Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike hit Tyre, in southern Lebanon on September 19, 2024.
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Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire on Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the heaviest bombardment in nearly a year of war in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in northern Israel.
Israel’s military said it struck about 290 targets on Saturday including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers and said it would continue to strike targets of the Iran-backed movement.
Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many parts of the country’s north and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early Sunday.
Sirens sounded overnight as dozens of rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by Israel’s air defense system, the military said.
Israeli media reported that several buildings were directly hit or fell by missile debris, and the ambulance service said it was treating several people with minor injuries. No serious casualties were reported.
Hezbollah said it targeted Israel’s Ramat David Airbase with dozens of missiles in response to “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon”, the group posted on its Telegram channel on Sunday.
The successive rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah on Ramat David are the deepest they have claimed since hostilities began.
Iranian-backed Iraqi militants in a statement also claimed an explosive drone strike in Israel early Sunday.
Escalating the attack
The escalating attacks came less than 48 hours after an Israeli airstrike targeting a Hezbollah commander killed at least 37 people on the outskirts 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 in the deadliest attack in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
The Israeli army said that there was an underground gathering of Aqil and the leaders of the elite Radwan forces of Hezbollah, and had almost completely dismantled the chain of command of the military.
The attack damaged a multi-storey residential building in a busy suburb and damaged an adjacent nursery, security sources said. Three children and seven women were among the dead, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Friday’s attack quickly escalated the conflict and led to another attack on Hezbollah after two days of attacks in which fences and walkie-talkies used by its members were blown up.
The death toll in the attack, believed to have been carried out by Israel, rose to 39 with more than 3,000 injured. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
In what it said was an initial retaliation for an attack with an explosive device, Hezbollah on Sunday posted on its Telegram channel that it had launched a rocket at an Israeli military industrial facility.
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said he was concerned about the escalation, but that the killing of Hezbollah’s leader in Israel brought justice to the group, which Washington designated as terrorists.
“While the risk of escalation is real, we believe there are also different ways to end hostilities and durable solutions that keep people on both sides of the border safe,” Sullivan told reporters.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has canceled his planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York.
Israel prepared to retaliate
Hezbollah has said it will continue to fight Israel until it agrees to a ceasefire in its fight against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza – triggered by the Hamas-led rampage in southern Israel on October 7.
U.S. officials say that’s unlikely anytime soon. Israel wants Hezbollah to cease fire and withdraw troops from the border area, adhering to the UN resolution signed with Israel in 2006, regardless of any Gaza deal.
Anticipating retaliation, the Israeli military restricted gatherings and raised the alert level for residents of northern communities. The strike reached as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, signaling Israel thinks Hezbollah may strike deeper than it has since the war with Hamas began.
In southern Lebanon on Saturday, people described a huge explosion that lit up the night sky and shook the ground as Israel carried out its latest attack.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said last week Israel launched a new phase of war on the northern border, sent in X: “The order of operations in the new phase will continue until the goal is achieved: the safe return of citizens. from the north to their homes.”
Tens of thousands of people have left their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza.
The communique from the US summit held by President Joe Biden with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia emphasized the need to prevent the Gaza war “from escalating and spilling over into the region” but did not specifically mention the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
With at least 70 people killed in Lebanon over the past week, the number of clashes in the country since October has surpassed 740 in the worst Israeli-Hezbollah attack since the 2006 war.