Israel stepped up air strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and told civilians in the south to leave areas near where the group operates, as hostilities between the two sides intensified.
Israel targeted several towns on Monday including Tyre and Bint Jbeil in the south, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported, while the northern Jbeil reported its first missile hit — some 170 kilometers (106 miles) from the border. The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least one person was killed and six were injured in an air strike on the eastern town of Hermel.
In northern Israel, hundreds of thousands of people rushed to bomb shelters after 150 projectiles were fired. Hezbollah has access to a new type of rocket that can reach as far as 100 kilometers and carry 170 kilograms of explosives in its warhead, the group said on its Telegram channel over the weekend.
Israel is looking to destroy Hezbollah’s launchers, missiles and rockets to degrade the Iran-backed group’s military capabilities and is focusing on an aerial campaign for now, an Israeli military official said, indicating a ground invasion isn’t imminent. The person asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information.
The two sides have been exchanging cross-border rocket fire almost daily since Israel’s war with Hamas erupted last October, but the conflict has stepped up a level in the past week. The US is urging restraint and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has spoken to Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant several times in recent days, stressing “the importance of achieving a diplomatic solution,” the Pentagon said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he shares that objective, but such efforts have failed to stop Hezbollah’s attacks. His cabinet has made the return of tens of thousands of displaced civilians a primary war objective, while Gallant has indicated a shift of focus north from the battlegrounds of Gaza.
Netanyahu is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly at its summit in New York this week, though his travel itinerary hasn’t yet been published.
The escalation in fighting, which until last week remained within the so-called rules of engagement, came after Hezbollah and Lebanon blamed Israel for blowing up thousands of pagers and walkie talkies, mostly used by members of the group, in a two-day operation in Lebanon that killed at least 39 people, including civilians and children, and injured thousands.
Israel’s Increasingly Focused On the Threat of Hezbollah
Hezbollah said the attack was a major blow to its security and vowed to respond.
On Friday, Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in an air strike on a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the group has a strong presence. The bombing killed many other fighters and senior individuals who local media said were in a meeting. The death toll from the air strike rose to 52 and Civil Defense teams are still searching for survivors, according to health officials.
Civilians in the south of Lebanon should “immediately move out of harm’s way,” a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Daniel Hagari, said in a briefing on Monday. Residents of some villages reported they received phone calls urging them to leave their homes.
Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziyad Makari received a similar call to evacuate the building he was in.
Hagari said it’s possible Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar has been wounded or killed in air strikes on Gaza, after local media reported he has recently been incommunicado.
“Regarding what has surfaced over the last day about Sinwar, I do not rule it out nor do I confirm it,” he said.
The Israeli government says Sinwar masterminded the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza. Last month, he was promoted to succeed the group’s political head, Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran, and is now the point-man for long-running truce talks mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt.
Hezbollah started firing on Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with Hamas. Both groups are backed by Iran and designated as terrorist organizations by the US.