in other news, german police say a syrian man has confessed to carrying out a mass stabbing attack in the city of solingen. pavel durov, the russian founder of the telegram messaging service, has been arrested after his private jet landed in paris. hello, i'm nicky schiller. we start with a major development in the middle east. there's been an intense exchange of fire between israel and hezbollah militants. israel launched a wave of air strikes against hezbollah positions in lebanon, saying it was pre—empting plans for a large—scale attack. israel's prime minister has promised to do everything to protect the country. hezbollah said it fired hundreds of rockets towards israel in its first response to israel's assassination of a senior commander in beirut last month.

it denied israel's assertion that it had thwarted the attack. this is the what we know this hour. the israeli military said it struck and destroyed thousands of hezbollah rocket launchers in southern lebanon aimed at northern israel. the israel defence forces released these pictures which it says are those strikes on lebanon. officials say around 100 fighter jets took part in the operation. lebanon's ministry of health says three people have been killed in areas in the south of the country. these pictures are from the village of zibqin, where you can see a huge cloud of smoke rising following an israeli air strike. lebanon's state—run national news agency called it a "large—scale air aggression" by israel. hezbollah said it launched more than 300 rockets and drones at israel and targeted 11 military sites in response to the killing of its top commander in beirut last month. the group said this was an initial response and that todays planned

attack on israel had been "completed and accomplished". tensions between israel and the iranian—backed group escalated sharply after the assassination stoking fears of a wider middle east conflict. a state of emergency is in force in israel and the security cabinet�*s been meeting. prime minister benjamin netanyhu promised he would �*do everything' to restore security at its northern border and continue to uphold what he called a simple rule: "whoever hurts us — we hurt them". these are live pictures from the israel—lebanon border. flights to and from tel aviv�*s ben gurion airport were temporarily suspended earlier but have since been reinstated. the israel military has said that the attack by hezbollah caused very little damage. hezbollah�*s leader is due to speak in the coming hours. a short time ago i spoke idf international spokesperson

lieutenant colonel nadav shoshani and asked him why israel carried out these strikes. it's called active defence. it goes along with our defence aerial systems. and together, we were able to thwart this attack by hezbollah that they were threatening for a wider escalation, they were threatening to hit civilians and military bases and we were able to thwart it with active defence against those rocket launchers pointed at israeli communities with rockets in them and prevent those that were fired eventually. how many targets do you claim that you have hit? we are still in this ongoing operation and ongoing tension. we've hit thousands of rocket launcher barrels and we've thwarted hundreds of rockets and uavs in the air on their way to israeli communities in northern and central israel.

we've had some international reaction to events. presidentjoe biden is directing us officials to maintain close communication with israel. a national security spokesman said "president biden is closely monitoring events in israel and lebanon. he has been engaged with his national security team throughout the evening. at his direction, senior us officials have been communicating continuously with their israeli counterparts. "we will keep supporting israel's right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability." pictures are coming in all the time from both israel and lebanon. i wanted to show you these still images from the epa newsagency. we're told the photos show the moment an israeli fighterjet intercepted a hezbollah unmanned aerial vehicle. you can see the explosion and debris. it was crossing from lebanon over an area near the border with israel. our senior international correspondent orla guerin is in southern lebanon. and our correspondentjon donnison, who's injerusalem, gave us the latest updates.

as far as they are concerned that they are making it clear that this phase of what they say will be a large operation is now finished and we have had a statement this morning saying that the operation took place, eddie denied that israel had managed to thwart that, said these were empty claims ——the statement denied that israel had managed to thwart that, said these were empty claims from the israelis and there will be for that contradiction coming later in an address by the leader of hezbollah. it is important to say we do not actually know how effective the hezbollah operation was, they say it fired 320 rockets towards israel and drones, we do not know how many of those were intercepted on the way, how many shots tone, whether any actually landed in israel and cause damage. we have had another puts so farfrom inside israel

——we have had no reports so farfrom inside israel of civilian casualties. one report from lebanese authorities that one man has been killed and a drone strike on a car, he has been identified as a fighter. within the last few hours we have been seeing and hearing continuing israeli strikes taking place in the hell is any distance ——in the hills in the distance close to the border. we saw at least two explosions and very dense black smoke filling the sky after a particularly large blast. israel has been continuing to target locations in the south, what is unclear is whether the israelis will want to take things further or if we will go back to the tit—for—tat that has been the case for the last ten months. hezbollah says it is because of the killing of the commander in beirut.

give me your assessment of how concerned we should be by the events. every day there is cause for concern because since last october hezbollah has been filing into israel, if i have the first shots in this round of violence, sediment acting in solidarity with the palestinian people and supporting their allies hamas who are also backed by iran. there has been a pattern to all of this where the attacks have mainly been on military targets on each side and mainly within the border zones of each country, that has done a lot of damage, more than 100,000 people have had to flee here, about 60,000 had to flee in israel and still out of their homes and there have been for charities, hezbollah has lost more than 400 fighters and more than 100 civilians have been killed in israeli attacks, according to the lebanese authorities. 0n the other side the death

pool is a lot lower, more than a0 people but at least two dozen civilians and the numbers. things have been contained to this pretty familiar tit—for—tat pattern, the fear on the part of the international community is that every day this continues either israel or hezbollah could reach a tipping point into all—out war. in the past few days the tempo of the attacks has increased, things have been happening faster and we have had this major operation by hezbollah which israel said it acted pre—emptively to try to stop. we are certainly at an inflection point, the question is what israel does now. hezbollah is making it clear that for its part that is it for the moment although there is every reason to believe the normal level of violence if we can call it that,

that will continue and that in itself is risky. on that questionjohn, what do you think israel might do next? they are continuing operations and southern lebanon and the last few hours with a number of strikes on what they say are hezbollah targets. we had thought prior to that it had quietened down but israel is saying it is prepared to go to war full—scale with lebanon. these strikes overnight were the biggest on the hezbollah sense 2006, both sides are saying they do not want a the turn to full—scale war but israel saying it is prepared to go there if it has to. what will the impact to be on the ceasefire talks which are today happening in cairo?

those talks which are continuing but are not really going anywhere at the moment, hamas is not even taking part, the americans have said securing a ceasefire and hostage release deal in gaza is crucial to de—escalating tensions on the northern border. they are not going anywhere, i do not think anyone is expecting an imminent ceasefire to be announced. despite very intensive diplomacy and pressure from the us and egypt and qatar who have been mediating these talks, there is no real sign of a deal so if we do not get that there is every reason to think we could see a return to some sort of normality and tit—for—tat on the border in the north but there is always the risk if there is heavy exchanges of fire that you will get

civilians killed and then you could see things gaining momentum of their own. how much pressure do you think, if this does escalate, that will put on the international community to get that ceasefire deal and the hostages out and particularly thinking of america but also egypt and qatar. it will add to the pressure but i do not think they can really be doing any more than they have been for the past few weeks. the american secretary of state antony blinken in the region last week, he was pushing the israelis to sign up to the deal. he said they had accepted and supported what he called the bridging proposal, we have not had similar statements from benjamin netanyahu, there is no doubt qatar and egypt are also pushing hard for a deal. the key players and that is benjamin netanyahu

and the hamas leader in gaza, they do not seem to have the urgency and are not working to the same timetable as everyone else. i wondered what the public mood in lebanon is, the everyday people trying to go about their work and life. there are different strands to this, people are weary and certainly anxious about the idea of another all—out war, there are very fresh memories of the level of damage done in 2006 the last time a lot of lebanese infrastructure was destroyed and more than 1000 people were killed. let's not forget this as a country that since then has come through a series of crisis including an economic collapse and ongoing political paralysis and the disastrous explosion in beirut port four years ago.

lebanon cannot afford another war, does not want another one but when you speak to people here they make it clear they will not be the decision—makers, they understand perfectly well it will not be the lebanese government or army that decides on whether or not there is war, it will be the iranian backed group hezbollah and israel. to some extent that is a degree of resignation but there's also anxiety, plenty of people have left the area and gone abroad are more secure mountain areas people stop people have been waiting since last month when israel carried out an assassination in iran on the leader of the hamas at that time, it is widely blamed for that assassination, it has accepted responsibility for the assassination in lebanon

of a senior hezbollah commander so since then the clock has been ticking. we have had now round one as far as hezbollah is concerned of the retaliation and we wait to see the israelis will take things further on f.c. lapse back to the standard level of violence which goes on here day—to—day, tit—for—tat attack and counterattack. a line of breaking news on the middle east conflict. air france is saying it has cancelled its flights to tel aviv and beirut until monday at least, this of course after those rocket attacks and israel hitting back at them. this is coming from air france in the last couple of minutes, cancelling theirflights minutes, cancelling their flights until at least minutes, cancelling theirflights until at least monday to tel aviv and beirut. reaction coming in all the time to this intense exchange of fire between israel and hezbollah militants. 0ur live pages up and

running with the very latest reports and analysis from our correspondents around the region, including security correspondent frank gardner. an interesting article from him asking whether this could lead to a wider war. you can find all of that on the bbc news website and app. we will pause. time for a check on the sport. after wins for last season's top two, manchester city and arsenal, the team that finished third, liverpool, return to action later. brentford will be the visitors at anfield for what will be arne slot�*s first premier league home game in charge and the new liverpool boss says he's looking forward to the occassion. no, i'm not nervous at all, certainly not at this moment because i'm in the middle of preparation, prepared the team for sunday and so, no, nerves are not there. if you've got nerves then you probably don't trust what you did before, you don't trust your team,

and i trust what we as a staff do during the whole week to prepare the team in the best possible way and i trust the team a lot as well again on sunday. before that match, two other games in the premier league — newcastle will hope to make it two wins from two when they go to bournemouth, whilst chelsea travel to wolves with both sides looking for their first points of the season. the first weekend of the german bundesliga season is well under way. englishmanjamie bynoe—gittens scored twice as borussia dortmund beat eintracht frankfurt 2—0 to make it a winning start for new boss nuri sahin. there were also home wins for leipzig, freiberg and hoffenheim. bayern munich play their first bundesliga game of the season later — they're away at wolfsberg whilst newly promoted st pauli face heidenheim. after barcelona made it two wins from two in la liga with a 2—1win over athletic bilbao, real madrid will hope to get their first three points

of the season when they take on newly prommoted valladolid. the champions will be withoutjude bellingham who picked up a calf injury in training — he's expected to be sidelined until the end of september. atletico play girona later. julian alvarez and conor gallagher could make their debuts for the club, afterjoining from manchester city and chelsea respecitively. the final round of the women's 0pen golf is under way at st andrews in scotland, where south korea'sjiyai shin will tee off in around three hours with a one shot lead. that after a third—round 67 moved her clear of the rest of the field. the defending champion lilia vu is one shot behind her. fellow american another shot back. after carding a third round 75 england's charley hull is tied for tenth, eight shots off the lead. england fast bowler mark wood has been ruled out of the remaining two tests against sri lanka with a thigh injury. wood left the field on day three of the first test, which england won by five wickets, and did not bowl at

all on the final day. 20—year—old josh hull has been called up as wood's replacement, with the second test starting at lord's on thursday. britain's lando norris will be hoping he can claim the second win of his formula one career after securing pole for this afternoon's dutch grand prix. home favourite and world champion max verstappen thought he had a fourth consecutive pole at zandvoort before norris pipped him by three tenths of a second on his final lap. his team—mate 0scar piastri will start third. we didn't expect the gap to be so big but obviously when i did the lap, i was really happy with it and kind of expected nothing less than to have a bit of a gap to second place. i felt good, the car was feeling good and i was confident, so it was a good feeling.

the dutch grand prix gets under way in just over three hours. the dutch grand prix gets under way injust over three hours. you can follow the build up on the bbc sport website, as well as everything happening in the english premier league on sunday. and that's all the sport for now. to germany. anti—terrorist prosecutors have taken over the investigation into friday's mass stabbing in the city of zoh—lingen. a suspect who turned himself in is said to have confessed to carrying out the attack. the authorities say the man — a 26— year— old syrian — is suspected of being a member of the islamic state group. in the last few minutes, germany�* vice—chancellor has called for tougher knife laws in the wake of the attack. 0ur correspondent in berlin, damien mcguinness, told us all we know about the suspect. quite a lot of details have been emerging overnight. i talked to police earlier and they told me that they confirmed he is indeed a 26—year—old syrian national. they would not confirm any other reports of whether he had come to germany as an asylum seeker, which is being reported

in some german media, but in a television interview this morning the interior minister of the region said the suspect had been living in refugee accommodation which has since been raided by police, so there seems to be a connection with the shelter. there have been other arrests which has led to confusion about who police think is the suspect. they have been saying all along they thinkjust one person was responsible for the attack. there was a 15—year—old boy arrested yesterday. he is thought to have known about the attack in advance. he was heard to be talking about it before it happened. he has been charged with not reporting a crime to the police. police are hoping he can give more information about the attacker or suspect and his motivation.

another man who was taken from the refugee shelter for questioning is being questioned by police now so he might possibly have a connection to the suspect. the next stage is police are handing over this case to the prosecutor general which is an indication the authorities are treating this as a terror—related act. we have seen the flowers being left and a church service today, still a lot of shock in the city. that is right, this was supposed to be three days of celebration, a festival which started on friday and ending today and instead it is a weekend of mourning and shock. across the region in the last 2a hours festivals and festivities that were planned, cancelled, cafes empty and restaurants empty,

people avoiding public transport because no one knew what was happening, there was a fear the attacker was on the loose and potentially dangerous. it appears he went straight into hiding, reportedly hiding in a courtyard behind an apartment block near the crime scene then he gave himself up to police late last night, saying he was the attacker. police have to investigate whether this is true and piecing together the evidence they have to find out whether the suspect is indeed the man behind the stabbing. the russian founder of the telegram messaging app — pavel durov — has been arrested at a french airport. reports say authorities have been investigating a lack of moderators on the app, which they say allows criminal activity to take place. 0ur correspondent will vernon explains what we know about the owner. this is coming from a number of french media who quote sources in french media who quote sources in

french law enforcement to say that pavel durov was arrested last night at an airport near paris. he arrived on his privatejet from at an airport near paris. he arrived on his private jet from azerbaijan, and they say he was arrested on the basis of an arrest warrant that was issued in connection with telegram's failure to moderate illegal content and cooperate with law enforcement over drug trafficking, child sexual content and fraud. this is coming from french media. telegram would almost certainly deny those allegations. we will have to see now whether he could appear in court today. french media say he could be indicted today, and of course, what the reaction will be. it you mentioned that the russian foreign ministry have said that diplomats in paris are urgently working in connection with his arrest. flarer paris are urgently working in connection with his arrest. over the ears, we connection with his arrest. over the years. we haven't — connection with his arrest. over the years, we haven't heard _ connection with his arrest. over the years, we haven't heard a _ connection with his arrest. over the years, we haven't heard a lot - connection with his arrest. over the years, we haven't heard a lot about| years, we haven't heard a lot about him in public. he has been quite a private person. more recently, he did a more lengthy interview with

tucker carlson in america and has come out more in public, hasn't he? he was quite vocal when he was still in russia. he mentioned that in 2014 he fell out with the authorities. according to him, the kremlin basically tried to take control of the company and forced vk, the company he created, russia's version of facebook, to hand over personal data of pro—ukrainian protesters, anti—kremlin protesters. according to durov, the company refused to do that and he was basically forced to sell it to a company that had close links to the kremlin. vk is now almost totally under the control of the russian security services. just a line from _ the russian security services. just a line from the _ the russian security services. just a line from the afp news agency, the french agency, saying that russia says france are refusing to cooperate after the arrest of that telegram owner. russia saying france

is refusing to co—operate over the arrest. ijust want is refusing to co—operate over the arrest. i just want to take you back to the live pictures we are getting from the israel— lebanon border. this, of course, after the attacks this morning. benjamin netanyahu has said he will do everything possible to defend his country after the israeli military said it thwarted a large—scale attack by hezbollah. the military saying that it carried out air strikes on more than 40 hezbollah sites in southern lebanon, destroying thousands of rocket launchers. hezbollah, for its part, said it still fired more than 300 missiles towards israel in what it described as a first phase of response to the assassination of a top commander. hello there. well, it's another rather breezy day for this time of year, but not as windy as it was at the end of last week. there's yet more wet weather to come in the forecast too. most of that is out towards the north and the west because further south and east, it should stay largely dry.

but we've already seen the best of the sunshine this morning, such as here in northamptonshire, a rather chilly start to the day for this time of year too, many of our temperatures back into single figures. but here comes the rain. it's slowly pushing eastwards across much of scotland, northern ireland and northern england, particularly heavy for southwest scotland, northwest england, where the ground is already saturated. few patches of rain across wales and for southwest england. it's windy for the time of year, especially for these irish sea coasts, but largely dry across southeast england, central southern england and east anglia, just turning cloudier through the afternoon and temperatures still below the seasonal average. now, overnight tonight, the bulk of that rain clears. a few showers for northern england, southern scotland and maybe some scattered showers too for the far southeast of england, but lots of clear skies and it's a milder start to the day tomorrow than it was earlier on this morning. now, tomorrow, bank holiday, of course, for many of us. high pressure builds in from the south, so it is looking mostly dry. any early showers across the far south and east of england and across northern england

should gradually clear. there'll be a lot of sunny spells around, largely dry, not as windy as it is today and so temperatures will be that little bit higher. in fact, we'll see back to the seasonal average. high teens, low 20s, could get a 23 or 24 celsius in the best of the sunshine across parts of southeast england. but here comes another weather front. that's going to be sinking southwards and eastwards as we head through tuesday. but towards the south and the east, we've got a southerly wind just pushing some warmer—feeling air our way. some uncertainty still on the timing and position of this weather front towards the north and the west. a scattering of showers, also some sunny spells. heavy rain under the front, but for much of england and possibly for eastern areas of wales, it remains dry. there'll be some sunshine and it will be feeling warmer again. temperatures here in the mid—20s. and the peak of the heat in the southeast is likely to be on wednesday, 28 degrees, but further north and west it's cooler with outbreaks of rain. bye— bye.

this is bbc news, the headlines... israel says it's destroyed dozens of hezbollah launch sites in lebanon to pre—empt a large— scale missile attack. hesbollah denied the barrage had been stopped, and said more than 300 drones and missiles had been fired at israel, in retaliation for the killing of one of its commanders.

anti—terrorist prosecutors have taken over the investigation into friday's mass stabbing in the town of solingen in western germany. a suspect who turned himself in is said to have confessed to carrying out the attack. the authorities say the man — a 26—year—old syrian — is suspected of being a member of the islamic state group. the russian founder of the telegram messaging service, pavel durov, is expected to appear in court later on sunday. french media is reporting that the billionaire was arrested on saturday at an airport on the outskirts of paris. you can get more on those stories on the bbc news website and app. now on bbc news... afghanistan: for the sake of my sisters. gunfire woman gasps gunfire continues

breaking news now — and taliban fighters have reached the afghan capital, kabul.