Hezbollah, Israel exchange heavy fire after deadly Israeli strike By Reuters
Written by Timour Azhari and Muhammad Al Gebaly
BEIRUT/Cairo (Reuters) – Israel and Lebanon clashed on Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out almost a year's worth of bombing in southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah saying it fired rockets at military targets in northern Israel.
Israel's military said it hit about 290 targets on Saturday, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers, and said it would continue to strike targets of the Iran-backed group.
Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in much of the country's north and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights earlier Sunday.
Sirens blared throughout the night as dozens of rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of them intercepted by Israel's air defense systems, the military said.
Israeli media reported that dozens of buildings had been hit directly or by falling missile debris, and ambulance services said they were treating people with minor injuries. No bad idiots were reported.
Hezbollah said it targeted Israel's Ramat David Airbase with multiple missiles in response to “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon”, the group wrote on its Telegram channel early Sunday.
The series of rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah in Ramat David are the deepest strikes they have had since the start of the war.
Iraqi forces backed by Iran in a statement also said they attacked Israel with explosives in the early hours of Sunday.
CONTINUOUS ATTACK
The escalation comes less than 48 hours after an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah commanders killed at least 37 people in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, according to authorities.
Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed group, said 16 members, including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among those killed Friday in the deadliest strike in nearly a year against Israel.
The Israeli army said it had attacked the secret gathering of Aqil and the leaders of the Hezbollah militia in Radwan, and had almost destroyed all their military channels.
The attack hit a multi-storey building in a crowded area and damaged a neighboring kindergarten, a security source said. Three children and seven women were among the dead, according to Lebanon's health ministry.
Friday's strike further escalated the conflict and dealt another blow to Hezbollah after two days of attacks in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members were blown up.
The death toll from the attack, believed to be carried out by Israel, has risen to 39 and more than 3,000 injured. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
In what it said was the first retaliation for the explosive attack, Hezbollah on Sunday posted on its Telegram channel that it had launched rockets at Israeli military industrial facilities.
Israel responded immediately, attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon, the military said in a statement.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he was concerned about the state's expansion but that Israel's killing of a top Hezbollah leader represented justice for the group, which Washington designated a terrorist organization.
“While the risk of escalation is real, we actually believe there is a different way to end hostilities and a strong solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel safe,” Sullivan told reporters.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has canceled a planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York.
ISRAEL ATTACKS RETALIATION
Hezbollah has said it will continue to fight Israel until it agrees to a ceasefire in its war with Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza – sparked by Hamas-led violence in southern Israel on October 7.
U.S. officials say that won't happen anytime soon. Israel wants Hezbollah to stop firing and withdraw troops from the border region, following a UN resolution signed with Israel in 2006, regardless of the Gaza deal.
Anticipating retaliation, the Israeli military has restricted gatherings and raised the alert level for residents of northern communities. The warning extended as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, indicating that Israel thought Hezbollah could strike deeper than it had since the start of the war with Hamas.
In southern Lebanon on Saturday, people described a huge explosion that lit up the night sky and shook the world as Israel carried out its latest strikes.
Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said last week that Israel launched a new phase of the war on the northern border, wrote in X: “The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes. “
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October in sympathy with the Palestinians in Gaza.
The speech from the US conference hosted by President Joe Biden and the leaders of Japan, India and Australia emphasized the need to prevent the war in Gaza “from escalating and spilling over into the region” but did not specifically mention the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
With at least 70 people killed in Lebanon last week, the number of clashes in the country since October has surpassed 740 during the worst Israeli-Hezbollah outbreak since the 2006 war.
