Israel struck Hizbullah targets in southern Lebanon and the Iran-backed group attacked military facilities in northern Israel on Tuesday, increasing fears of a full-blown conflict after Lebanon suffered its deadliest day in decades.
Israel’s military said it hit dozens of Hizbullah targets overnight, a day after carrying out air strikes against the armed group which Lebanese authorities said killed nearly 558 people, including 50 children and 94 women, and wounded 1,835. Tens of thousands more have fled for safety.
“In the last hour, warplanes bombed Hizbullah targets in southern Lebanon, including missile launchers, military buildings, and buildings where weapons were stored,” Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.
Hizbullah said it targeted several Israeli military targets overnight including an explosives factory 60km into Israel, which it attacked with Fadi rockets at about 4am. It said it also attacked the Megiddo airfield near the northern Israeli town of Afula three separate times overnight.
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After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Hizbullah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
With the region increasingly on edge, more than 30 international flights to and from Beirut on Tuesday were cancelled, according to the Rafic Hariri International Airport’s website. Airlines affected included Qatar Airways, Turkish Airways and various airlines from the United Arab Emirates.
Some Lebanese hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of wounded, a World Health Organisation official in Lebanon said, and Haifa’s main hospital has moved operations to an underground facility after the Israeli city was attacked on Monday.
“We’re looking at tens of thousands (of displaced in Lebanon), but we expect that those figures will start to rise,” said the UN refugee agency’s spokesman, Matthew Saltmarsh. “The situation is extremely alarming.”
Calls for diplomacy are growing as the conflict worsens, with UN human rights chief Volker Turk urging all states and actors with influence to avert further escalation in Lebanon.
Asked about reports that Israel had warned people through phone messages before the strikes, a spokesperson for Turk raised concerns about the situation.
“The methods and means of warfare that are being used raises very serious concerns about: Whether you’ve sent out a warning you’re telling civilians to flee, doesn’t make it okay to then strike those areas, knowing full well that the impact on civilians will be huge...,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a briefing in Geneva.
Russia said Israeli strikes on Lebanon could completely destabilise the oil-producing Middle East.
The fighting has raised fears that the United States, Israel’s close ally and regional power Iran, which has proxies across the Middle East – Hizbullah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq – will be sucked into a wider war.
The strikes have piled pressure on Hizbullah, which last week suffered heavy losses when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in the worst security breach in its history.
The operation was widely attributed to Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.
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Israel's intelligence and technological prowess has given it a strong edge in both Lebanon and Gaza. It has track down and assassinated top Hizbullah commanders and Hamas leaders.
Israel’s military, the most advanced and powerful in the Middle East, said about 55 projectiles had crossed into Israel in the latest attacks, but the majority were intercepted.
Hizbullah said it had bombed the logistical warehouses of the 146th Division in the Naftali base with a rocket salvo.
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies said the Middle East risked being dragged into a broader conflict that no country would gain from, according to a statement released after they met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
An all-out war could create instability across the Middle East in addition to a devastating war in Gaza which shows no sign of easing.
The latest strikes caused panic.
Families from south Lebanon on Monday loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people young and old. Highways north were gridlocked.. – Reuters