Air strikes resume on Beirut's southern suburb - al-Manar

The New York Times on Friday evening cited five Israeli officials saying intelligence agencies' initial assessment was that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had been killed.

The indications were preliminary and might change, the officials said.

Israel's increasingly larger attacks on Iran and its proxies have been met with smaller or no responses from Tehran, said Ghassan Ashour, a Middle East analyst, adding that this has, in turn, motivated Israel to escalate its assaults.

“In case the Islamic Republic decides to retaliate against Israel, it would inevitably draw in the United States and other countries into the war, which is undesirable for Iran. Even if Hassan Nasrallah were killed, Tehran would refrain from retaliation,” Ashour told Iran International.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi accused Israel of using multiple US-made "bunker buster" bombs in its strike on Beirut.

"Just this morning, the Israeli regime used several 5,000-pound bunker busters that had been gifted to them by the United States to hit residential areas in Beirut," he told a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East.

"Netanyahu and his team should now be in prison for their crimes, not giving speeches at the United Nations... The Islamic Republic, with all means, stands alongside Lebanon and the Axis of Resistance," Araqchi said.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to the UN “was part of a diversion” intended to make Hezbollah’s leader believe that Israel would not take dramatic actions while Netanyahu was physically in the United States, a senior Israeli official told The Telegraph.

"Israel has no intention of attacking Iran. But if the Islamic Republic attacks Israel, Israel has the capability to reach any location," Israel's UN envoy Danny Danon told Iran International during a press conference in New York.