Hezbollah strikes back with rockets and declares an “open war” with Israel

Israeli security and rescue forces work at a site in Kiryat Bialik, Israel, which was hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon on Sunday. Gil Nechushtan/Associated Press

NAHARIYA, Israel — Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into northern Israel early Sunday, some landing near the city of Haifa, while Israel launched hundreds of attacks on Lebanon. A Hezbollah leader said a “pitch-to-pitch battle” was underway as both sides appeared to be moving ever closer to open war.

The overnight rocket fire was in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon that killed dozens of people, including a longtime Hezbollah commander, and an unprecedented attack on the group's communications equipment. Air raid sirens across northern Israel forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee to shelters.

An attack struck near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a town near Haifa. At least three people were injured and buildings and cars were set on fire. The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom reported that four people were injured.

Avi Vazana ran into a shelter with his wife and nine-month-old baby before he heard the rocket hit. Then he went back outside to see if anyone was hurt.

“I ran with no shoes, no shirt, just pants. I ran to that house while everything was still burning to find out if there were other people there,” he said.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said three people were killed and four injured in Israeli attacks near the border. It did not say whether the victims were civilians or combatants.

Hezbollah responds to unprecedented strikes

The rocket attacks followed an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday that killed at least 45 people, including Ibrahim Akil, a top Hezbollah leader, several other fighters, and women and children.

Already reeling from a sophisticated attack that detonated thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies just days earlier, Hezbollah faces the difficult task of stretching the rules of engagement by moving deeper into Israel while trying to avoid large-scale attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure that could spark an all-out war that it would rather not start and take the blame for.

Hezbollah's deputy leader, Naim Kassem, said Sunday's rocket attack was only the beginning of what has now become an “open fight” with Israel.

“We admit that we are suffering. We are human. But as we are suffering, you will also suffer,” Kassem said at Akil's funeral. He vowed that Hezbollah would continue its military operations against Israel in support of Gaza, but also warned of unexpected attacks “from outside,” pointing to rockets being fired deeper into Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take all necessary measures to restore security in the north and allow people to return to their homes.

“No country can tolerate the deliberate construction of rockets in its cities. We cannot accept this either,” he said.

Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told reporters the army was ready to increase pressure on Hezbollah in the coming days, adding: “We have many capabilities that we have not yet activated.”

More funerals for the victims of the airstrike were held on Sunday. Seven people, including three women and two children, were buried in the southern Lebanese town of Mays al-Jabal. Christian Lebanese MP Melhem Khalaf said Israel “relies on the law of the jungle rather than international conventions, especially in protecting civilians.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told ABC's “This Week” that the US was “engaging in intense and very vigorous diplomacy.” He added: “We want to make sure that we can continue to do everything we can to prevent an open war with Hezbollah from breaking out across the Lebanese border.”

Israel claims to have foiled an even larger Hezbollah attack

The Israeli military said it had attacked about 400 militant positions in southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours, including rocket launchers, thwarting an even larger attack.

“Hundreds of thousands of civilians have come under fire in large parts of northern Israel,” said Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “Today we saw that the fire has penetrated deeper into Israel than ever before.”

The military also said it had intercepted several missiles fired from Iraq after Iranian-backed militant groups there claimed they had launched a drone attack on Israel.

Classes were canceled throughout northern Israel and the Health Ministry announced that all hospitals in the north would move their operations to protected areas of medical centers.

Separately, Israeli forces raided the West Bank office of Al-Jazeera, which they banned earlier this year, accusing the channel of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups. The pan-Arab broadcaster denied the allegations.

UN ENVOY SAYS REGION IS ON THE BREAK OF DISASTER

Israel and Hezbollah have been trading blows since the Gaza war began nearly a year ago, when the militant group fired rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its Iranian-backed ally Hamas. The smaller-scale fighting has left dozens of people dead in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon and tens of thousands displaced on both sides of the border.

Until recently, neither side was believed to want a full-scale war, and Hezbollah has not yet attacked Tel Aviv or key civilian infrastructure. But in recent weeks, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to Lebanon. Hezbollah has said it will not stop its attacks until the war in Gaza ends, as a ceasefire there seems increasingly difficult to achieve.

The war in Gaza began with the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. About 100 prisoners are still being held, a third of whom are believed to be dead. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed. It does not say how many fighters there were, but it says more than half of the dead were women and children.

“With the region on the brink of imminent disaster, it cannot be stressed enough: There is NO military solution that would make either side safer,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN envoy for Lebanon, said at X.

Families of Israeli hostages and residents of the Gaza Strip expressed fears that the fighting in Lebanon could divert international attention from their own plight.

“I am incredibly concerned about the increasing tensions with Hezbollah because my biggest concern is that all public attention and the attention of the world could be diverted,” said Udi Goren, a relative of Tal Haimi, an Israeli who was killed on October 7 and whose body was brought to Gaza.

Enas Kollab, a Palestinian displaced from Gaza, expressed similar fears. “We are afraid that the situation in Lebanon will affect us too – that all attention will be focused on Lebanon and we will be forgotten,” she said.

Hezbollah claims it is using new weapons

Hezbollah said it fired dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 rockets – a new weapon the group had not previously used – at the Ramat David air base southeast of Haifa “in response to repeated Israeli attacks on various Lebanese regions that resulted in many civilian martyrs.”

In July, the group reportedly released a video taken from the base using surveillance drones.

Hezbollah also said it attacked facilities of Haifa-based defense company Rafael, calling it retaliation for the wireless attack. No evidence was provided and the Israeli military declined to comment.

Hezbollah vowed retaliation for a wave of explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday. At least 37 people – including two children – were killed and about 3,000 injured. Blame for the attacks was widely placed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Moshe Edri in Kiryat Bialik, Israel; Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; and Shlomo Mor in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed.

Copy the story link