Israel claims to have 'strike' Hezbollah as violence in Lebanon rises

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel had dealt heavy blows to Lebanon's Hezbollah as rapidly escalating cross-border clashes had raised fears of a full-scale war.

Netanyahu's comments follow a night of heavy rocket fire on northern Israel, which the military said drove hundreds of thousands of people into bomb shelters and caused destruction in the area around the major city of Haifa.

“No country can tolerate attacks on its citizens,” Netanyahu said in a statement nearly a year after the Gaza war began. The war was sparked by Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel and has drawn Iranian-backed groups, including Hezbollah, into the fray across the region.

In his first detailed remarks since Friday's airstrike on Beirut that killed Hezbollah commanders and the deadly explosions of communications equipment across Lebanon earlier this week, the prime minister said: “Over the past few days, we have dealt Hezbollah a series of blows that it could never have imagined.”

He did not mention the specific incidents directly.

“I assure you that the message will get across,” Netanyahu added, promising to restore security in the north of the country and allow displaced residents to return to the border area.

The night's rocket fire reached Kiryat Bialik on the outskirts of Haifa, northern Israel's largest city. One building was ablaze, another was riddled with shrapnel and vehicles were burned.

“This is not pleasant. This is war,” said Sharon Hacmishvili, a resident of the area.

Israel has signaled its intention to shift its focus to Iran-backed Hezbollah after a year of cross-border shelling since October, which Hezbollah describes as support for the Palestinian Hamas militia fighting Israel.

– “On the edge” –

An Israeli airstrike on Friday killed the head of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force unit, Ibrahim Aqil, in a densely populated Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, 45 people were killed in the attack.

A large crowd is expected at Aqil's funeral in Beirut on Sunday.

Radwan's forces led Hezbollah's ground operations, and Israel repeatedly called for Hezbollah fighters to be pushed back from the border.

“As the region stands on the brink of imminent disaster, it cannot be stressed enough: there is NO military solution that would make either side safer,” said United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert on the social media platform X.

The Israeli army said more than 150 rockets, missiles and drones were fired at its territory overnight and early Sunday morning, most of them from Lebanon.

The military said it had launched attacks on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the rocket fire and, according to spokesman Nadav Shoshani, wanted to “prevent a larger-scale attack”.

– Exit Warnings –

The Lebanese Health Ministry said three people were killed in separate Israeli attacks on southern areas, while Hezbollah announced the deaths of two fighters.

Following the rocket attack, the Israeli Civil Defense ordered the closure of all schools in the north of the country.

“It reminds me of October 7, when everyone stayed at home,” Haifa resident Patrice Wolff told AFP, referring to the day the Hamas attack triggered the Gaza war.

Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli arms production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area after communications equipment explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday killed 39 people and injured nearly 3,000.

“As a first response” to the pager and radio explosions, for which it blamed Israel, Hezbollah bombarded “the Rafael military-industrial complexes” in northern Israel with “dozens” of rockets, the group said.

The group reportedly attacked the Ramat David airbase with Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets. The base is one of the deepest in Israeli territory and appears to have been the first use of this type of rocket during the Gaza war.

The U.S. State Department urged Americans living in Lebanon to leave the country, and Jordan on Sunday urged its nationals to do the same.

An Israeli military statement on Saturday said Israeli warplanes had hit “thousands” of ready-to-fire rocket launchers from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah said it had attacked at least seven military positions in northern Israel and the annexed Golan Heights with rockets.

Amin Shoumer, a local official in Saksakiyeh near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, said there had been a “heavy night of Israeli attacks” that had left “the children” and other residents terrified.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged that the attack on the communications device was an “unprecedented” blow. He threatened Israel – which has not commented on the explosions – with retaliation.

– School strike –

In the months-long, almost daily clashes, hundreds of people were killed in Lebanon, mostly fighters, and dozens in Israel and the annexed Golan Heights. Tens of thousands of people on both sides were forced to flee their homes.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu announced an expansion of the country's war aims, which also includes the return of the residents of northern Israel.

International mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying for months to reach a ceasefire and the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip. Diplomats have repeatedly said this would help calm regional tensions.

Critics of Netanyahu in Israel accused him of dragging out the war. Thousands gathered again in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening and demanded a solution for the release of the prisoners still held in Gaza.

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 killed 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to a count by the AFP news agency, which is based on official Israeli figures and includes hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also kidnapped by militants, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.

At least 41,431 people have died in Israel's military retaliation offensive in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area. The UN has recognized the figures as reliable.

At least seven people were killed in an Israeli attack on Sunday on a school used as a shelter by displaced Palestinians, civil defense officials in Gaza City said. It was the latest of numerous such incidents, while the Israeli military said it was aimed at Hamas militants.

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