NAHARIYA, Israel (AP) — Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets Sunday morning into a wider and deeper area of northern Israel, some landing near the city of Haifa, as Israel launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon. The two sides appear headed toward all-out war after months of rising tensions.
The rocket attacks overnight came in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon that killed dozens of people, including a veteran Hezbollah commander, and an unprecedented attack targeting the group’s communications equipment. Air raid sirens sounded across northern Israel, forcing thousands to flee to shelters.
A rocket hit near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a town near Haifa, wounding at least three people and setting buildings and cars on fire. Israeli rescue services Magen David Adom said a total of four people were injured by shrapnel in the salvo.
Avi Vazana rushed to a shelter with his wife and 9-month-old baby before hearing the sound of the rocket hitting Kiryat Bialik. He then went back outside to see if anyone was injured.
“I ran without shoes, without a shirt, only with pants. I ran towards this house while everything was still on fire to try to see if there were other people,” he said.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said three people were killed and four others wounded in Israeli strikes near the border, without specifying whether they were civilians or fighters.
Hezbollah responds to unprecedented blows
The blockade came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday. killed at least 45 peopleincluding one of Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as women and children. Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused Thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies will explode a few days earlier.
A woman walks past a house hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in Moreshet, northern Israel, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo//Ariel Schalit)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take all necessary steps to restore security in the north and allow residents to return home.
“No country can accept that its cities are being bombed indiscriminately. Neither can we,” he said.
The Israeli military said it had carried out a series of strikes in southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours, hitting about 400 militant sites, including rocket launchers. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said the strikes had foiled an even larger attack.
“Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been targeted by gunfire in much of northern Israel,” he said. “Today we saw gunfire that reached deeper into Israel than ever before.”
The military also said it intercepted several aerial devices fired from Iraq, after Iranian-backed militant groups claimed to have launched a drone attack on Israel.
The Israeli Health Ministry said all hospitals in the north would begin moving their operations to protected areas or shelters within medical centers.
In another development, Israeli forces Police raid Al-Jazeera office in West Bankwhich it had banned earlier this year, accusing it of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups, allegations denied by the pan-Arab channel.
UN envoy warns region on brink of catastrophe
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire since the Gaza war began nearly a year ago, when the militant group began firing rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its Iranian-backed ally Hamas. The low-intensity fighting has killed dozens in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.
Until recently, neither side seemed to want an all-out war, and Hezbollah has yet to target Tel Aviv or major civilian infrastructure. But in recent weeks, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to Lebanon and pledged to restore calm to the border so its citizens can return home. Hezbollah has said it will only stop its attacks if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. which seems more and more elusive.
The war in Gaza The conflict began on October 7 with a Hamas attack on Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. They still hold about 100 prisoners, a third of whom are believed to have died. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It did not specify how many were fighters, but said women and children accounted for more than half of the dead.
Families of the hostages fear that a war in the north would distract from their plight and further complicate negotiations for their release.
The UN envoy to Lebanon has called on all parties to withdraw.
“As the region stands on the brink of imminent catastrophe, it cannot be said enough: there is no military solution that can make either side safer,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a message posted on X.
Israeli media reported that rockets fired from Lebanon early Sunday were intercepted in the Haifa and Nazareth areas, located further south than most of the rocket attacks carried out so far. Israel canceled classes in the north of the country, reinforcing the sense of crisis.
Hezbollah claims to be using new weapons
Hezbollah said it launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles – a new type of weapon the group had never used before – at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, “in response to repeated Israeli attacks that targeted several Lebanese areas and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs.”
In July, the group released a video containing what it claimed was footage of the base filmed by surveillance drones.
Hezbollah also said it targeted the facilities of the Haifa-based Rafael defense company in retaliation for the attack on the wireless devices. It did not provide evidence, and the Israeli military declined to comment on the claim.
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel after a series of explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, including two children, and wounding about 3,000. The attacks have been widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
An Israeli airstrike on Friday destroyed an eight-story building in a densely populated neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs as Hezbollah operatives were meeting in the basement, Israel said. Those killed included: Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah official who commanded the group’s special forces unit, known as the Radwan Force.
Lebanese authorities said at least seven women and three children were killed and dozens more were wounded in Friday’s airstrike, the deadliest airstrike in Beirut since the month-long conflict in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attack broke the group’s chain of command while eliminating Akil, whom he held responsible for Israeli deaths.
Akil had been on the U.S. most-wanted list for years, with a $7 million reward, for his alleged role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon during the civil war in the 1980s.
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Kareem Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Moshe Edri contributed from Kiryat Bialik.
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