At least nine people, including health and rescue workers, have died in central Beirut after Israel bombed an apartment building housing a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah. At least 14 people were wounded in the airstrike on the Bashoura district of Beirut near Lebanon’s Parliament. There are reports Israel fired white phosphorus munitions during the attack. Israel also carried out numerous strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced since Israel began its massive aerial assault last week. Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah claims it has destroyed three Israeli tanks.

Israel launched the ground invasion days after assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday. Lebanon’s top diplomat has revealed that Israel targeted Nasrallah after he had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire. Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib made the comment during an interview with Christiane Amanpour on PBS.

Christiane Amanpour: “Are you saying Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire just moments before he was assassinated?”

Abdallah Bou Habib: “He agreed. He agreed, yes, yes. We agreed completely. Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, but consulting with the Hezbollah. The speaker, Mr. Berri, consulted with Hezbollah. And we informed the Americans and the French that that’s what happened.”

Christiane Amanpour: “So” —

Abdallah Bou Habib: “And they told us that Mr. Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents.”

Hezbollah has not confirmed a ceasefire deal was reached, but Lebanon’s Ambassador to the U.K. Rami Mortada told the BBC, “We were on track trying to discuss a diplomatic alternative to the current abyss, but the hotheads in Israel chose a different path.”
Meanwhile, the emir of Qatar has accused Israel of committing a “collective genocide” as he condemned Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.

Israel continues to threaten to launch a major attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli military bases and other security sites. On Wednesday, President Biden said he supports Israel’s right to retaliate but that he opposes strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stressed U.S. support for Israel.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield: “As President Biden emphasized following yesterday’s attack, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel.”

On Wednesday, Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, visited Qatar, where he said Iran wants peace, not war.

President Masoud Pezeshkian: “The security of the region is the security of all Muslims, and we do not want any war or bloodshed. Since I assumed the presidency, every speech I’ve made has emphasized our quest for peace and security. No nation or region can prosper in the midst of war. … We were left with no choice but to respond. If Israel decides to retaliate, then it will face harsher reactions.”

In Gaza, Israeli ground and air attacks have killed nearly 100 people over the past day, including at least 51 in Khan Younis. The dead in Khan Younis included seven women and 12 children. Residents described the Israeli attack.

Mohamed: “We were at home when we heard explosions and planes. We could not leave our homes. We wanted to go out to a safe place like the city by the sea or Mawasi, but we could not get there because of the planes. Whoever left their home was killed because of the quadcopters. There was heavy fire all night. It started from 7 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. nonstop.”

Gaza authorities say Israel’s yearlong war has wiped 902 entire families off the civil registry. There are another 1,364 families where only one family member has survived. The official death toll in Gaza has reached nearly 41,800, but that is believed to be a vast undercount.

Federal prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith have laid out new evidence about how Donald Trump “resorted to crimes to try to stay in office” after losing the 2020 election. In the filing, Smith argues that Trump should not be protected by presidential immunity since the actions he took were done in his capacity as a candidate. The filing states, “At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one. He extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.” Part of the filing reveals new details about Trump’s response to the January 6 insurrection. When an aide told him Vice President Mike Pence’s life was in danger, Trump responded by saying, “So what?” When one of Trump’s attorneys said his claims of election fraud would not stand up in court, Trump responded by saying, “The details don’t matter.”

President Biden has ordered the Pentagon to deploy 1,000 active-duty troops to help with flood relief efforts as the death toll from Hurricane Helene reached 190. Hundreds remain missing and are feared dead. Power outages and water shortages remain rampant across six southeastern states. On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris surveyed storm damage in Augusta, Georgia, where residents have struggled for nearly a week to secure food, water and electricity. Harris toured a Red Cross relief center and spoke to reporters from in front of a home with a fallen tree on its roof.

Vice President Kamala Harris: “I am here to personally take a look at the devastation, which is extraordinary. And it is particularly devastating in terms of the loss of life that this community has experienced, the loss of normalcy and the loss of critical resources.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday the Federal Emergency Management Agency — FEMA — does not have the funds to make it through the rest of the hurricane season. President Biden has said he may call Congress back early from its October recess to take up the issue.

Meanwhile, two separate rapid-attribution studies have found global heating is to blame for Hurricane Helene’s ferocity, boosting the storm’s top wind speeds and increasing the amount of rain that fell across Georgia and the Carolinas by as much as 50%.

Thirty-six million people across the western United States are under heat advisories today, with forecasters predicting record temperatures of up to 25 degrees above normal. Phoenix, Arizona, reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday — the hottest October day in its history, coming after Arizona logged its hottest summer on record this year. The federal government’s most recent National Climate Assessment found the number of heat waves that major U.S. cities are experiencing each year has doubled since the 1980s due to climate change driven by human activity.

The United Kingdom has announced it will return sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after nearly six decades of British rule. The archipelago, located in the Indian Ocean, is home to a contested military base on the island of Diego Garcia controlled by the U.K. and leased to the U.S. military. As part of the agreement announced today, the base will remain under U.K. and U.S. control for at least the next 99 years. In the 1960s and ’70s, the U.K. expelled most Chagos Islands inhabitants to make way for the air base, which Human Rights Watch has called a “crime against humanity.” Chagossians seeking to return to their ancestral territory are calling on the Biden administration to apologize and to make reparations.

Mexico’s newly inaugurated president has issued an historic apology for the Tlatelolco massacre. It was October 2, 1968, when hundreds of students were gunned down by soldiers as they held peaceful protests on the eve of the Mexico City Olympic Games. On Wednesday, as one of her first official acts, President Claudia Sheinbaum signed a decree apologizing for the massacre 56 years ago.

President Claudia Sheinbaum: “Personally, to me, this is an obligation today. I’ve said on other occasions that I’m a daughter of the 1968 movement. My mother participated in the student movement; she was a professor at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional. She participated throughout the whole movement as a professor and helping students.”

In California, authorities have indicted 68 members of a neo-Nazi group affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood known as the Peckerwood gang. The group, which is based in the San Fernando Valley region, is accused of drug smuggling, robbery and fraud to finance their actions.