Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system fired to intercept rockets fired from Lebanon, north of Israel, on Tuesday.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
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Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
BEIRUT – Hezbollah fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv early Wednesday, in a further escalation after Israel carried out an attack in Lebanon that killed hundreds of people and militants fired rockets at a wider area in northern Israel.
The Israeli military said it intercepted the surface-to-surface missile, which set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and central Israel, and there were no reports of casualties or damage. The military said it struck the site in southern Lebanon from where the projectile was launched.
Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile that targeted the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, which it has blamed for a series of targeted assassinations of top commanders and attacks last week in which bombs hidden in fences and walkie-talkies killed dozens. people and thousands injured, including many Hezbollah members.
The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel. Hezbollah claimed to have targeted an intelligence base near Tel Aviv last month in an airstrike, but there was no confirmation. The Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv in the early months of the war.
The launch has raised tensions as the region appears to be moving towards an all-out war, even as Israel continues to fight Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A wave of Israeli attacks on Monday and Tuesday killed at least 560 people in Lebanon and forced thousands to seek refuge.
Families have fled southern Lebanon, flocking to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools as shelters, as well as in cars, parks and on beaches. Some sought to leave the country, resulting in traffic jams at the border with Syria.
Israel said late Tuesday that fighter jets carried out “extensive strikes” on Hezbollah weapons and rocket launchers in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa region in the north. The military said it had no immediate plans for a ground invasion but declined to give a timetable for the air campaign.
Tensions between Israel and Lebanese militant groups have risen steadily over the past 11 months. Hezbollah has fired rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and its ally Hamas, the Iranian-backed militant group.
Israel has responded with escalating airstrikes and targeted assassinations of Hezbollah commanders while threatening wider operations.
The UN Security Council is planning an emergency meeting in Lebanon on Wednesday at France’s request.
The nearly year-long war between Hezbollah and Israel had displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before this week’s escalation. Israel has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure residents can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will continue its rocket attacks until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, something that looks increasingly distant.
Israel has moved thousands of soldiers who had been serving in Gaza to the northern border. It said Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including some that can strike anywhere in Israel, and that the group has fired 9,000 rockets and drones since last October.
Cross-border exchanges began to ramp up on Sunday after the fence and walkie-talkie bombings, which killed 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blames Israel, but Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
On Sunday, Hezbollah launched about 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel.
The next day, Israel said warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, including weapons hidden in private homes. The attack led to the highest single-day death toll in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah fought a months-long war in 2006.
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday killed Ibrahim Kobeisi, who Israel described as Hezbollah’s top commander with rocket and missile units. Military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for the launch into Israel and planned the 2000 attack in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed. Hezbollah later confirmed the death.
It was the latest in a string of assassinations and other setbacks for Hezbollah, which is Lebanon’s most powerful political and military actor and is considered the Arab world’s top paramilitary force.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said six people were killed and 15 wounded in the attack on the southern outskirts of Beirut, an area where Hezbollah has a strong presence. The country’s National News Agency said the attack destroyed three floors of a six-story apartment building.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon said one of its staff and his young son were among those killed Monday in the Bekaa region, while a contract cleaner was killed in an attack in the south.
Hezbollah fired 300 rockets on Tuesday, injuring six Israeli soldiers and civilians, most of them lightly, according to the Israeli military.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 564 people had been killed in Israeli strikes since Monday, including 50 children and 94 women, and more than 1,800 had been wounded, a staggering toll for a country still reeling from deadly fences and walkie-talkies. bombing last week.
