BEIRUT: After experiencing some of the most intense bombing in over a year of conflict, Hezbollah launched rockets deep into northern Israeli territory. Israel and Hezbollah continued to exchange heavy fire into Sunday.
At the wake of one of the group’s commanders who was killed in Beirut last week, Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem declared, “We have entered a new phase, the title of which is the open-ended battle of reckoning.”
Hezbollah has pledged to fight until a ceasefire in the simultaneous Gaza war, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that operations would continue until it was safe for evacuated residents on his side of the border to return. This announcement also laid the foundation for a protracted struggle.
The battle has raged since Iran-backed Hezbollah created a second front against Israel, claiming it was fighting in sympathy with Palestinians facing an Israeli attack further south in Gaza. The conflict has significantly intensified over the past week.
Hezbollah fighters utilized thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies, which detonated on Tuesday and Wednesday. The attack was largely attributed to Israel, which has neither acknowledged nor disputed responsibility for it.
Israel began its most intense assault of Lebanon the following day. Ibrahim Aqil, the creator of the elite Radwan forces and a senior leader of Hezbollah, was among numerous military personnel killed in an attack on a southern neighborhood of Beirut on Friday.
The Israeli military claimed that the extraordinary bombardment on Saturday struck about 290 sites.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu stated in a video message on Sunday, “We have inflicted a series of blows on Hezbollah that it never imagined in recent days.”
“I guarantee that Hezbollah will comprehend the message even if it has not yet done so.”
Schools close as sirens sound.
Speaking on Sunday afternoon at Aqil’s funeral in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Qassem of Hezbollah stated that Israel was trying to cripple the group but would fail in doing so.
Israel’s escalation of the conflict, according to Qassem, will result in more of its own residents being displaced.
Israel has ordered hospitals to relocate patients and personnel to safe sites; many of these areas are underground or fortified facilities built to withstand rocket fire. It has also closed schools and limited gatherings in the north.
Sunday was a nonstop Sunday in Israel for air raid sirens. Overnight and into Sunday, Israel was targeted by some 150 rockets, cruise missiles, and drones; the majority of them were intercepted by air defenses, one of which was a “aerial target” that originated in the east, according to the military.
Numerous structures were hit, including a severely damaged home close to the Israeli city of Haifa. Rescue crews attended to injured people, but no fatalities were reported. It had been advised for residents to avoid areas near safe rooms and bomb shelters.
In a “initial response” to the device strikes last week, Hezbollah claimed to have launched rockets against military-industrial installations and struck a barracks and another Israeli site with squadrons of attack drones on Sunday.
As part of “a new phase in our support front” with Lebanon, an official with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an alliance of armed groups supported by Iran, said that they launched cruise missile and explosive drone attacks on Israel at daybreak on Sunday.
“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,” declared Jeanine Hennis-Plasscharet, the UN special coordinator in Lebanon, in a post on X.
In the meantime, regional military escalation is not in Israel’s “best interest,” according to White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby, who made this statement on Sunday.
Kirby stated on ABC’s “This Week” that “we don’t believe that escalating this military conflict is in their best interest” and that the US was “saying this directly to our Israeli counterparts.”
He declared, “The tensions have increased significantly from even a few days ago.”
However, Kirby went on, “We continue to think that there is time and space for a diplomatic solution here, and that’s what we’re working on.”
