Hezbollah fires about 250 projectiles into Israel after deadly strike in Beirut
JERUSALEM – Hezbollah fired about 250 projectiles into Israel on Sunday, a day after an Israeli strike in the heart of the Lebanese capital killed more than 25 people.
The aerial attack was one of the largest Hezbollah has mounted against Israel since the Lebanese militant group started firing on Israel last year in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also coincided with a flurry of diplomacy aimed at halting the intensifying fighting in Lebanon.
More than 65 people were wounded in the attack Saturday in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. As rescuers searched through the rubble, the death toll rose on Sunday to at least 29 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Three Israeli defense officials said the strike was an attempt to assassinate a top Hezbollah military commander, Mohammad Haidar. One of the Israeli defense officials, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, later said that Haidar was not killed.
On Sunday, waves of air raid sirens blared throughout much of Israel, including in the Tel Aviv area and the hilltop town of Safed. Israel’s military said that around 250 projectiles – a term usually referring to rockets – had been launched as of the evening, and that some were intercepted by air defense systems.
Magen David Adom, an Israeli emergency rescue service, said it had treated at least six people with injuries. It also shared images of cars engulfed by fires in central Israel.
Hezbollah said it had fired several salvos of rockets at Israel on Sunday.
The militant group said that one of the salvos – which it said had targeted a military installation in Tel Aviv around 6:30 a.m. – was in response to Israel’s targeting of Beirut. The Israeli military did not report an attack aimed at Tel Aviv around that time, and The New York Times was not able to independently verify the claim by Hezbollah.
The exchange of fire came as the Israeli military said it struck what it described as militant infrastructure next to a border crossing between Syria and Lebanon. It also ordered the evacuation of five villages in southern Lebanon and for at least a dozen parts of the Dahiya, an area just south of Beirut known as a Hezbollah stronghold.
Late on Sunday, the Israeli military conducted a heavy barrage of airstrikes on the southern outskirts in the Dahiya, with fighter jets racing across the skies above the Lebanese capital and deafening explosions ringing out for miles. In a statement Sunday, the Israeli military said its air force conducted strikes on what it said were Hezbollah “command centers” in the area.
The Lebanese Health Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel’s military has been intensifying operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon apparently in an attempt to put pressure on the militant group to reach a cease-fire deal. As its troops push deeper into southern Lebanon, the Israeli military has been stepping up bombardment of the Dahiya, a cluster of neighborhoods on the southern outskirts of Beirut that are effectively governed by Hezbollah.
The terms for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah appear to be taking shape, according to several regional and U.S. officials briefed on the diplomacy. Despite a degree of cautious optimism, the officials warned that critical details around implementation and enforcement needed to be worked out and that disagreements could still scupper any deal.
Both Israel and Hezbollah have said they will keep fighting as the negotiations continue.
On Sunday, Lebanon’s military accused Israel of targeting one of its centers in the southern part of the country, killing a soldier and wounding 18 others, some seriously. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it has said in the past that it was not operating against the Lebanese military – only Hezbollah.
Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, said the deadly attack was “a direct bloody message of rejection of the efforts to reach a cease-fire.”
Mikati met on Sunday in Beirut with Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, amid negotiations on a cease-fire. Borrell warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse” and told reporters that there was only one way forward: “An immediate cease-fire and a full implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.”
The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1701 in August 2006 as part of a cease-fire that ended Israel’s last war with Lebanon. The resolution sought to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to prevent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, but has failed to keep the peace.
“We must pressure the Israeli government and maintain the pressure on Hezbollah to accept” a proposal for a cease-fire, Borrell said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.