Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, on September 19, 2024.
Anadolu | Getty Images
Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy artillery fire over Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the heaviest bombing raids of the nearly year-long war across southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in northern Israel.
The Israeli military said it struck around 290 sites, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket artillery, on Saturday and said it would continue attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah targets.
Israel closed schools and restricted public gatherings in much of the country’s northern regions and in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early on Sunday.
The Israeli military said sirens sounded throughout the night as multiple rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, but most were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems.
Israeli media reported that numerous buildings had been hit or struck by missile shrapnel, and said emergency services had treated people for minor injuries. No serious injuries were reported.
Hezbollah posted on its Telegram channel early Sunday that it had struck Israel’s Ramat David air base with dozens of missiles in retaliation for “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon.”
The successive rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah on Ramat David are the most serious attack claimed by the group since hostilities began.
Iranian-backed Iraqi militants also claimed in a statement an explosive drone attack on Israel early Sunday.
Intensifying attacks
The escalation in attacks comes less than 48 hours after an Israeli airstrike targeting a Hezbollah commander on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital killed at least 37 people, officials said.
The powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah said 16 of its members, including senior leader Ibrahim Akil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among those killed Friday in the deadliest attack in the nearly year-long conflict with Israel.
The Israeli army said it had attacked an underground meeting of leaders of Akil and Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit, almost completely dismantling the military’s chain of command.
The attack collapsed a high-rise apartment building in a densely populated area and damaged an adjacent nursery school, security sources said. The Lebanese Health Ministry said the dead included three children and seven women.
Friday’s attack marked a sharp escalation of the conflict and dealt a new blow to Hezbollah following two days of attacks that saw the explosion of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members.
The attacks, widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, left 39 people dead and more than 3,000 injured, but Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
Hezbollah posted on its Telegram channel on Sunday that it had fired rockets at an Israeli military industrial facility in its first retaliation for the explosive device attack.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said he was concerned about rising tensions but that Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s top leader had brought justice to the group, which the US has designated a terrorist organisation.
“While there are certainly risks of escalating tensions, we also believe there is a clear path to a cessation of hostilities and a durable resolution that provides reassurance to people on both sides of the border,” Sullivan told reporters.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has cancelled a planned trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Israel prepares for retaliation
Hezbollah has said it will continue fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which began its war with the Palestinian-controlled region on October 7 after Hamas-led riots in southern Israel erupted, until Israel agrees to a ceasefire.
U.S. officials say that’s unlikely anytime soon. Israel wants Hezbollah to ceasefire and withdraw its troops from the border area in accordance with U.N. resolutions it signed with Israel in 2006, with or without a Gaza deal.
Anticipating retaliation, the Israeli military has restricted gatherings and increased alert levels for residents of northern communities, even as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, signaling that Israel believes Hezbollah could launch its most serious attack since the start of the war with Hamas.
In southern Lebanon on Saturday, people said they saw a huge explosion light up the night sky and shake the earth as Israel carried out its latest attack.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last week that Israel would launch a new phase of the war on its northern border, posting on X: “This new series of actions will continue until our goal of ensuring the safe return of northern residents to their homes is achieved.”
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 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
A communique from a U.S. summit hosted by President Joe Biden with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia stressed the need to “prevent the Gaza war from escalating and spilling over to the region,” but did not specifically mention the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
At least 70 people have been killed in Lebanon over the past week, bringing the death toll from the country’s conflict since October to more than 740, making it the worst conflict between Israel and Hezbollah since the 2006 war.
