At least three people were killed, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said early Sunday. Hezbollah said at least one of the dead was a fighter from a militant group it is allied with. The Israel Defense Forces said it struck additional Hezbollah targets later Sunday.
Israeli officials said most of the barrage from Hezbollah, which they said numbered more than 150 rockets and drones, was intercepted by air-defense systems. They were still assessing damage from those that made impact but said there were no immediate reports of injuries.
However, the military, saying a major Hezbollah attack was still possible, ordered emergency restrictions on civilian movements and gatherings in northern parts of Israel. Officials briefly halted flight activity at Ben Gurion Airport as a precaution, although flights had resumed by 7 a.m. local time. Haifa, the closest large Israeli population center to the Lebanese border, closed public beaches and said its air raid shelters were ready.
Tensions have mounted for weeks between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group, following last month’s targeted killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, which Hezbollah promised to avenge. Israel said Shukr was instrumental in dozens of cross-border strikes in recent months, including a rocket blast on a soccer field that killed 12 last month in an Israeli Druze village.
Iran, too, has threatened to launch retaliatory attacks against Israel following the brazen assassination in Tehran in July of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was visiting the city for the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Hamas and Iranian officials blamed Israel for the assassination, but Israel declined to comment on the operation.
With all sides on edge, U.S. and regional diplomats have scrambled to head off a wider regional conflict even as they struggle to resuscitate faltering cease-fire talks aimed at ending the fighting in Gaza. Negotiators, including CIA Director William J. Burns, were expected to convene Sunday in Cairo. An Israeli delegation will arrive in Egypt on Sunday, according to an Israeli official.
The Israel Defense Forces said it struck Hezbollah targets on Sunday after obtaining intelligence that the group was poised to act on its threats of retaliation with an attack on targets across northern and central Israel. Among the targets was the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad covert-operations agency at a military base, according to reports in Israeli media. IDF officials would not comment on Hezbollah’s specific targets.
Shortly before 5 a.m., after what it called “relevant conversations” with American and other allied officials, the IDF said it deployed about 100 aircraft to strike Hezbollah sites clustered in 40 areas of southern Lebanon.
“In the past hour, we identified extensive preparation by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to fire toward the Israeli Home Front,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in prerecorded statement posted on X at the time of the strikes. “After extensive identification, the IAF and Northern Command began proactively and broadly striking Hezbollah targets in order to remove the threats aimed at the citizens of Israel.”
A U.S. National Security Council spokesman, Sean Savett, said President Joe Biden is “closely monitoring” events in Israel and Lebanon. “At his direction, senior U.S. officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts,” the NSC statement said.
Both sides signaled a desire to head off an even larger conflict, at least for now. Hezbollah, in a statement, declared its attacks Sunday a “complete success,” claiming a barrage of more than 320 Katyusha rockets fired at 11 military sites had “crossed the Lebanese-Palestinian border toward the desired target.”
The group announced around 9 a.m. local time that it had completed operations targeting Israel “for today.” The attack, apparently Hezbollah’s largest on Israel since the current round of exchanges began in October, was meant as the “first phase” of its retaliation for Shukr’s killing, the group said. It denied Israeli claims Sunday of destroying the bulk of Hezbollah’s readied rockets before they could be launched.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz issued a message Sunday to dozens of foreign ministers, urging them to support Israel amid Hezbollah’s retaliation. He said Israel “launched a preemptive strike to thwart the attack” but stressed that Israel “is not seeking a full-scale war and will act according to developments on the ground.”
At least 126 civilians and noncombatants and almost 400 Hezbollah fighters have been killed by Israeli strikes during the tit-for-tat exchanges in recent months, according to figures compiled by The Washington Post. Hezbollah strikes have killed at least 24 civilians and 19 soldiers in that period, Israeli officials said.
El Chamaa reported from Beirut. Niha Masih in Seoul, Rachel Pannett in Wellington, New Zealnd, and Lior Soroka and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.