Hezbollah launched a rocket barrage overnight in response to the Israeli attack – National

Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets early Sunday in northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa, as Israel launched hundreds of rockets into Lebanon. The Hezbollah leader has declared that “open war” is continuing as both sides appear to be getting closer to war.

The overnight rocket attack was in response to an Israeli attack on Lebanon that has killed dozens, including a veteran Hezbollah commander, and an unprecedented attack on the group’s communications equipment. Airstrikes in northern Israel have sent hundreds of thousands of people into shelters.

Another crashed near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a town near Haifa, injuring at least three people and burning buildings and cars. Israeli spokesman Magen David Adom said four people were injured.

Avi Vazana ran to a shelter with his wife and 9-month-old baby before he heard the rocket blast. He then went back outside to check if anyone was hurt.

“I ran with no shoes, no shirt, only panties. I ran to the house while everything was burning trying to find out if there are other people,” he said.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said three people were killed and four wounded in Israeli strikes near the border, without specifying whether they were civilians or combatants.

Hezbollah is responding to unprecedented blows

The rocket attack followed an Israeli airstrike in Beirut that killed at least 45 people, including Ibrahim Akil, one of Hezbollah’s top leaders, other fighters, as well as women and children.

Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies to explode a few days earlier. But it faces the difficult balance of extending the rules of engagement with deep strikes on Israel, while at the same time trying to avoid large-scale attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure that could trigger a full-scale war. take charge.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Kassem, said Sunday’s rocket attack was the start of what is now an “open war” with Israel.

“We admit that we are sad. We are people. But as we are in pain – you will also feel pain,” said Kassem at Akil’s funeral. He vowed that Hezbollah would continue to fight Israel to support Gaza but also warned of surprise attacks “outside the box,” pointing to rockets fired deep into Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will take whatever steps are necessary to restore security in the north and allow people to return to their homes.

Get the latest country news

For news that affects Canada and the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you as they happen.

“No country can accept the shaking of its cities. We will not accept it either,” he said.

Other funerals took place on Sunday for those who died in the airstrike. Seven people, including three women and two children, were buried in the southern Lebanese town of Mays al-Jabal, where Lebanese lawyer Melhem Khalaf said Israel “relies on the laws of the jungle instead of international conventions, especially for the protection of civilians.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “This Week” that the US is “engaged in extensive and robust discussions.” He added: “We want to make sure that we can continue to do everything we can to try to prevent this from becoming an endless war there with Hezbollah across that border in Lebanon.”

Israel says it has foiled an even bigger Hezbollah attack

Israel’s military said it had struck about 400 terrorist sites, including rocket launchers, across Lebanon in the past 24 hours, preventing more attacks.

“Hundreds of thousands of civilians are under heavy attack in northern Israel,” said Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “Today we have seen a fire that has entered Israel more than before.”

The military also claimed to have intercepted several planes shot down over Iraq, after Iran-backed terrorist groups attacked Israel.

School has been canceled in northern Israel, and the Ministry of Health has said that all hospitals in the north will move operations to protected areas in medical facilities.

Separately, Israeli forces raided the West Bank office of Al-Jazeera, which it had blocked earlier this year, on suspicion of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups, allegations denied by the pan-Arab broadcaster.

The UN ambassador says the region is on the brink of disaster

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire since the outbreak of war in Gaza nearly a year ago, when the terrorist group began firing rockets in coordination with the Palestinians and their Iran-backed ally, Hamas. Low-level fighting has killed dozens in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.

Until recently, neither side was believed to want an all-out war, and Hezbollah has so far stopped targeting Tel Aviv or major civilian infrastructure. But in recent weeks, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to Lebanon. Hezbollah has said it will stop its attacks only if the war in Gaza ends, as it appears that the ceasefire there seems to be tense.

The war in Gaza began with an October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, in which Palestinian forces killed around 1,200 people and captured around 250 others. They are still holding around 100 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be dead. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were non-combatants, but it says women and children made up more than half of the dead.

“As the region is on the brink of an imminent crisis, it cannot be escalated enough: no military solution will make any side safe,” said Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, UN envoy to Lebanon, to X.

Families of Israeli hostages and residents of Gaza have expressed fears that the war in Lebanon will divert international attention from their problems.

“I am very concerned about the escalation of the conflict with Hezbollah because, my biggest concern is, all the public attention and the world’s attention” will be distracted, said Udi Goren, a relative of Tal Haimi, an Israeli who was killed on Oct. 7 his body was taken to Gaza.

Enas Kollab, a Palestinian expelled from Gaza, expressed similar fears. “We are afraid that the situation in Lebanon will affect us – that all attention will turn to Lebanon and we will be forgotten,” he said.

Hezbollah says it is using new weapons

Hezbollah said it launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles – a new weapon the group had never used before – at Ramat David Airport, south-east of Haifa, “in response to repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various regions of Lebanon and led to to the end of many ordinary martyrs.”

In July, the group released what it said was a video it had taken from a base with surveillance drones.

Hezbollah also said it targeted the facilities of the Rafael defense firm, headquartered in Haifa, in what it called retaliation for attacks on wireless devices. It did not provide evidence, and the Israeli military declined to comment.

Hezbollah vowed revenge for a wave of explosions that hit the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people – including two children – and injuring around 3,000. The attack was widely blamed on Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

An Israeli airstrike on Friday brought down an eight-story building in a residential area of ​​Beirut as Hezbollah members gathered in the basement, according to Israel. Among those killed was Akil, who was in charge of the special forces unit.