the explosion sent massive clouds of orange and black smoke billowing into the sky, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed that the base was underneath residential buildings. The Independent asked whether Hassan Nasrallah had been present at the headquarters, but the Israeli military declined to confirm or deny this.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a border village, authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll – around 700 – and a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes thanks to the possibility of all-out war. One woman, who wished not to be named, described losing her uncle and his entire family, his wife and their three daughters, in a strike in the south of the country.