Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel on Sunday, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut while negotiators pressed on with ceasefire efforts to halt the all-out war.
Some of the rockets reached the Tel Aviv area in the heart of Israel.
Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on an army centre killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded 18 others in the southwest between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon’s military said. The Israeli military expressed regret, saying the strike occurred in an area of combat against Hezbollah and that the military’s operations are directed solely against the militants.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 40 Lebanese troops since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, even as Lebanon’s military has largely kept to the sidelines.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the latest strike as an assault on U.S.-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.
Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes at Hezbollah, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several top commanders.
The Israeli military said some of the roughly 250 projectiles fired on Sunday were intercepted.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated seven people, including a 60-year old man in severe condition from rocket fire on northern Israel, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast in the central city of Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, and a 70-year-old woman who suffered smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire there. In Haifa, a rocket hit a residential building that police said was in danger of collapsing.
The Palestine Red Crescent reported 13 injuries it said were caused by an interceptor missile that struck several homes in Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank. It was unclear whether the injuries and damage elsewhere were caused by rockets or interceptors.
Sirens wailed again in central and northern Israel hours later.
Israeli airstrikes pounded central Beirut without warning on Saturday, killing at least 29 people and wounding 67, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Smoke billowed above Beirut again on Sunday with new strikes. Israel’s military said it targeted Hezbollah command centres in the southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, where the militants have a strong presence.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,700 people in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardment in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. About 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.
EU envoy calls for pressure to reach a truce
The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region last week.
The European Union’s top diplomat called Sunday for more pressure on Israel and Hezbollah to reach a deal, saying one was “pending with a final agreement from the Israeli government.”
Josep Borrell spoke after meeting with Mikati and Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has been mediating with the group.
Borrell said the EU is ready to allocate 200 million euros ($292 million Cdn) to assist the Lebanese military, which would deploy additional forces to the south.
The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the United Nations Security Council resolution that ended the month-long 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol with the presence of UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s army reflects the country’s religious diversity and is respected as a national institution, but it does not have the military capability to impose its will on Hezbollah or resist Israel’s invasion.
