Israel-Hezbollah hostilities fan fears of widening Gaza war
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
An Israeli police officer checks the impact site of a rocket fired from Lebanon.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
BEIRUT - Israel and Hezbollah traded fresh cross-border fire as fears of a regional conflict grew after Israel revealed it has approved plans for a Lebanon offensive and the Iran-backed militants vowed to blanket their foe in rockets.
Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on June 21 in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon that Israel said killed one of the group’s operatives.
It also claimed several other attacks on Israeli troops and positions over the course of the day.
The Israeli military said its jets struck two weapons storage facilities and several other sites belonging to Hezbollah, and that it fired artillery “to remove threats in multiple areas in southern Lebanon”.
Just before midnight, the army said it “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon”.
It said an air strike eliminated a Hezbollah operative in the Deir Kifa area, saying he was “responsible for planning and carrying out terror attacks against Israel and commanding Hezbollah ground forces” in south Lebanon’s Jouaiyya area.
Elsewhere, Israeli fighter jets struck “a Hezbollah surface-to-air missile launcher that posed a threat to aircraft operating over Lebanon”, the army statement added.
Experts are divided on the prospect of a wider war, almost nine months into Israel’s campaign to eradicate Hezbollah’s ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian militant group’s Oct 7 attack on Israel,
Israel’s main military backer, the United States, has sought to discourage any expansion of hostilities along the border.
In a meeting with visiting Israeli officials in Washington, Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscored “the importance of avoiding further escalation in Lebanon and reaching a diplomatic resolution that allows Israeli and Lebanese families to return to their homes”, according to a statement.
In a televised address on June 19, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that no place in Israel would “be spared our rockets” if a wider war began.
He also threatened nearby Cyprus if it opened its airports or bases to Israel to target Lebanon.
European Union member Cyprus houses two British bases, including an airbase, but they are in sovereign British territory and not controlled by the Cyprus government.
On June 20, Cyprus government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis dismissed as “totally groundless” any suggestion of possible involvement in a conflict related to Lebanon.
The cross-border violence has killed at least 479 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters, but also includes 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
The Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country’s north. AFP
