Binyamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israeli air raids targeting Hizbullah rockets in southern Lebanon in the early hours of Sunday morning were “not the end of the story”, after the two sides exchanged their heaviest fire since the war in Gaza began, raising fears of an all-out regional conflict.
The Israeli prime minister did not specify what further action, if any, was planned after the intense exchanges but he suggested Israel’s moves would be aimed at “changing the situation in the north”.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) used 100 jet fighters that hit more than 40 target sites inside Lebanon in sorties over a period of seven hours. Hizbullah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel.
According to Mr Netanyahu, the raids “destroyed thousands of short-range rockets, all of which were designed to attack our citizens and our forces in the Galilee” in northern Israel.
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He also said the IDF had “intercepted all of the drones that Hizbullah launched at a strategic target in the centre of the country”.
Mr Netanyahu did not name the target but the Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, described it as “a military intelligence base 110km inside Israeli territory” just outside Tel Aviv, an apparent reference to the Glilot military base, home to the Mossad spy agency and military intelligence agencies such as the Unit 8200 electronic surveillance section.
Two Hizbullah fighters and a militant from an allied group were killed in the strikes on Lebanon. An Israeli navy officer was killed and two other service members injured on a patrol boat off the coast of northern Israel that was hit by shrapnel from an Iron Dome interceptor missile.
In a speech on Sunday evening, Mr Nasrallah downplayed the impact of Israeli air strikes and portrayed Hizbullah’s aerial attack, intended to avenge the killing of a senior commander last month, as a success.
Mr Nasrallah said Hizbullah had used its Katyusha rockets (320 of them according to its official statements) to distract Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system from mass drone attacks. He added that all the drones involved had been successfully launched and had entered Israeli airspace, but did not say how many, if any, had reached their intended target.
The Hizbullah secretary general claimed the Lebanese Shia militia had decided not to respond to the killing in late July of its commander, Fuad Shukr, with attacks on Israeli civilians or infrastructure but to focus on exclusively military targets.
He added that Hizbullah’s arsenal of guided missiles had not been used and had not been damaged by Israeli air strikes, so could be used in the future. The impact of Sunday’s salvo would be assessed before a decision is made on whether to take further action to avenge Shukr.
“If results are not seen to be enough, we will respond another time,” Mr Nasrallah said in a televised address.
While Mr Netanyahu and Mr Nasrallah left open the possibility of further exchanges across the Israeli-Lebanese boundary, Reuters quoted two unnamed diplomats as saying that both sides had been in contact to confirm that each considered the exchange “done” and that neither wanted a full-scale war. Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, also stressed his country did not want an all-out conflict, though it would “act according to developments on the ground”.
However, Mr Netanyahu’s government is under persistent political pressure to create conditions in northern Israel for 80,000 displaced residents to return to their homes. They had been driven out by Hizbullah rocket and artillery fire in solidarity with Hamas, after the Palestinian militant group launched its surprise attack on Israel on October 7th last year. - Guardian