Israel and Hizbullah moved closer to an all-out war over the weekend with Hizbullah launching hundreds of rockets deeper into northern Israel, including suburbs of the port city of Haifa, putting more than a million Israelis under fire. Israeli jets pounded Hizbullah positions, claiming to have destroyed thousands of rocket launchers.
Several projectiles, fired from Iraq, were also intercepted over the southern Golan Heights, and a cruise missile launched from Iraq was intercepted close to Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat.
Hizbullah deputy secretary general Naim Qassem said that the Iranian-backed group had entered a new phase of its conflict with Israel, which he described as an “open-ended battle of reckoning”.
The upsurge in violence came after some 50 people, including women and children, were killed on Friday in an Israeli strike on a building in Beirut’s Dahiye neighbourhood, a Hizbullah stronghold, including Ibrahim Aqil, the leader of the group’s elite Radwan force, and other senior militant leaders, who were meeting two floors under the building.
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According to some reports, under discussion was a plan for a large-scale Radwan force cross-border infiltration into the Galilee.
[ Beirut missile strike aftermath: A region ‘on the brink of catastrophe’Opens in new window ]
[ Hizbullah retaliates for Israeli attacks with overnight barrage of missilesOpens in new window ]
Israeli sources described the pinpoint Beirut strike as much more significant than last week’s attacks, in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by militants exploded across Lebanon.
Cross-border fighting began a day after the Hamas attack from Gaza on southern Israel on October 7th, causing more than 60,000 Israelis to flee the Lebanese border area.
With the attacks intensifying, schools across northern Israel moved to remote learning; large gatherings, including football matches, were cancelled; and airspace in the north was closed. Hospitals moved patients to protected spaces.
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel had “dealt Hizbullah a series of blows it could not have imagined”. In a message recorded in his Jerusalem office, Mr Netanyahu added: “If Hizbullah didn’t get the message, I promise you – it will get the message. We are determined to return our northern residents safely to their homes.”
Israel’s top general described its operations against Hizbullah as a message to anyone in the Middle East looking to harm Israeli citizens. “Hizbullah will keep getting hit until it understands that we will return our citizens to their homes safely,” Israel Defence Forces chief of staff lieut gen Herzi Halevi said.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Sunday that the US is doing everything it can to prevent “all-out war” between Israel and Hizbullah.
The European Union called for an urgent ceasefire, stating: “civilians on both sides are paying a high price”.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, declared on Sunday that “the crimes of the Zionist regime in Lebanon will not be left without response,” but Israel still believes that Tehran does not seek a regional war at this juncture, preferring to continue the war of attrition along Israel’s northern border.
United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres expressed concern on Sunday that the situation in Lebanon could become a military conflict on the same level as the war between Israel and Hamas.
In Gaza, hospital sources said at least seven people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school compound in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp. Israel claimed that militants who were in the former school were targeted in the strike.
Israeli troops raided the offices of the satellite news network Al Jazeera in Ramallah in the West Bank early Sunday, ordering the bureau to shut down. Israel views the Qatar-funded broadcaster, the most popular across the Arab world, as hostile and has already blocked its transmissions in Israel.
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