Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel early yesterday, as Israel’s military said it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets to thwart a bigger attack, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare.
Missiles were visible curling up through the dawn sky, dark vapour trails behind them, as an air raid siren sounded in Israel and a distant blast lit the horizon, while smoke rose over houses in Khiam in southern Lebanon.
The extent of damage was not immediately clear and Hezbollah indicated it was not planning further strikes yet, while Israel’s foreign minister said the country did not seek a full-scale war.
Lebanon’s health ministry said three people were killed in the Israeli raids in the country’s south. One Israel navy soldier was killed and two wounded during combat in northern Israel, the Israeli military said.
Any major escalation in the fighting, which began in parallel with the offensive in Gaza, risks morphing into a regional conflagration drawing in Hezbollah’s backer Iran and Israel’s main ally the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the strikes in Lebanon were “not the final word” in his country’s military campaign against Hezbollah.
Yesterday’s strikes came as negotiators were meeting in Cairo in a last-ditch effort to conclude a halt to the fighting in Gaza.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group said it had fired 320 Katyusha rockets towards Israel and hit 11 military targets in what it called the first phase of its retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Fuad Shukr, a senior commander, last month.
Israel’s military said it had foiled a much larger attack with pre-emptive airstrikes after assessing that Hezbollah was preparing to launch the barrage, using 100 jets to strike more than 40 Hezbollah launch sites in southern Lebanon, reports Reuters.
Hezbollah dismissed Israel’s statement that the group’s attack had been foiled with pre-emptive strikes, saying it had been able to launch its drones as planned and that the rest of its response to Shukr’s killing would take “some time”.
Flights to and from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv were suspended for around 90 minutes.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon and the UN’s special coordinator’s office in the country called on all sides to cease fire, calling the developments overnight “worrying”. President Joe Biden was following events closely, the White House said.
On the ground in the besieged Palestinian territory, an AFP correspondent reported strikes and shelling in Gaza City, where rescuers said at least three people were killed.
Witnesses said battles raged in the area of Deir al-Balah, further south. Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 40,405 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
