TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles at Israel early Wednesday, including a missile targeting Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet and marked a new escalation after Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed hundreds.
The Israeli military said it intercepted the surface-to-surface missile, which set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and central Israel. No casualties or damage were reported. The military said it struck the site in southern Lebanon where the missile was launched.
Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, which it blames for a recent series of targeted assassinations of its top commanders and an attack last week in which explosives were used. hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and injured thousands, including many Hezbollah members.
The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had hit 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 heightened tensions in the region, which appears headed toward a new open war, even as Israel continues to battle Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A wave of Israeli strikes on Monday and Tuesday killed at least 560 people in Lebanon and forced thousands more to seek refuge.
Families on the run Refugees have poured into Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools converted into shelters, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some have sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the entrance to the city. border with Syria.
Hezbollah’s latest strikes included dozens of rockets fired toward northern Israel on Wednesday, including one that hit an empty house and sparked a fire in the city of Safed. The Israeli military said that at one point, the militants fired 40 projectiles simultaneously.
Israel responded with new strikes against Hezbollah. In Lebanon, at least three people were killed and nine wounded in an Israeli strike near Byblos, according to the country’s health ministry. The coastal city is north of Beirut and far from Hezbollah’s main strongholds.
The Israeli 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 the Lebanese extremist group have been escalating 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, another Iranian-backed extremist group.
Israel responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and targeted assassinations of Hezbollah commanders, while threatening to launch a larger operation.
The UN Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on Lebanon for Wednesday, at the request of France.
Nearly a year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel had already displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before this week’s escalation. Israel has pledged to do everything in its power to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will continue its rocket attacks until a ceasefire is established in Gaza, which is not a good thing. which seems more and more distant.
Last week’s rocket attacks disrupted the lives of more than a million people in northern Israel, with schools closed and restrictions on public gatherings. Many restaurants and other businesses are closed in the coastal city of Haifa, and there are fewer people on the streets. Some of those who fled south from communities near the border are again under rocket fire.
Israel has moved thousands of troops serving in Gaza to the northern border. According to the organization, Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, some of which are capable of hitting anywhere in Israel, and has fired some 9,000 rockets and drones since last October.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said the missile fired Wednesday had a “heavy warhead,” but declined to provide further details or confirm that it was the type described by Hezbollah. He dismissed Hezbollah’s claims that it targeted the Mossad headquarters, located just north of Tel Aviv, as “psychological warfare.”
The Iranian-made Qader is a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile with several types and payloads. It can carry an explosive warhead of up to 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds), according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Iranian officials have described the liquid-fueled missile as having a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).
Cross-border gunfire began to intensify Sunday after bombings using pagers and walkie-talkies killed 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
On Sunday, Hezbollah launched about 150 rockets, missiles and drones toward northern Israel.
The next day, Israel said its warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, including weapons hidden in private homes. The heaviest toll in a single day in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah engaged in a bitter month-long war in 2006.
An Israeli airstrike on Tuesday killed Ibrahim Kobeisi, who Israel said was a senior Hezbollah official and member of the group’s missile and rocket unit. Military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for firing into Israel and had planned an attack in 2000 in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed. Hezbollah later confirmed his death.
It is the latest in a series of assassinations and other setbacks for Hezbollah, which is Lebanon’s most powerful political and military actor and is widely seen as the Arab world’s leading paramilitary force.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said six people were killed and 15 wounded in the attack in a southern suburb of Beirut, an area where Hezbollah has a strong presence. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the attack destroyed three floors of a six-story apartment building.
The UN refugee agency in Lebanon said one of its employees and her young son were among those killed in the Bekaa region on Monday, while a contract cleaner was killed in a strike in the south.
Hezbollah fired 300 rockets on Tuesday, wounding six Israeli soldiers and civilians, most of them lightly, according to the Israeli military.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 564 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Monday, including 50 children and 94 women, and more than 1,800 have been injured, a staggering toll for the population. a country still in shock following last week’s deadly pager and walkie-talkie attacks.
___
Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war on https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
