Israel and Hezbollah on Sunday threatened to escalate cross-border attacks despite growing international calls for both sides to step back from the brink of all-out war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had dealt “a series of unimaginable blows to Hezbollah” after a night of intense rocket attacks from Lebanon.
Hezbollah was similarly defiant, with the group’s deputy commander, Naim Qassem, saying the fight against Israel was at a “new stage.”
They spoke nearly a year after the outbreak of the Gaza war and after attacks on northern Israel forced hundreds of thousands to seek shelter in bomb shelters and caused damage around the city of Haifa.
“No country can tolerate attacks on its own people,” Netanyahu said. The Gaza conflict, which began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and has also drawn in Iranian-backed groups including Hezbollah, is now nearly a year old.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said military operations would continue “until we reach a stage where we can guarantee that communities in northern Israel can return to their homes in safety.”
“This is our goal, this is our mission, and we will take the steps necessary to achieve it.”
The United States, Israel’s main ally, said Sunday that escalating military tensions were not in Israel’s “best interests.”
“We continue to believe there is time and space for a diplomatic solution,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that Lebanon risks becoming “another Gaza”.
Still, ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York, he added that “it is clear that neither side is interested in a ceasefire” in the Gaza war.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy called for an “immediate ceasefire” following a “worrying escalation of tensions”, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed the call, saying Europe was “deeply concerned”.
Hezbollah rocket attacks reached Kiryat Bialik, a suburb of Haifa, Israel’s largest city in northern Israel, leaving one building on fire, another riddled with debris and a burned vehicle.
“This is not fun, this is war,” said resident Sharon Khakhmishvili.
In a statement on Sunday, Hamas praised Hezbollah’s “tenacity and bravery” in attacking Israel.
Israel has signaled its intention to shift its focus to Iran-backed Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border attacks that began in October in support of Hamas, a Palestinian militant group fighting Israel.
On Friday, Israeli forces struck a Hezbollah stronghold in a densely populated area south of Beirut, killing Ibrahim Akil, commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force. The Lebanese Health Ministry said the strike killed 45 people.
This follows a series of coordinated explosions on communications equipment on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 39 people, injured around 3,000 and were blamed on Israel.
“We have entered a new phase with Israel: open reckoning,” Qassem said at Akil’s funeral in Beirut on Sunday.
“No threat can stop us… We are ready to face all military possibilities.”
Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces are spearheading the ground operation, and Israel has repeatedly called on them to push Hezbollah fighters back from the border.
Janine Hennis-Plusschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, wrote in a post on X that the region was “on the brink of imminent catastrophe.”
“It cannot be emphasized enough that there is no military solution that will make either side safe,” she wrote.
The Israeli army said more than 150 rockets, missiles and drones were fired into Israeli territory late Sunday night and into the early hours of the morning, mostly from Lebanon.
The country said it struck Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in retaliation and to “prevent larger scale attacks.”
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said three people were killed in Israeli military attacks in the south, while Hezbollah said two of its fighters were killed.
Israel’s civil defense agency ordered the closure of all schools in the north after the rocket attacks.
“I remember October 7, when everyone was at home,” Haifa resident Patrice Wolf told AFP.
Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area after the explosion of communications equipment this week.
Hezbollah said it had “bombarded the Rafael Military Industries facility with dozens of rockets” in northern Israel “as an initial response” to the explosion of the pagers and two-way radios.
Hezbollah said it had targeted Ramat David air base with Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets, the most remote base it has targeted so far inside Israel and believed to be the first time Hezbollah has used these types of rockets in the Gaza war.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called the attack on communications equipment “unprecedented” and warned that Israel, which has not commented on the blast, would retaliate.
Months of near-daily fighting have left hundreds of people dead, mostly militants, in Lebanon and dozens more dead in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and forced tens of thousands on both sides to flee their homes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday he would expand the country’s war goals to include the return of northern Israeli residents.
International mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying for months to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and an agreement to release the hostages, which diplomats have repeatedly said would help ease tensions in the region.
Netanyahu’s critics in Israel accuse him of prolonging the war, and thousands of people gathered again in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand a deal to release Gaza hostages.
Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7 left 1,205 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which included hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages held by the militants, 97 remain in Gaza, 33 of whom have died, according to the Israeli military.
Israel’s retaliatory military attacks have killed at least 41,431 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to figures released by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry and deemed credible by the United Nations.
Bath-smw-ami/it/srm/jsa
This article has been generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.