HEZBOLLAH fired at least 185 rockets and other projectiles into Israel today, wounding seven people in the group’s heaviest barrage in several days.
The attack came in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut.
Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on a Lebanese army centre killed one soldier and wounded 18 others on the south-western coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon’s military said.
Israel’s military expressed regret and said the strike occurred in an area of combat against Hezbollah and was under review.
Israeli strikes have killed over 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 efforts to secure a ceasefire, 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 the surprise attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7 2023, as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel began bombing the country, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war as Israel launched waves of air strikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several senior commanders.
This was followed by an Israeli invasion of Lebanon on October 1.
The Israeli military said they succeeded in intercepting some of the projectiles fired on Sunday, without saying how many.
In Haifa, Israel’s third largest city, a rocket hit a residential building that police said was in danger of collapsing.
This came a day after Israel launched air strikes on central Beirut without warning, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to the ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, around 140 have been killed by Hezbollah and around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.
The European Union’s top diplomat Josef Borrell called today for more pressure to be applied to both Israel and Hezbollah to reach a ceasefire deal, saying one was “pending with a final agreement from the Israeli government.”
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 2006 war.
