HEZBOLLAH fired more than 100 rockets into northern Israel early today, with some landing near the city of Haifa, as Israel carried out hundreds of strikes on Lebanon and an all-out war appeared increasingly likely.
Air-raid sirens sounded across northern Israel, sending hundreds of thousands of people scrambling into shelters.
One rocket struck near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a town near Haifa, wounding at least three people and setting buildings and cars on fire.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said four people had been wounded by shrapnel from the bombardment.
The overnight rocket barrage came in response to Israeli strikes on Lebanon that have killed dozens of people, including veteran Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil, and an unprecedented attack on the group’s communications devices that claimed the lives of at least 37 and wounded about 3,000 people.
Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon killed three people and wounded four in areas near the border, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, without specifying whether they were civilians or combatants.
At Mr Akil’s funeral, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Kassem warned that more residents of northern Israel face displacement.
“We admit that we are pained. We are humans. But as we are pained, you will also be pained,” he said, adding that today’s rocket fire was only the beginning and vowing to destroy Israel’s economy.
The barrage came after an Israeli air strike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 45 people, including women and children as well as Mr Akil and several other Hezbollah fighters.
The Israeli military said it had carried out strikes across southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours, hitting about 400 militant targets, including rocket launchers.
“Today we saw fire that was deeper into Israel than before,” admitted spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, though he claimed that the strikes on Lebanon had thwarted an even larger attack.
The military also said it had intercepted multiple attack drones coming from Iraq after Iran-backed militant groups there said they had launched them towards Israel.
Though Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire since the outbreak of the onslaught on Gaza nearly a year ago, Hezbollah has until now stopped short of targeting Tel Aviv or major civilian infrastructure.
United Nations envoy for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called on all parties to pull back.
“With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is no military solution that will make either side safer,” she posted on Twitter.
