New NATO chief Mark Rutte visits Ukraine in his first trip since taking office

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — New NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Ukraine on Thursday in his first official trip since taking office and pledging the alliance's continued support for Kyiv in its war with Russia.

Rutte met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv as air raid sirens twice went off in the Ukrainian capital.

The new head of NATO vowed when he took office on Tuesday to help shore up Western support for Ukraine, which has been fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion since February 2022 and has for most of this year been on the defensive due to a relentless Russian army push in the country's eastern regions.

Rutte expressed confidence that he can work with whomever is elected president of the United States, the alliance’s most powerful member, in November. That could be a key moment for Ukraine’s effort to ensure continuing Western support.

Zelenskyy said he discussed with Rutte elements of Ukraine's so-called victory plan, ahead of a NATO meeting at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany next week. The gathering draws together defense leaders from the 50-plus partner nations who regularly meet to coordinate weapons aid for the war.

The two also discussed the battlefield situation and the specific needs of Ukrainian military units. Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine needs more armaments, including long-range weapons it has long requested.

Asked whether the war in the Middle East will affect the timeline he had envisioned for the victory plan, Zelenskyy noted that the U.S. and Britain say Iran has supplied missiles and drones to Russia for use against Ukraine.

He also appealed for Western countries to scrap restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia.

“Of course, we want Ukraine to not be forgotten. But the best way not to forget about Ukraine is to provide the appropriate weapons and the necessary permissions,” Zelenskyy said. “And to help shoot down ... the same Iranian missiles or drones, just as they are shot down over Israel, to shoot them down in the same way over Ukraine.”

Rutte reiterated the alliance's unwavering support for Ukraine, insisting that “Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before.”

He said recent steps taken by NATO “build a bridge to NATO membership” for Ukraine, including 40 billion euros ($44 billion) of funding assistance, bilateral security agreements between allies, and the formation of a new NATO command to coordinate assistance and training.

Rutte arrived after a Russian glide bomb struck a five-story apartment block in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, injuring at least 12 people, including a 3-year-old girl, local officials said Thursday.

The bomb hit between the third and fourth floors of the building on Wednesday night, igniting a fire, Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Firefighters searched for survivors through smoke and rubble.

The city of Kharkiv, around 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border, has been a frequent target of aerial attacks throughout the war against Russia that is now deep into its third year.

Increasingly common in the war, glide bombs have terrorized civilians and bludgeoned the Ukrainian army’s front-line defenses. Ukraine has no effective countermeasure for glide bombs, which are launched from Russian aircraft inside Russia.

They were a key weapon in Russia’s capture of the tactically significant town of Vuhledar on Wednesday, as Russian forces wreak destruction on the eastern Donetsk region and force weary Ukrainian troops to withdraw from obliterated towns and villages.

Zelenskyy, at a news conference with Rutte, said it was right for Ukraine to pull its forces out of Vuhledar so that they could live to fight another day. Earlier, he said the latest Kharkiv attack highlighted the urgent need for increased support from Ukraine’s Western allies.

Zelensky recently held talks with officials in the U.S. in an effort to ensure further Western military support.

Russia has had the battlefield initiative since late last year, when a Ukrainian counteroffensive petered out. Ukraine is grappling with a critical manpower problem on the front line and is straining to hold back Russia’s grinding assaults.

Though Russia’s battlefield gains have been incremental, its steady forward movement is adding up as the Ukrainians are pushed backward and yield ground.

Both sides have kept up regular cross-border aerial attacks, usually at night.

Ukraine’s air force said Thursday that 78 out of 105 Shahed drones launched by Russia overnight were destroyed on Thursday as 15 regions of the country came under attack.

The Russian military, meanwhile, intercepted 113 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to a statement by the Defense Ministry in Moscow. The drones were destroyed over four Russian regions on the border with Ukraine — Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Voronezh, it said.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy walk in a corridor before a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte walk in a corridor ahead of a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak in a corridor ahead of a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy leave the hall after a joint press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutteleft, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, speak to journalists during press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, shake hands during press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A view of the damage after a Russian strike on a residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, late Wednesday Oct. 2, 2024. (Ukrainian National Police via AP)

Rescue workers clear the rubble of a building damaged by a Russian airstrike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Wednesday Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Yevhen Titov)

People gather around the damage and debris after a Russian strike on a residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, late Wednesday Oct. 2, 2024. (Ukrainian National Police via AP)

Rescue workers clear the rubble inside a building damaged by a Russian airstrike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Yevhen Titov)

Rescue workers clear the rubble inside a building damaged by a Russian airstrike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Yevhen Titov)

An Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut has killed nine people, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September, but has rarely struck in the heart of the capital.

There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit an apartment in central Beirut not far from the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defense unit said seven of its members were killed.

The strike came as Israel was pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, while also conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said eight soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.

Here is the latest:

BRUSSELS — Belgium’s VTM broadcaster says that one of its television reporters and a cameraman have been attacked in central Beirut while reporting on the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

VTM said that correspondent Robin Ramaekers and cameraman Stijn De Smet were working on a report on Wednesday evening about a bombing in the Lebanese capital when they were attacked in unclear circumstances.

“Stijn is currently in a hospital in Beirut where he is being treated for a leg wound. Robin is also still being cared for, in another hospital, for some fractures to the face,” a statement said. It underlined that the cause of the attack is not yet known.

VTM said the two men have worked in conflict zones for more than a decade. Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary said only that he is “following” the situation

MADRID — Spain’s defense ministry says its two planes sent to Beirut to evacuate Spanish civilians have taken off and are heading to an airbase near Madrid.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said that between 400 and 500 of the around 1,000 Spaniards registered as living in Lebanon are being airlifted out. The government has urged all Spaniards to leave and is offering to assist those who say they want to be evacuated.

Robles said that a third plane could be sent if needed.

Spain also has 676 soldiers in Lebanon deployed under a United Nations peacekeeping mission. Robles said that the troops are staying put until otherwise ordered by the U.N. command.

ISTANBUL — Hundreds of people leaving Lebanon arrived in southern Turkey Thursday.

A ship carrying over 300 passengers who boarded the vessel in the Lebanese city of Tripoli docked at a port in Mersin on the country’s Mediterranean coast, according to Turkish news agency IHA.

IHA said the Med Lines ship transporting foreign nationals was the third to arrive at the Mersin port in recent days.

The passengers then travel onward to their home countries, IHA reported.

The increasing violence in Lebanon is a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

BEIRUT —The Lebanese Red Cross says an Israeli strike killed four of its paramedics and a Lebanese army soldier as they were evacuating wounded people from the south. It says the convoy near the village of Taybeh, which was accompanied by Lebanese troops, was targeted Thursday despite coordinating its movements with U.N. peacekeepers.

BEIRUT — The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of villages and towns in southern Lebanon that are north of a United Nations-declared buffer zone established after the 2006 war. The warning issued Thursday signaled a possible broadening of Israel’s incursion into southern Lebanon, which until now has been confined to areas close to the border.

BEIRUT —Lebanon’s Health Ministry Thursday said that at least nine people were killed in an Israeli strike in central Beirut, as it is also running DNA tests on remains they have obtained to identify others.

Hezbollah said that seven paramedics and rescue workers from its medical arm the Islamic Health Committee were killed in the strike that hit its office in Bashoura. The Health Ministry said 14 others were wounded in the strike early Thursday.

Prior to the attack, the ministry said that 55 people were killed and 156 others were wounded in Israeli strikes over Lebanon on Wednesday.

The frequent strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs as well as occasional strikes in central Beirut have exacerbated Lebanon’s displacement crisis. The government estimated days ago that some one million people are currently displaced in the cash-strapped country.

Environment Minister Nasser Yassin, who is spearheading the government’s response efforts to the war, told local media that some 167,000 Syrians left Lebanon over the past 24 hours alone. The Associated Press could not independently confirm.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Thursday that it killed a senior Hamas leader in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip around three months ago.

It said that a strike on an underground compound in northern Gaza killed Rawhi Mushtaha and two other Hamas commanders, Sameh Siraj and Sameh Oudeh.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

The military said the three commanders had taken refuge in a fortified underground compound in northern Gaza that served as a command and control center.

It said Mushtaha was a close associate of Yahya Sinwar, the top leader of Hamas who helped mastermind the Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the war.

Sinwar is believed to be alive and in hiding inside Gaza.

NICOSIA, Cyprus — The British government chartered more flights to help U.K. nationals leave Lebanon, a day after an evacuation flight left Beirut.

The government said in a statement that the flights will continue as “long as the security situation allows” and that it’s working to increase capacity on commercial flights for British nationals.

U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey on Wednesday visited a British military base on Cyprus where around 700 troops, Foreign Office staff and Border Force officers have been deployed to a British military base in Cyprus to help with evacuation plans.

British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under the age of 18 are eligible. Dependents who aren’t British nationals will need a valid visa granting a maximum six-month stay in the U.K.

BEIRUT — An Israeli strike in the Lebanese capital Beirut killed seven health and rescue workers, an Islamic health organization said.

The airstrike in the residential Bashoura district targeted an apartment in a multi-story building that houses an office of the Health Society, a group of civilian first responders affiliated to Hezbollah.

It was the closest strike to the central downtown district of Beirut, where the United Nations and government offices are located.

It was the second airstrike to hit central Beirut this week and the second to directly target the Health Society in 24 hours. No Israeli warning was issued to the area before it was hit. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike in central Beirut or the allegations it used phorphorous bombs.

Israel has mostly concentrated its airstrikes in south and eastern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah has a strong presence, but its attacks have spanned the entire country and killed many civilians.

Beirut’s southern suburbs also saw heavy bombardment overnight in areas where the Israeli army had earlier issued a warning online for residents to evacuate.

TOKYO — Japan on Thursday dispatched two Self Defense Force planes to prepare for a possible airlift of Japanese citizens from Lebanon.

Two C-2 transport aircraft are expected to arrive in Jordan and Greece on Friday, Japan NHK national television reported.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that there has been no report of injury involving the about 50 Japanese nationals in Lebanon.

Japan dispatched SDF aircraft in October and November 2023 to evacuate more than 100 Japanese and South Korean citizens from Israel.

SYDNEY — Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday her government had booked 500 seats on commercial aircraft for Australian citizens, permanent residents and their families to leave Lebanon on Saturday.

The seats are available to 1,700 Australians and their families known to be in Lebanon on two flights from Beirut to Cyprus, Wong said.

“What I would say to Australians who wish to leave, please take whatever option is available to you,” Wong told reporters in Geelong, Australia.

“Please do not wait for your preferred route,” she added.

A Hezbollah paramedic walks between debris after an airstrike hit an apartment in a multistory building, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Lebanese women stand in front an apartment in a multistory building hit by Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A destroyed apartment in a multistory building hit by Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hezbollah paramedics walk between debris after an airstrike hit an apartment in a multistory building, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A woman reacts in front an apartment in a multistory building hit by Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

This image from United Nations Television, shows Israel Ambassador Danny Danon during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (UNTV via AP)

Soldiers carry the coffin of Israeli Army Capt. Eitan Yitzhak Oster, who was killed in action in Lebanon, during his funeral at Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

An Israeli Apache helicopter releases flares near the Israeli-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Police stand guard at the site of an apparent Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

Workers clean at the site of an apparent Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

People collecting remains of victims after an airstrike that hit an apartment in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A firefighter stands in front of an apartment hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)