Hezbollah has said it hit 11 Israeli military sites, fired more than 320 rockets and sent drones flying into northern Israel on Sunday as part of the “first phase” of its response to Israel’s killing of the movement’s top commander in a strike on Beirut last month. The Iran-backed group had vowed a significant response to the targeted killing of Fuad Shukr, raising fears that months of tit-for-tat strikes could escalate into an all-out war.
Early on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had launched strikes inside Lebanon after assessing that Hezbollah was preparing to fire rockets and missiles towards Israel. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the top Israeli military spokesperson, said 100 warplanes struck more than 40 Hezbollah launch areas, eliminating thousands of rocket launcher barrels aimed for immediate fire towards Israel.
A person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on a car in the town of Khiam in south Lebanon on Sunday morning, while at least four others were reported as injured in separate strikes, a medical source told the Guardian.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, declared a state of emergency for the next 48 hours, a declaration which gives the IDF powers to issue restrictions on civilian movement. The Israeli security met at 7am local time with the full cabinet due to meet on Sunday afternoon.
The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel would take all measures necessary to defend itself and that it would harm “whoever harms us”. He said Israel’s strikes on Sunday are “not the end of the story” in its military campaign against Hezbollah. Foreign minister Israel Katz has said Israel will respond to developments on the ground but does not seek a full-scale war.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels praised attacks by Hezbollah on Israel and renewed threats to launch their own assault in response to Israeli strikes on a port in Yemen last month.
Gallant spoke to his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, about the airstrikes on Lebanon, assuring the defence secretary they were defensive in nature.
US National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said “President Biden is closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon.” “At his direction, senior US officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts,” Savett said. “We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability.”
Hezbollah said it targeted an identified “special military target” as well as Israel’s Iron Dome platforms and other sites but that the full response would take “some time”, Reuters reported. Hezbollah said its attack involved more than 320 Katyusha rockets aimed at multiple sites in Israel and a “large number” of drones.
It later announced the military operation was “completed” for the day. The Lebanese group denied that Israel’s pre-emptive strikes, launched just before its own attack, affected its own operation. “The enemy’s claims about the pre-emptive action it carried out, the targets it struck and its disruption of the resistance’s [Hezbollah’s] attack, are empty,” Hezbollah’s statement read. It added that all drones were launched as scheduled “towards the desired targets”.
Flights to and from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv were temporarily suspended, and Israel’s cabinet was to meet at 7am (4am GMT), Israeli media reported. Air raid sirens were reported throughout northern Israel. Jordan’s flag carrier Royal Jordanian suspended flights to Beirut on Sunday “due to the current situation”, the state news agency reported, without clarifying the exact timeframe for the suspension. Air France cancelled its flights to Tel Aviv and Beirut until Monday at least.
The attacks came as Egypt hosts a new round of talks aimed at ending Israel’s war with Hamas, now in its 11th month. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, warned America’s top general, CQ Brown, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the dangers of a major conflict in Lebanon.
At least 40,405 Palestinian people have been killed and 93,468 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday. In the last 24-hours alone, 71 Palestinians were killed and 112 were injured in what the enclave’s health ministry called three “massacres” by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
