Hezbollah, Israel exchange heavy fire after deadly Israeli strike
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Smoke rises from Jabal al-Rihan, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on Sept 21.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BEIRUT/CAIRO - Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire into Sept 22, with Israeli 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 Israel’s north.
The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets on Sept 21, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels, and said it would continue to strike targets of the Iran-backed movement.
Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many northern areas of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early on Sept 22.
There were no government directives from Lebanon on the morning of Sept 22.
The conflict – sharply escalated over the past week – has been waged since Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel, after Israel went to war with Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, triggered by the Hamas-led rampage in southern Israel on Oct 7
Sirens sounded all night as multiple rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by Israeli aerial defence systems, the military said.
Several buildings were struck, including a house badly damaged near the Israeli city of Haifa. Rescue teams treated the wounded, but there were no reports of fatalities, as residents had been instructed to stay near bomb shelters and safe rooms.
Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli Ramat David Airbase with successive barrages of missiles, in the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began.
An official of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a grouping of Iran-backed armed factions, said they launched cruise missile and explosive drone attacks on Israel at dawn on Sept 22 as part of “a new phase in our support front” with Lebanon.
“Escalation in Lebanon means escalation from Iraq,” the official said.
The move will stoke fears that the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon could spiral into the rest of the region.
The UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Ms Jeanine Hennis-Plasscharet, said in a post on X that “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.”
Escalating attacks
Emergency personnel work at a site of houses damaged following a rocket attack from Lebanon on Sept 22.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The escalating attacks come less than 48 hours after an Israeli air strike targeting Hezbollah commanders in a suburb of the Lebanese capital. The death toll from that strike rose to 45, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Sept 22.
Hezbollah said 16 members, including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and commander Ahmed Wahbi, were among those killed on Sept 20 in the deadliest strike
Israel’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 attack levelled a multi-storey residential building in the crowded suburb and damaged a nursery next door, a security source said. Three children and seven women were among those killed, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Sept 20’s strike sharply escalated the conflict and inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded
The death toll in those attacks, widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, has risen to 39, with more than 3,000 injured. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
In what it said was the initial retaliation for the attacks with the exploding devices, Hezbollah on Sept 22 posted on its Telegram channel that it had launched rockets at Israeli military-industry facilities.
Israel quickly responded, striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the military said in a statement.
New phase
Hezbollah has said it would keep fighting Israel until it agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
US officials said that is unlikely anytime soon. Israel wants Hezbollah to cease fire and withdraw forces from the border region, adhering to a UN resolution signed with Israel in 2006, irrespective of any Gaza deal.
In southern Lebanon on Sept 21, people described huge explosions that lit up the night sky and shook the ground as Israel carried out its latest strikes.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said recently that Israel 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 Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza.
With at least 84 people killed in Lebanon over the past week, the conflict toll in the country since October has surpassed 750 during the worst Israel-Hezbollah flare-up since a 2006 war. REUTERS
