Benjamin Netanyahu has commanded an escalation of Israel’s military efforts in Lebanon, citing Hezbollah’s continued capability to launch rocket attacks.

Israeli forces have advanced into southern Lebanon, aiming to dismantle the Iranian-backed group responsible for inciting conflict by unleashing missile strikes on Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel commenced what it describes as “limited and targeted ground operations,” focusing on strategic Hezbollah locations to neutralize threats to nearby border areas.

During a Sunday address, the Israeli Prime Minister announced his directive for the military to broaden the “existing security buffer zone.”

Speaking from northern Israel, Netanyahu stated, “I have just instructed further expansion of the existing security buffer zone.”

‘We are determined to fundamentally ‌change the situation in the north.

‘We eliminated thousands of Hezbollah terrorists, and above all, we eliminated the immense threat of 150,000 missiles and rockets that were intended to destroy the cities of Israel.’

He added: ‘Hezbollah still has a residual capability to launch rockets at us.’ 

Israel has sent troops into the south of Lebanon as it seeks to destroy Hezbollah. (Pictured: Israeli tanks massing at its northern border with Lebanon)

Smoke and flames rise following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold in the south of Beirut

Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel to widen its invasion of Lebanon as he claimed Hezbollah still has the ability to ‘fire rockets at us’

Netanyahu also said Israel has created ‘visible cracks in the terror regime in Tehran’.

‘Iran is not the same Iran,’ he said. ‘Hezbollah is not the same Hezbollah, and Hamas is not the same Hamas.’

The three are ‘battered enemies fighting for their very existence,’ he claimed.

‘Instead of them surprising us, we are surprising them. We are the side that is acting, we are the side that is attacking, we are the side that is initiating, and we are deep in their territory.’

The Israeli premier boasted that Israel has created ‘three security zones deep in enemy territory.’

Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy which maintains significant control in Lebanon’s politics, and Israel are long-time enemies and fought a 13-month conflict that ended in November 2024.

Hezbollah was created in response to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon during the 1980s. 

It was massively weakened in the last conflict and in the last month Israel has battered its stronghold in Dahieh, a Shia heartland in the southern suburbs of Beirut. 

The terror group’s decision to fire rockets at Israel last month drew fury from the Lebanese government who accused them of pulling the country into war.

The government ordered Hezbollah to give up its weapons and issued arrest warrants against members for smuggling weapons. 

But Israel has demanded stronger action and intensified strikes on its neighbour.

A graphic displaying Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in the first week of the latest conflict

Israel has pounded Lebanon since Hezbollah sent missiles over the border in retaliation for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Pictured: The aftermath of Israeli airstrikes in Dahieh)

Last week, military chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said they had advanced ‘the targeted ground operations and strikes’ against Hezbollah, and that this would be a ‘prolonged operation’. 

That came after a statement from defence minister, Israel Katz, who said Israeli forces had destroyed crossings over the crucial Litani river, which it claimed was being used by Hezbollah to transport reinforcements.

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said the strikes were a ‘prelude to a ground invasion’ amounting to a ‘policy of collective punishment against civilians’.

More than 1,100 people have killed in Lebanon since the beginning of the war, with over 3,500 people injured, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

More than one million people have been displaced.

Missiles fired from Iran and Lebanon have killed 19 people in Israel, according to the Israeli ambulance service.

Earlier this month, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada released a statement which warned a significant Israeli ground invasion would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ and it ‘must be averted’.

Meanwhile, Israel is also facing threats from the Houthis, who have claimed they will choke off a second major oil shipping route. 

In a significant escalation to the month-long war, Iran’s proxy group in Yemen yesterday issued a warning over the waterway which is known as the ‘Gate of Tears’ in Arabic.

The Bab al-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and is used as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively shut down.

If both routes are compromised, the impact would extend far beyond the region, hitting supply chains, energy markets and shipping costs worldwide.

Ten per cent of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, including a fifth of the world’s container traffic and car shipments and 10 per cent of crude oil.

The 1,400-mile-long body of water links the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal.

Yesterday, the Houthi rebel group fired missiles at Israel and vowed to carry out more attacks.

The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital Sanaa since 2014 and, so far, have stayed out of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The group’s attacks on ships during the Israel-Hamas war caused chaos in the Red Sea, through which billions of pounds of goods pass each year.

Between 2023 and 2025, Houthi rebels attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two ships and killing four sailors.

Authorities in western Kenya have discovered at least 33 bodies, including those of children and dismembered remains, from a mass grave, sparking concerns about a potential clandestine transfer from a hospital morgue. The grim discovery, made on Thursday, has left the community seeking answers.

Investigators unearthed the remains of 25 children and eight adults, along with body parts placed in sacks, at a cemetery owned by a church in Kericho, according to official reports. The incident has raised serious questions about the handling and disposal of these bodies.

Mohamed Amin, head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, addressed the media, stating, “Our investigation has revealed that these bodies were moved from Nyamira District Hospital to a private cemetery in Kericho.” The authorities are now focused on determining whether the transfer and burial of these bodies were conducted lawfully.

The discovery of these 33 bodies, 25 of which were identified as children, has drawn significant attention and concern. (Photo by Andrew Kasuku/AP)

At least 33 bodies – 25 of which belonged to children – were found in a mass grave in Kenya on Thursday. (Andrew Kasuku/AP Photo)

The Associated Press reported that Kenyan law allows hospitals and morgues to dispose of unclaimed bodies after 14 days with court authorization.

Government pathologists conducted autopsies Thursday to determine the cause of death, though the identities of the victims have not been released.

Authorities have arrested two people in connection with the case.

Authorities have arrested two people in connection with the case. (Andrew Kasuku/AP Photo)

Local media reported the bodies were transported in a government vehicle by unidentified individuals and buried hastily, with some gravediggers later alerting police.

“We need authorities to conduct a thorough investigation,” resident Brian Kibunja said.

Another resident, Samuel Moso, said authorities should “reveal if the government was involved or if a different group of people was behind the mass burial.”

There have been three major mass-grave incidents in Kenya over the past three years. (Andrew Kasuku/AP Photo)

There have been three major mass-grave incidents in Kenya over the past three years.

Police in 2023 uncovered hundreds of bodies buried in a forest in Kenya’s coastal Kilifi region, exhuming mass graves tied to a religious leader accused of starving his followers to death.

In 2024, authorities recovered nine bodies from a dumpsite in Nairobi, the Eastern African nation’s capital.

The latest discovery comes as concerns grow among some Kenyans over alleged abuses by police.

Missing Voices, a human rights group, said it documented 125 extrajudicial killings and six enforced disappearances in Kenya over the past year, compared to 104 reported killings the year before.

Politico has removed a controversial cartoon criticized for its seemingly anti-Semitic portrayal of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following a backlash from its audience.

The illustration, created by cartoonist Sean Delonas, depicted the two leaders draped in blood-stained Jewish prayer shawls and yarmulkes, seated in a rowboat poised precariously at the brink of a waterfall.

Included in the scene are Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, the latter shown clutching a bottle of blood.

Netanyahu is caricatured with an exaggerated nose, reminiscent of derogatory depictions from Nazi-era propaganda, seated at a table smeared with blood and surrounded by piles of money.

Beside him, Trump is illustrated as noticeably overweight, sporting an orange-hued complexion, and playing a lute-like instrument.

The word Amalek is written in the background of the cartoon, a direct reference to the arch-enemy of ancient Israel as depicted in the Hebrew Bible.

The sketch appears to be a recreation of Hieronymus Bosch’s painting from the late 1490s called Ship of Fools.

Delonas named the boat in his rendition the ‘Ship of Neocons’, a reference to the neoconservatism or neocon movement of the 1970s.

Politico has deleted an apparently anti-Semitic cartoon depicting President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu covered in blood. Trump is seen speaking at an event in Miami on Friday

The sketch, drawn by cartoonist Sean Delonas, depicted Netanyahu (pictured on March 22 at the site where an Iranian ballistic missile struck) with an overly large nose while dining at a blood-covered table surrounded by bags of money

The neocon movement supported strong US military power and pushed for an aggressive, interventionist approach to foreign policy that was aimed at spreading democracy.

Politico was met with major backlash online after it included Delonas’s sketch in the Cartoon Carousel on its website Friday. The carousel displays a collection of the ‘best’ political cartoons of the week.

‘Politico is trash. Sean Delonas should be fired and blackballed,’ one critic wrote on X in response to the ‘vile’ cartoon.

Another echoed: ‘One of the worst and most anti-Semitic cartoons I have seen from a prominent political outlet in my lifetime. 

‘Shame on the cartoonist Sean Delonas. No accident this is being posted on the eve of Passover. Shame on Politico.’

‘Truly disturbing but not surprising from Politico – they are extreme propaganda and it’s only getting worse,’ a third person added. 

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer even commented on the sketch, calling it ‘disgusting.’ 

Politico has since removed the drawing from its website, replacing it instead with a note from the editor. 

‘We removed a cartoon by independent cartoonist Sean Delonas from this week’s gallery after weighing comments from readers that it did not meet our standards,’ the note stated. 

Sean Delonas, in his Politco cartoon, appeared to be recreating Hieronymus Bosch’s painting from the late 1490s called Ship of Fools, which is shown above 

President Donald Trump points his finger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they shake hands during a press conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida on December 29, 2025

‘Sharp arguments and provocative imagery in political cartoons are within bounds. 

‘Images that could be reasonably interpreted to rely on ethnic stereotypes or employing tropes that have been involved in historically hateful ways are not.’ 

The statement further noted that the cartoon round–up is ‘designed to be a representation of a broad range of opinions –– not an endorsement of the views of any particular cartoon or cartoonist.’

Politico published the cartoon amid the war in Iran, which began last month with US and Israeli strikes on Iran that triggered Iranian attacks on Israel and neighboring Gulf Arab states. 

Israel also invaded Lebanon while targeting the Iranian-backed terror group, Hezbollah. 

Delonas, in a post on his blog, responded to the criticism. He wrote: ‘The neocons have been criticizing me and fellow journalists lately for our anti-war stance.’

He responded to the claims that Netanyahu had an ‘exaggerated’ nose in the sketch, noting that ‘all the figures have exaggerated features — it’s a cartoon.’

‘I drew more exaggerated noses on Senator Ted Cruz and the GOP elephants in the cartoon than on Bibi. Is that anti-Semitic as well?’ he questioned.

Addressing the use of the word Amalek, Delonas said: ‘A recent comment by Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran was, “Remember what Amalek did to you. We remember and we act.” Am I not allowed to quote Bibi’s religious references? I used “Amalek” because Bibi used it.’

The Daily Mail has approached Politico, the White House, and reps for Cruz and Graham for comment. 

Smoke rises following an Iranian missile strike in Southern Israel on Sunday, March 29, 2026

Netanyahu announced Sunday that Israel will widen its invasion of southern Lebanon.

He said Israel would expand what he called the ‘existing security strip’ in Lebanon as Israeli forces continue to target the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.

‘We are determined to fundamentally change the situation in the north,’ he said on a visit to northern Israel, adding that ‘Hezbollah still has residual capability to fire rockets at us.’ There were no immediate details.

In Lebanon, officials say more than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting since the Iran war began.

Trump last week said Iran wants a deal to end the nearly four-week war, but Tehran’s top diplomat has rejected having any talks with Washington. 

Trump, whose daily statements have swung wildly from threatening to conciliatory, said talks to end the war were ongoing with Iran, but that officials in Tehran were covering them up out of fear.

‘They are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly,’ Trump told a dinner for Republican members of Congress.

‘But they’re afraid to say it, because they figure they’ll be killed by their own people,’ he said. ‘They’re also afraid they’ll be killed by us.’

Tehran’s top diplomat slapped down Trump’s comments, saying the country did not intend to negotiate.

‘We seek an end to the war on our own terms, of course, and in a way that it will not be repeated here again,’ Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state TV.