Hezbollah, Israel exchange heavy fire after deadly Israeli strike

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Hezbollah, ******* exchange heavy ***** after deadly ******** strike

Smoke rises after an ******** airstrike hit the Tyre, in southern Lebanon on September 19, 2024. 

Anadolu | Getty Images

******* and Lebanon exchanged heavy ***** into Sunday, with ******** warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost a year of war across Lebanon’s south, while Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in *******’s north.

The ******** military said it struck around 290 targets on Saturday including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels and said it would continue to strike targets of the Iran-backed movement.

******* closed schools and restricted gatherings in many northern areas of the country and the ********-occupied Golan Heights early on Sunday.

Sirens sounded all night as multiple rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by ******** aerial defense systems, the military said.

******** media reported that a number of buildings were hit directly or by falling missile debris, and ambulance services said they treated some lightly injured people. No serious casualties were reported.

Hezbollah said it targeted the ******** Ramat David Airbase with dozens of missiles in response to “repeated ******** attacks on Lebanon”, the group posted on its Telegram channel early on Sunday.

The successive barrages of rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah at Ramat David are the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began.

Iran-backed Iraqi militants in a statement also claimed an explosive drone ******* on ******* early on Sunday.

Escalating attacks

The escalating attacks come less than 48 hours after an ******** airstrike targeting Hezbollah commanders ******* at least 37 people in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, according to authorities.

Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed group, said 16 members including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among those ******* on Friday in the deadliest strike in nearly a year of conflict with *******.

*******’s army said it hit an underground gathering of Aqil and leaders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, and had almost completely dismantled its military chain of command.

The ******* levelled a multi-story residential building in the crowded suburb and damaged a nursery next door, a security source said. Three children and seven women were among those *******, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Friday’s strike sharply escalated the conflict and inflicted another ***** on Hezbollah after two days of attacks in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.

The ****** toll in those attacks, widely believed to have been carried out by *******, has risen to 39 with more than 3,000 injured. ******* has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

In what it said was the initial retaliation for the attacks with the exploding devices, Hezbollah on Sunday posted on its Telegram channel that it had launched rockets at ******** military-industry facilities.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he was worried about escalation but that the ******** ******** of a top Hezbollah leader brought justice to the group, which Washington designates terrorists.

“While the risk of escalation is real, we actually believe there is also a distinct avenue to getting to a cessation of hostilities and a durable solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel secure,” Sullivan told reporters.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati cancelled a planned trip to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

******* braces for retaliation

Hezbollah has said it would keep fighting ******* until it agrees to a ceasefire in its war against ****** in the ************ enclave of Gaza – triggered by a ******-led rampage in southern ******* on Oct. 7.

U.S. officials say that is unlikely anytime soon. ******* wants Hezbollah to cease ***** and withdraw forces from the border region, adhering to a U.N. resolution signed with ******* in 2006, irrespective of any Gaza deal.

Anticipating retaliation, the ******** military restricted gatherings and raised the alert level for residents of northern communities. The alert went as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, signalling ******* thought Hezbollah could strike deeper than it had since the war with ****** began.

In southern Lebanon on Saturday, people described huge explosions that lit up the night sky and shook the ground as ******* carried out its latest strikes.

******** Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said last week ******* was launching a new phase of war on the northern border, posted on X: “The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.”

Tens of thousands of people have left their homes on both sides of the *******-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began ******* rockets at ******* in October in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza.

A communique from a U.S. summit hosted by President Joe Biden with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia stressed the need to prevent the Gaza war “from escalating and spilling over in the region” but did not specifically mention the *******-Hezbollah conflict.

With at least 70 people ******* in Lebanon over the past week, the conflict toll in the country since October has surpassed 740 during the worst *******-Hezbollah flare-up since a 2006 war.

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