‘You should leave’: Tensions high as Lebanon faces frightening prospect of possible ground assault
The Israeli airstrikes have left people in the south of Lebanon feeling there are no safe places around here now.
Dozens more were killed in another intense day of Israeli bombing including more children – with whole families missing and unaccounted for.
Follow latest: Israel preparing ‘for possible ground invasion’
One Lebanese army general told us: “This area is not safe now. You should leave. We are evacuating everyone from here.”
He was with a group of soldiers in an army Humvee and said his men had recently evacuated residents from the Christian town of Aalma El Chaeb further south near the border.
This was an area we had visited previously with UN peacekeepers and where the residents insisted Hezbollah remained outside the town.
It was notable for being remarkably unaffected despite the devastation evident in all the surrounding villages hugging the border.
The situation is now considered too risky even for those residents who’d very publicly and successfully rejected any Hezbollah involvement or interaction.
As we drove around the south, we saw craters on the side of the main coastal highway linking the area to the capital Beirut.
A crater on the side of a road after an Israeli airstrike
Destruction from an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Tyre
There were two upturned cars which had ended up on the other side of the road. On one street, rows of shops and businesses appeared to have been blasted.
There were what looked like a woman’s individual ID photographs scattered on the ground, along with clothing and a baby’s bib. A small fish tank in one of the shops still had its inhabitants swimming around – but very little else looked intact.
A residential apartment on the outskirts of Tyre appeared to have been freshly hit when we turned up, with smoke wafting out from the rubble and a fire still burning inside.
A woman’s photo was among the items on the ground
Buildings destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Tyre
A fire truck pulled up while we were there and moments later, we were hastily moved on by Hezbollah supporters who appeared on motorbikes.
“Leave the area,” one said, saying it was unsafe because of escaping gas. We spotted two lone women dragging suitcases behind them as they made their way along the road out of the area.
Many of the schools and universities have been turned into temporary shelters and we were at the Sidon Faculty of Law as several truck-loads of provisions were ferried into a crowd of anxious and angry displaced people.
Edouard Beigbeder from UNICEF told us: “They are traumatised. They’ve lost their houses. They’ve seen their houses being burnt.
“They’ve lost their income. They’ve lost many things.”
Edouard Beigbeder from UNICEF speaks to Sky News
Hector Hajjar, the Lebanese minister of social affairs who was visiting the shelter, brushed aside our attempt to ask him about the situation and his armed bodyguard tried to block the path of one fraught woman who heckled him as he walked away.
“If you’re going to come here, at least listen to us,” she plaintively shouted after him. The minister turned briefly to talk to her but whatever he said failed to pacify her.
“They’re not listening to us,” she told us. “Everyone’s just looking after themselves… we don’t have mattresses, covers or pillows… and our children are sleeping on the ground.”
Several truck-loads of provisions were brought in
Our presence at the shelter seems to rile many of those displaced. It’s not clear whether it’s because we are clearly Western, because we are media, or because they are simply just very highly stressed. Maybe all three. Tensions are high and tempers frayed.
One young mother holding a toddler on her hip told us she’d fled the bombing further south with her five children and moved north to Sidon just hours earlier.
“There’s a lot of destruction,” she said of the home she’d just left. “People died, houses got destroyed, the roads were blocked.”
She added: “There’s no more bread, no more food, no more water.”
A displaced man speaking after Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon
A young man standing next to her called Yousuf told us it wasn’t just Hezbollah fighters or supporters being targeted.
“They’re not differentiating between fighters and civilians… this aggression is intensely hitting civilian areas – they’re not differentiating at all,” he said.
As another day of Israeli bombing slipped into night, we could hear from our accommodation the regular booms of missiles hitting targets.
Read more from Sky News:
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Hezbollah says it will not back down and it claimed it had fired a ballistic missile for the first time at intelligence headquarters near Tel Aviv. The missile was intercepted.
We’ve heard a few Hezbollah rockets being fired over the past few days but there seems to be a marked drop in their salvoes around where we are, anyway.
The Israeli forces and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have insisted they are pressing on and the army chief has said these strikes are preparations for a possible ground assault.
Rhetoric or not, that’s a frightening prospect for the Lebanese people caught up in the thick of this bombardment.
Alex Crawford is reporting with cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Lebanon producers Jihad Jineid and Sami Zein
World
Russia wants ‘quick peace’ in Ukraine and London is ‘head of those resisting it’, ambassador to UK tells Sky News
Russia wants “quick peace” in Ukraine and London is at the “head of those resisting” it, the Russian ambassador to the UK has told Sky News.
In an interview on The World With Yalda Hakim, Andrei Kelin accused the UK, France and other European nations of not wanting to end the war in Ukraine.
“We are prepared to negotiate and to talk,” he said. “We have our position. If we can strike a negotiated settlement… we need a very serious approach to that and a very serious agreement about all of that – and about security in Europe.”
Russian ambassador Andrei Kelin speaks to Yalda Hakim
US President Donald Trump held a surprise phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last month, shocking America’s European allies. He went on to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” and relations between the pair were left in tatters after a meeting in the Oval Office descended into a shouting match.
Days later, the US leader suspended military aid to Ukraine, though there were signs the relationship between the two leaders appeared to be on the mend following the contentious White House meeting last week, with Mr Trump saying he “appreciated” a letter from Mr Zelenskyy saying Kyiv was ready to sign a minerals agreement with Washington “at any time”.
In his interview with Sky News’ Yalda Hakim, Mr Kelin said he was “not surprised” the US has changed its position on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022, claiming Mr Trump “knows the history of the conflict”.
“He knows history and is very different from European leaders,” he added.
No doubt Russia is welcoming shift in world order
I’ve interviewed the Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, on a number of occasions, at times the conversation has been tense and heated.
But today, I found a diplomat full of confidence and cautiously optimistic.
The optics of course have suddenly changed in Russia’s favour since Donald Trump was elected.
I asked him if Russia couldn’t believe its luck. “I would not exaggerate this too much,” he quipped.
Mr Kelin also “categorically” ruled out European troops on the ground and said the flurry of diplomatic activity and summits over the course of the past few weeks is not because Europeans want to talk to Moscow but because they want to present something to Mr Trump.
He appeared to relish the split the world is witnessing in transatlantic relations.
Of course the ambassador remained cagey about the conversations that have taken place between President Trump and Vladimir Putin.
There is no doubt however that Russia is welcoming what Mr Kelin says is a shift in the world order.
Peace deal ‘should recognise Russian advances’
The Russian ambassador said Moscow had told Washington it believed its territorial advances in Ukraine “should be recognised” as part of any peace deal.
“What we will need is a new Ukraine as a neutral, non-nuclear state,” he said. “The territorial situation should be recognised. These territories have been included in our constitution and we will continue to push that all forces of the Ukrainian government will leave these territories.”
Asked if he thought the Americans would agree to give occupied Ukrainian land to Russia, he said: “I don’t think we have discussed it seriously. [From] what I have read, the Americans actually understand the reality.”
Read more:
What you need to know from a monumental week in Ukraine
US ‘destroying’ world order by trying to meet Russia ‘halfway’
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In full: Russian ambassador’s interview with Sky’s Yalda Hakim
Moscow rules out NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine
He said Russia “categorically ruled out” the prospect of NATO peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine – a proposal made by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron – saying “they have no rules of engagement” and so would just be “sitting in cities”.
“It’s senseless” and “not for reality,” Mr Kelin added.
He branded the temporary ceasefire raised by Mr Zelenskyy “a crazy idea”, and said: “We will never accept it and they perfectly are aware of that.
“We will only accept the final version, when we are going to sign it. Until then things are very shaky.”
He added: “We’re trying to find a resolution on the battlefield, until the US administration suggest something constructive.”
World
US ‘destroying’ international rules-based order by trying to meet Russia ‘halfway’, Ukraine’s UK ambassador warns
The United States is “finally destroying” the international rules-based order by trying to meet Russia “halfway”, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK has warned.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi said Washington’s recent actions in relation to Moscow could lead to the collapse of NATO – with Europe becoming Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s next target.
“The failure to qualify actions of Russia as an aggression is a huge challenge for the entire world and Europe, in particular,” he told a conference at the Chatham House think tank.
Ukraine latest: ‘Watershed moment’ as Kremlin blasts Macron
“We see that it is not just the axis of evil and Russia trying to revise the world order, but the US is finally destroying this order.”
Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Pic: Reuters
Mr Zaluzhnyi, who took over as Kyiv’s ambassador to London in 2024 following three years as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, also warned that the White House had “questioned the unity of the whole Western world” – suggesting NATO could cease to exist as a result.
It comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scrambles to repair relations with US President Donald Trump following a dramatic row between the two men in the Oval Office last week.
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Mr Trump signalled on Tuesday that tensions could be easing, telling Congress he had received a letter from Mr Zelenskyy saying he was ready to sign a peace deal “at any time”.
Zelenskyy and Trump during their extraordinary Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Read more:
New Zealand fires UK envoy for Trump comments
US stops sharing all intelligence with Ukraine
But on the same day, the US president ordered a sudden freeze on shipments of US military aid to Ukraine, and Washington has since paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv and halted cyber operations against Russia.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Mr Zaluzhnyi said the pause in cyber operations and an earlier decision by the US to oppose a UN resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine were “a huge challenge for the entire world”.
He added that talks between the US and Russia – “headed by a war criminal” – showed the White House “makes steps towards the Kremlin, trying to meet them halfway”, warning Moscow’s next target “could be Europe”.
World
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh being forced to fight for same military accused of genocide against their people
Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh is a sprawling mass of humanity.Â
It’s a sea of makeshift bamboo shelters, home to more than one million Rohingya refugees – a mainly Muslim minority from Rakhine state in Myanmar.
Some 700,000 fled their homeland back in 2017 – after the Myanmar military massacred thousands.
The army was accused of genocide by the United Nations.
The Rohingya refugees didn’t escape danger though.
Right now, violence is at its worst levels in the camps since 2017 and Rohingya people face a particularly cruel new threat – they’re being forced back to fight for the same Myanmar military accused of trying to wipe out their people.
A child at the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar
Militant groups are recruiting Rohingya men in the camps, some at gunpoint, and taking them back to Myanmar to fight for a force that’s losing ground.
Jaker is just 19.
We’ve changed his name to protect his identity.
He says he was abducted at gunpoint last year by a group of nine men in Cox’s.
They tied his hands with rope he says and took him to the border where he was taken by boat with three other men to fight for the Myanmar military.
“It was heartbreaking,” he told me. “They targeted poor children. The children of wealthy families only avoided it by paying money.”
And he says the impact has been deadly.
“Many of our Rohingya boys, who were taken by force from the camps, were killed in battle.”
Jaker speaks to Sky’s Cordelia Lynch
An aerial view of the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar
The situation in Cox’s is desperate.
People are disillusioned by poverty, violence and the plight of their own people and the civil war they ran from is getting worse.
In Rakhine, just across the border, there’s been a big shift in dynamics.
The Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group has all but taken control of the state from the ruling military junta.
Both the military and the AA are accused of committing atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.
And whilst some Rohingya claim they’re being forced into the fray – dragged back to Myanmar from Bangladesh, others are willing to go.
Read more from Sky News:
Bangladesh leader reacts to ‘House of Mirrors’ prison
Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails
Sri Lanka rescues more than 100 people believed to be Rohingya refugees
Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar – where refugees arrive from Myanmar after crossing the Naf River
Some are so aggrieved with the AA, they’re willing to support their former persecutors.
Abu Zar is one of those willing to take up arms.
But not for the military or AA, he says.
Everyone praying in the mosque with him is prepared to go back to protect their own cause he says – not anyone else’s.
“We want to fight for our rights because we have been demanding justice for a long time. But the situation has become unbearable,” he tells me.
Abu Zar has said he is willing to take up arms for his own cause
It’s estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Rohingya have joined armed groups from this camp.
But the fight they are joining has become increasingly bloody.
In a cramped shelter, we meet Safura.
Safura came under fire as she fled Myanmar
Safura’s son Aman had his foot blown off
Five days ago she managed to get out of Myanmar but she had to be carried part of the way.
Her legs are riddled with bullet wounds and the pain is severe.
Her son, Aman, who lies on the floor next to her, has had his foot blown off.
They were injured she said, during an attack on her family home in the middle of the night.
“They entered our house and shot all my family members. My husband and mother-in-law were killed on the spot.”
The military denies forcing Rohingya to the battlefield. But the camps tell a different story- one of surging violence and vulnerability.
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