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China likely to have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035: Pentagon

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China will likely have a stockpile of 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 if it continues with its current nuclear buildup pace, according to a report released by the Pentagon on Tuesday.

The figure underscores mounting US concerns about China's intentions for its expanding nuclear arsenal, even though the projections do not suggest China is accelerating the pace of its already-brisk warhead development, Reuters reported.

"They've got a rapid buildup that is kind of too substantial to keep under wraps," a senior US defense official said during a news briefing on the Pentagon's annual report on China's military.

"It does raise questions about whether they're kind of shifting away from a strategy that was premised on what they referred to as a lean and effective deterrent."

The report, which primarily covers activities in 2021, said China currently has a nuclear stockpile of more than 400 warheads.

The Pentagon's projection for China's nuclear arsenal of 1,000 warheads by 2030 remained unchanged, the official said, adding the projection for 2035 was based on an unchanged pace of expansion.

China says its arsenal is dwarfed by those of the United States and Russia, and that it is ready for dialogue, but only if Washington reduces its nuclear stockpile to China's level, read the report.

The United States has a stockpile of about 3,700 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 1,740 were deployed, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) think-tank.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping signaled during a Communist Party Congress in October that China would strengthen its strategic deterrent, a term often used to describe nuclear weapons.

The report reiterated concern about increasing pressure by Beijing on self-ruled Taiwan, an island China sees as a breakaway province.

The US official said Washington did not see an invasion of Taiwan as imminent, Reuters reported.

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US President Biden does not believe there will be ‘all-out-war’ in Middle East

Asked by reporters in Washington on Thursday how confident he was that such a war could be averted, Biden said, “How confident are you it’s not going to rain? Look, I don’t believe there is going to be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it.

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U.S. President Joe Biden said he did not believe there is going to be an "all-out war" in the Middle East, as Israel weighs options for retaliation after Tehran's largest ever assault on its arch-enemy.

However, Biden said more needed to be done to avoid a Middle East war, as Israel's military hit Beirut with new air strikes in its battle against Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Reuters reported.

Asked by reporters in Washington on Thursday how confident he was that such a war could be averted, Biden said, "How confident are you it's not going to rain? Look, I don't believe there is going to be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it.

"But there is a lot to do yet, a lot to do yet."

While the United States, the European Union, and other allies have called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict, Biden said the U.S. was discussing with Israel its options for responding to Tehran's assault, which included Israel striking Iran's oil facilities.

"We're discussing that," Biden told reporters.

His comments contributed to a surge in global oil prices, and rising Middle East tension has made traders worry about potential supply disruptions.

However, Biden added: "There is nothing going to happen today." Asked later if he was urging Israel not to attack Iran's oil installations, Biden said he would not negotiate in public.

On Wednesday, the president said he would not support any Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites.

On Thursday, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told CNN his country had "a lot of options" for retaliation and would show Tehran its strength "soon".

A U.S. official said Washington did not believe Israel had decided yet how to respond to Iran.

Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiye, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, came under renewed strikes near midnight on Thursday after Israel ordered people to leave their homes in some areas, residents and security sources said.

The air raids targeted Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumoured successor to its assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an underground bunker, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing three Israeli officials.

Safieddine's fate was not clear, he said.

Israel's military declined comment.

Israel said Hezbollah launched about 230 rockets from Lebanon towards Israel on Thursday.

Hezbollah said it targeted what it called Israel's "Sakhnin base" for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets.

Late on Thursday, Hezbollah said it also targeted Israel's "Nesher base" in Haifa with a salvo of Fadi 2 rockets.

G7 CALLS FOR RESTRAINT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Iran will pay for Tuesday's missile attack, and Washington said it would work with its longtime ally to ensure Iran faced "severe consequences."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking in Doha, said on Thursday that Tehran would be ready to respond.

"Any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces," he said.

Israel, which has been fighting Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza for almost a year, sent troops into southern Lebanon on Tuesday after two weeks of intense airstrikes in a worsening conflict that has drawn in Iran and risks involving the United States.

The Group of Seven nations, which includes the U.S., Britain and allies, on Thursday condemned Iran's missile attack on Tuesday and reaffirmed their commitment to Israel's security.

But the group also called for restraint, a ceasefire in Gaza and halt to hostilities in Lebanon.

"A dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks fuelling uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East, which is in no one's interest," it said in a statement.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani also urged serious ceasefire efforts to stop what he called Israel's aggression.

The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee urged the U.S. president on Thursday to speed up weapons shipments to Israel, including 2000-pound (907 kg) bombs held up for months over human rights concerns.

One 2,000-pound bomb can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.

Representative Michael McCaul said in a letter sent to Biden and seen by Reuters that such large bombs were operationally necessary as Hamas and Hezbollah were using deeply buried subterranean bunkers and tunnels.

HEZBOLLAH SAYS IT KILLED 17 ISRAELI TROOPS

Israel says its operations in Lebanon seek to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments during the Gaza war forced them to evacuate from its north.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.

Early on Friay, Lebanon's health ministry said 27 people were killed and 151 wounded over the prior day.

Hezbollah says it has repelled several land operations by Israeli troops, with measures such as ambushes and direct clashes.

The group said it killed 17 Israeli military personnel in combat in southern Lebanon on Thursday, citing its field and security sources. Israeli forces did not comment on the claim.

An Israeli strike killed at least 18 people on Thursday in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, and Israel said it killed a Hamas official in Tulkarm.

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Israeli airstrikes kill at least 37 in Gaza, Palestinian medics say

Palestinian health officials said at least 13 people, including women and children, were killed .

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Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 people in Gaza on Tuesday, local medics said and fighting ramped up, as the Israeli military said it had been targeting command centres used by its Islamist militant foe Hamas, Reuters reported.

Palestinian health officials said at least 13 people, including women and children, were killed in two Israeli strikes on two houses in Nuseirat, one of the enclave's eight historic refugee camps.

There has been no immediate comment by the Israeli army on the two strikes.

Another strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City killed at least seven people, medics added.

The Israeli military said in a statement the air strike targeted Hamas militants operating from a command centre embedded in a compound that had previously served as Al-Shejaia School.

It accused Hamas of using the civilian population and facilities for military purposes, which Hamas denies.

Later on Tuesday, two separate Israeli attacks killed five Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, medics said.

In Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, six Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a tent housing displaced people, medics said.

Hours later, an Israeli airstrike on a car in western Khan Younis, killed six Palestinians, medics said. Footage circulated on social media, which Reuters could not immediately authenticate, showed a mangled, burnt-out vehicle, read the report.

The armed wings of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and other smaller militant factions said in separate statements that their fighters attacked Israeli forces operating in several areas of Gaza with anti-tank rockets, mortar fire, and explosive devices.

The renewed surge in violence in Gaza comes as Israel began a ground operation in Lebanon, saying its paratroopers and commandos were engaged in intense fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah. The conflict follows devastating Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah's leadership.

The operation into Lebanon represents an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iran-backed militants that threatens to suck in the U.S. and Iran.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel almost a year ago, in support of its ally Hamas in the war in Gaza, which began after the militant group staged the deadliest assault in Israel's history on Oct. 7.

The assault, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, triggered the war that has devastated Gaza, displacing most of its 2.3 million population and killing more than 41,600 people, according to Gaza health authorities.

Some Palestinians said they feared that Israel's shift in focus to Lebanon could prolong the conflict in Gaza, which marks its first anniversary next week.

"The eyes of the world now are on Lebanon while the occupation continues its killing in Gaza. We are afraid the war is going to go on for more months at least," said Samir Mohammed, 46, a father of five from Gaza City.

"It is all unclear now as Israel unleashes its force undeterred in Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and God knows where else in the future," he told Reuters via a chat app.

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Israel begins Lebanon ground invasion with ‘limited’ raids on Hezbollah

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a first public speech on Monday since Nasrallah’s death, said that “the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement.”

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Israel's widely expected ground invasion of Lebanon appeared to be getting underway early on Tuesday as its military said troops had begun "limited" raids against Hezbollah targets in the border area, Reuters reported.

The military said in a statement that it had begun "limited, localised, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence" against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon villages close to the border that posed "an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel".

It said the air force and artillery were supporting the ground forces with "precise strikes."

Local residents in the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab reported heavy shelling and the sound of helicopters and drones overhead. Flares were repeatedly launched over the Lebanese border town of Rmeish, lighting up the night sky.

On Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had told local council heads in northern Israel that the next phase of the war along Lebanon's southern border would begin soon, and would support the aim of bringing home Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rockets during nearly a year of border warfare.

The ground invasion represents an escalating conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iran-backed militants, sparked by an assault on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, that now threatens to suck in the U.S. and Iran, read the report.

An Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, according to two Palestinian security officials.

His fate was unknown.

The strike hit a building in the crowded Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon, the sources said. It marked the first strike on the camp, Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp, since cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel broke out nearly a year ago.

In Syria, three civilians were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the capital Damascus, Syrian state media said on Tuesday citing a military source. Israel's military said it does not comment on foreign media reports.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up raids since the Hamas attack on Israel's southern territory on Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage in its assault on Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Israel in response launched a massive assault on Hamas in Gaza, reducing most of the Palestinian territory to rubble, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and killing more than 41,300 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Israel's ground invasion into Lebanon follows its deadly detonation of booby-trapped Hezbollah pagers, two weeks of airstrikes, and its killing on Friday of Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, which dealt the group one of the heaviest blows in decades, Reuters reported.

The intensive air strikes have eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 civilians and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Overnight, strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs, a security source said. A Reuters reporter witnessed a flash of light and a series of loud blasts about an hour after the Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas near buildings it said contained Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Lebanese capital.

In the past 24 hours, at least 95 people had been killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon's southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and Beirut, Lebanon's health ministry said early on Tuesday.

Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a first public speech on Monday since Nasrallah's death, said that "the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement."

He said Hezbollah had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km (93 miles) into Israeli territory.

"We know that the battle may be long. We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006," he said, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

Late on Monday, Lebanese troops pulled back about five kilometres (3 miles) from positions along Lebanon's southern border with Israel, a Lebanese security source told Reuters. A Lebanese army spokesperson did not confirm or deny the movement.

Lebanon's army has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflicts with Israel, and in the last year of hostilities has not fired on the Israeli military, read the report.

The White House and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Israel's ground operations in Lebanon.

But on Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden had called for a ceasefire.

"I'm more worried than you might know and I'm comfortable with them stopping," Biden told reporters when asked if he was comfortable with Israeli plans for a cross-border incursion. "We should have a ceasefire now."

Israel last week rejected a proposal by the U.S. and France calling for a 21-day ceasefire on the Lebanon border to give time for a diplomatic settlement that would allow displaced civilians on both sides to return home.

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