Thick smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on the Tire River in southern Lebanon on September 19, 2024.
Anadolu | Getty Images
Israel and Lebanon exchanged fire on Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the heaviest bombing of southern Lebanon in nearly a year of war and Hezbollah claiming rocket attacks on military targets in northern Israel.
The Israeli military said it struck some 290 targets on Saturday, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers, and said it would continue to attack targets of the Iranian-backed movement.
Earlier on Sunday, Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many of the country's northern regions and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The military said Lebanon and Iraq fired multiple rockets and missiles, with sirens blaring throughout the night, and most of them were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems.
Israeli media reported that some buildings were hit directly or by falling missile fragments, and ambulance services said they treated some people with minor injuries. No serious casualties were reported.
Hezbollah posted on its Telegram channel early Sunday that it had fired dozens of missiles at Israel's Ramat David Air Base in response to “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon.”
Hezbollah's successive rocket attacks on Ramat David are the most serious since hostilities began.
In the statement, Iran-backed Iraqi militants also claimed an explosive drone attack on Israel earlier Sunday.
Attacks continue to escalate
The attacks escalated after Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah commanders on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital, killing at least 37 people, authorities said.
The powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah said on Friday 16 of its members, including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander Ahmed Wahbi, were involved in a nearly year-long conflict with Israel. Killed in the worst attack.
Israeli forces said they attacked an underground gathering of leaders of Aqil and Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit and almost completely destroyed their military chain of command.
Security sources said the attack leveled a multi-storey residential building in the crowded suburb and damaged a nursery next door. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the victims included three children and seven women.
Friday's attack sharply escalated the conflict and dealt another blow to Hezbollah after pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded during two days of attacks.
The death toll from the attacks, widely blamed on Israel, has risen to 39 people and more than 3,000 injured. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Hezbollah posted on its Telegram channel on Sunday that it had fired rockets at Israeli military industrial facilities in preliminary retaliation for the explosive device attack.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he was concerned about escalation but that Israel's killing of a senior Hezbollah leader brought justice to the group, which Washington has designated as a terrorist.
“While the risk of escalation is real, we actually believe there is a unique path to achieving a cessation of hostilities and finding a lasting solution that allows people on both sides of the border to feel safe,” Sullivan told reporters. ”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has canceled a planned trip to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Israel prepares for revenge
Hezbollah says it will continue fighting Israel until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in its war with Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza – triggered by an October 7 Hamas-led atrocity in southern Israel.
U.S. officials say that is unlikely to happen in the short term. Israel wants Hezbollah to cease fire and withdraw troops from the border areas and abide by the 2006 United Nations resolution signed with Israel, regardless of the Gaza agreement.
Anticipating retaliation, the Israeli military restricted gatherings and raised the alert level for residents of northern communities. The alerts extended as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, indicating Israel believes Hezbollah may be striking deeper than it has been since the war with Hamas began.
In southern Lebanon on Saturday, people described huge explosions lighting up the night sky and shaking the ground as Israel launched its latest attack.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said last week that Israel was launching a new phase of war on its northern border. He posted on X: “This new phase of operations will continue until our goal is achieved: the security of residents. Returning Northerners to their homes.
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border since October when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in sympathy with the Palestinians in Gaza.
The communiqué of the US summit hosted by US President Joe Biden with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia emphasized the need to prevent the war in Gaza from “escalating and spreading into 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 in the country's conflict to more than 740 since October in the country's worst conflict since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.