Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that “this is not the end of the story” after his nation launched airstrikes in Lebanon on Sunday in a preemptive strike against Hezbollah.
The Lebanese militant group in turn launched more than 320 missiles and waves of kamikaze drones against Israeli military targets in what constituted the the biggest exchange of fire between the two sides since a new conflict erupted following the Hamas attacks on October 7.
One Israeli navy soldier was killed in combat and two others were wounded, the army said, while at least three people were said to have died in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire almost daily with Israeli forces during the Gaza war, in what Hezbollah says is support for its Palestinian ally Hamas.
But fears of a wider regional conflagration rose after late July strikes blamed on Israel killed Iran-aligned militant leaders including Hamas’ political chief and a senior Hezbollah commander.
Diplomats said yesterday that both sides had sent messages to signal that this round of hostilities had ended.
But Netanyahu last night He told his cabinet that the strikes were “not the last word” in the campaign against Hezbollah, as Israel continues to prepare for a possible attack by Iran in retaliation for the killing of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.
This photograph taken from a position in northern Israel shows a Hezbollah UAV intercepted by the Israeli Air Force over northern Israel on August 25, 2024.
Israel’s air defense system intercepted hundreds of Hezbollah drones and missiles
The Israeli military said yesterday that Israeli Air Force fighter jets (left) carried out strikes against targets belonging to the Hezbollah organization (Hezbollah drone on the right).
A view shows smoke and fire on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel.
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike hit the town of Zibqin in southern Lebanon on August 25.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (second from right) are pictured at a military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, August 25, 2024.
Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah delivers a televised speech from an undisclosed location, August 25.
Hezbollah said its militants launched “a large number of drones” and “more than 320” Katyusha rockets at “enemy positions” across the border in a major air assault yesterday.
The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, named as a “primary target” the Glilot military intelligence base near Tel Aviv, which Israeli media say houses the headquarters of the Mossad spy agency.
The Israeli military said there were “no hits” at the base.
A secondary target, Nasrallah said, was Ein Shemer, a military airport used by Israeli drones.
He also appeared to suggest that Hezbollah’s retaliation for Shukr’s killing was over, saying that “if the result is satisfactory” then its response “has been fulfilled.”
An AFP photographer in Acre, an Israeli city 20 kilometres from the border, reported damage to three houses when a Hezbollah rocket hit a roof and shrapnel shattered windows and destroyed a bed.
“There were explosions in the Haifa area,” said Abigail Levy, a resident of the southern coastal city. “I was detained and told not to go to the beach.”
Early Sunday morning footage showed dozens of interceptor rockets being fired into thick clouds over the Upper Galilee in northern Israel.
Another military spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, said the Hezbollah strikes were “part of a larger attack that was planned and we were able to thwart much of it this morning.”
The fighting has disrupted air travel in Israel and Lebanon, with both British Airways and Air France suspending flights to Tel Aviv.
A U.S. defense official said Washington had helped track the Hezbollah attack although it was not involved in downing any drones or rockets or in the strikes on Lebanon.
Tracking website Flightradar24 showed on Sunday afternoon that a US Navy surveillance drone had been flying over nearby Mediterranean waters.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, one of several Iran-backed groups that have been drawn to the periphery of the Gaza war, praised Hezbollah’s attack and said their own retaliation was “definitely coming.”
Hamas, meanwhile, hailed Sunday’s Hezbollah attack as “a slap in the face” to Israel, and the Palestinian movement said Sunday night it had fired a rocket toward Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military said the plane landed in an “open area” south of the city.
An Israeli fighter jet fires flares over an area near the Lebanese-Israeli border, as seen from northern Israel, August 25, 2024.
Smoke rises from the town of Khiam in southern Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen in Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, on August 25, 2024.
The sister of Petty Officer 1st Class David Moshe Ben Shitrit, who was killed in a Hezbollah attack, cries during his funeral at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024.
People look at damage to a residential building following a direct hit by a projectile, after Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones towards Israel in what the Iran-backed movement said was a response to the killing of a senior commander in Beirut last month, northern Israel August 25, 2024
Britain and Jordan were among those calling on Sunday for an end to the escalation and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also called on the UN Security Council to take “deterrent” and “effective” measures against Netanyahu and his ministers who “kill all chances of achieving peace.”
Iran is not seeking to escalate tensions in the Middle East, its Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani.
But the Iranian diplomat added that his nation’s retaliation for the killing of the Hamas chief in Tehran will be “defined and calculated.”
Amid rising regional tensions, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Middle East.
Ahead of Sunday’s high-profile exchange, Western and Arab diplomats had sought to avoid regional retaliation by stressing the urgency of reaching a ceasefire deal and releasing hostages in Gaza.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose officials have been mediating Gaza truce talks for months alongside the United States and Qatar, “warned of the dangers of opening a new front in Lebanon” and called for progress in the talks to allow a “path to calm and stability in the region,” his office said.
A Hamas official said on Sunday that the group’s delegation had left the Egyptian capital after meeting with mediators.
In Gaza, witnesses said fighting broke out in the Deir al-Balah area in the central region of the territory.
Hamas’s October 7 attack in southern Israel killed 1,199 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,405 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry, which does not break down civilian and militant deaths. The U.N. human rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
Of the 251 hostages taken by Palestinian militants in their attack, 105 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.