LONDON– Sunday began with a new Hezbollah barrage on northern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, continuing their own campaign of cross-border attacks following spectacular attacks with numerous casualties across Lebanon the previous week.
The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah fired 115 rockets at Israel on Sunday, firing them over a 45-minute period. Hezbollah said the shelling was “an initial response” to Israeli pager and walkie-talkie attacks in Lebanon last week.
In a statement, the group said it had attacked facilities of a defense company and the Ramat David military base. When asked about the status of both sites, an IDF spokesman declined to comment.
According to the Magen David Adom rescue service, at least four people in northern Israel had to be treated for shrapnel injuries, and several others for minor and moderate injuries they sustained while fleeing to emergency shelters.
The Israeli military said it would respond by attacking “Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon”; by Saturday, 400 targets had already been bombed.
Israel Defense Forces international spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in a Sunday morning briefing that there had been “heavy rocket fire by Hezbollah” in several northern regions. Several missiles had hit areas such as Kiryat Bialik, Zur Shalom and Moreshet, all near the northern city of Haifa and about 32 kilometers from the Lebanese border.
An excavator removes a charred car at the scene of an attack by Lebanon’s Hezbollah in Kiryat Bialik, in Israel’s Haifa district, on September 22, 2024. Hezbollah said on September 22 that it had attacked military production facilities and an air base near Haifa in northern Israel, after the Israeli military bombed southern Lebanon and targeted thousands of rocket launcher barrels.
Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
“This is an intolerable situation and Israel is determined to take action to change this reality,” Shoshani said.
Cross-border shelling has been almost continuous since October 8, when Hezbollah began its attacks in protest against Israel’s recent offensive in the Gaza Strip, which followed Hamas’s operation on October 7.
Hezbollah, which controls southern Lebanon and is backed by Iran, has announced that it will continue its attacks until Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza.
Tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border are steadily increasing as the war drags on and ceasefire negotiations fail.
Israeli politicians have long called on Hezbollah to withdraw its troops north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, in accordance with a 2006 UN Security Council resolution designed to end the last major clash between the two sides.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have fled their homes in the border region since October 8 due to the threat of Hezbollah attacks. Their safe return is a central war goal for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.
The simmering conflict entered “a new phase” last week, as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put it, after Israel conducted a covert operation to detonate communications equipment belonging to Hezbollah members.
Explosions have occurred in Beirut and Hezbollah’s southern heartland for two days in a row, killing at least 37 people and injuring 2,931, according to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad. At least one explosion was also reported in Syria.
Hezbollah suffered another serious security breach on Friday when an Israeli airstrike in a densely populated suburb of Beirut killed its operations chief Ibrahim Aqil and 14 other members.
An Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept rockets fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on September 22, 2024.
Baz Ratner/AP
The attack devastated parts of the Dahiya region – known as a Hezbollah stronghold – and killed at least 45 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Among the dead were at least three children – aged 4, 6 and 10 – and seven women, the ministry said. Dozens of other people were injured.
Last week’s escalation has brought the region to the brink of a deepened and expanded conflict. Shoshani said on Sunday that three airstrikes approached Israel from the east overnight, two of which came from Iraq and were intercepted. Iraqi militant groups allied with Tehran have claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israel since October 7.
The Israeli military issued new security guidelines for the north of the country on Sunday, banning educational activities, limiting the size of gatherings and closing beaches.
The Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa said in a statement that all patients from the wards would be moved to a “protected underground hospital.”
Meanwhile, the US State Department has renewed its Level 4 travel warning for Lebanon, also pointing to the threats posed by the “recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut.”
The Department’s prevailing advice to American citizens in the country – to “leave Lebanon while commercial options remain” – has remained unchanged since the last recommendation in July.
“Commercial flights are currently available, but with reduced capacity. If the security situation deteriorates, commercial departure options may no longer be available,” the warning said.
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert warned in a statement published on X on Sunday: “Given that the region is on the brink of imminent disaster, it cannot be stressed enough: there is NO military solution that would make either side safer.”
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli attack that targeted the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Zibqin on September 22, 2024. The Israeli army said more than 100 projectiles were fired from Lebanon on September 22 and that it had launched new attacks on the group’s targets in southern Lebanon in response to Hezbollah fire.
Kawnat Haju/AFP via Getty Images
ABC News’ Jordana Miller, Dana Savir, Shannon Kingston, Ghazi Balkiz and Victoria Beaule contributed to this report.
