Hezbollah launches overnight rocket barrage in response to Israeli attacks – National

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Hezbollah launches overnight rocket barrage in response to ******** attacks – National

Hezbollah fired over 100 rockets early Sunday across northern *******, with some landing near the city of Haifa, as ******* launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon. A Hezbollah leader declared an “open-ended battle” was underway as both sides appeared to be spiraling closer toward all-out war.

The overnight rocket barrage was in response to ******** attacks in Lebanon that have ******* dozens, including a veteran Hezbollah commander, and an unprecedented ******* targeting the group’s communications devices. Air raid sirens across northern ******* sent hundreds of thousands of people scrambling into shelters.

One struck near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a city near Haifa, wounding at least three people and setting buildings and cars ablaze. *******’s Magen David Adom rescue service said four people were wounded.

Avi Vazana raced to a shelter with his wife and 9-month-old baby before he heard the rocket hitting. Then he went back outside to see if anyone was hurt.

Story continues below advertisement

“I ran without shoes, without a shirt, only with pants. I ran to this house when everything was still on ***** to try to find if there are other people,” he said.

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

Hezbollah responds to unprecedented blows

More on World
More videos

The rocket attacks followed an ******** airstrike Friday in Beirut that ******* at least 45 people, including Ibrahim Akil, one of Hezbollah’s top leaders, several other fighters, and women and children.

Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated ******* that caused thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies to explode just days earlier. But it faces a difficult balance of stretching the rules of engagement by hitting deeper into *******, while at the same time trying to avoid large-scale attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure that could trigger a full-scale war that it would rather not start and take the blame for.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Kassem said Sunday’s rocket ******* was just the beginning of what’s now an ″open-ended battle” with *******.

“We admit that we are pained. We are humans. But as we are pained — you will also be pained,” Kassem said at Akil’s ********. He vowed Hezbollah will continue military operations against ******* in support of Gaza but also warned of unexpected attacks “from outside the box,” pointing to rockets fired deeper into *******.

Story continues below advertisement

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ******* would take whatever action was necessary to restore security in the north and allow people to return to their homes.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Get breaking National news

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.

“No country can accept the wanton rocketing of its cities. We can’t accept it either,” he said.

Other funerals were held Sunday for those ******* in the airstrike. Seven people, including three women and two children, were ******* in the southern Lebanese town of Mays al-Jabal, where ********** Lebanese lawmaker Melhem Khalaf said ******* “relies on the laws of the jungle instead international conventions, especially with protecting civilians.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “This Week” that the U.S. has been “involved in extensive and quite assertive diplomacy.” He added: “We want to make sure that we can continue to do everything we can to try to prevent this from becoming an all-out war there with Hezbollah across that Lebanese border.”

******* says it thwarted an even larger Hezbollah *******

The ******** military said it struck about 400 militant sites, including rocket launchers, across southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours, thwarting an even larger *******.

“Hundreds of thousands of civilians have come under ***** across a lot of northern *******,” said ******** military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “Today we saw ***** that was deeper into ******* than before.”

Story continues below advertisement

The military also said it intercepted multiple aerial devices fired from the direction of Iraq, after Iran-backed militant groups there claimed to have launched a drone ******* on *******.

School was canceled across northern *******, and the Health Ministry said all hospitals in the north would move operations to protected areas in the medical centers.

Separately, ******** forces raided the West Bank bureau of Al-Jazeera, which it had banned earlier this year, accusing it of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups, allegations denied by the pan-***** broadcaster.

U.N. envoy says the region is on the brink of catastrophe

******* and Hezbollah have traded ***** since the outbreak of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, when the militant group began ******* rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally ******. The low-level fighting has ******* dozens in *******, hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the frontier.

Trending Now

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

FBI agents board vessel managed by company whose other cargo ship collapsed Baltimore bridge

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Hundreds defrauded in door-to-door Ontario scam, Canada-wide warrants issued

Until recently, neither side was believed to be seeking an all-out war, and Hezbollah has so far stopped short of targeting Tel Aviv or major civilian infrastructure. But in recent weeks, ******* has shifted its focus from Gaza to Lebanon. Hezbollah has said it would only halt its attacks if the war in Gaza ends, as a cease-***** there appears increasingly elusive.

The war in Gaza began with ******’ Oct. 7 ******* into *******, in which ************ militants ******* about 1,200 people and took about 250 others ********. They are still holding about 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be *****. Over 41,000 Palestinians have been *******, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It doesn’t say how many were fighters, but says women and children make up more than half of the *****.

Story continues below advertisement

“With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the U.N. envoy for Lebanon, said on X.

Families of ******** hostages and residents of Gaza expressed fears the fighting in Lebanon will divert international attention from their own plights.

“I’m incredibly concerned with the increased tensions with Hezbollah because, my biggest concern is that, all the public’s attention and the world’s attention” would be distracted, said Udi Goren, a relative of Tal Haimi, an ******** who was ******* Oct. 7 and whose body was taken into Gaza.

Enas Kollab, a ************ displaced from Gaza, voiced similar fears. “We are afraid that the situation in Lebanon will affect us — that all attention will turn to Lebanon and we will become forgotten,” she said.

Hezbollah says it’s using new weapons

Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles — a new ******* the group hadn’t used before — at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, “in response to the repeated ******** attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs.”

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

Story continues below advertisement

Hezbollah also said it had targeted facilities of the Rafael defense firm, headquartered in Haifa, calling it retaliation for the wireless devices *******. It didn’t provide evidence, and the ******** military declined to comment.

Hezbollah vowed to retaliate for a wave of explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday, ******** at least 37 people — including two children — and wounding about 3,000. The attacks were widely blamed on *******, which hasn’t confirmed or denied responsibility.

An ******** airstrike Friday took down an eight-story building in a densely populated Beirut suburb as Hezbollah members met in the basement, according to *******. Among those ******* was Akil, who commanded the group’s special forces unit.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Hezbollah #launches #overnight #rocket #barrage #response #******** #attacks #National

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up