Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday to attack Hezbollah without mercy, a day after the Iran-backed group’s deadliest attack on Israel since the war began in late September.
A Hezbollah drone strike on an Israeli base on Sunday killed four soldiers and wounded 60 others, according to Israeli volunteer rescue service United Hatzalah.
“We will continue to mercilessly attack Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon, including Beirut,” Netanyahu said while visiting the base near Binyamina, south of Haifa.
Hezbollah said it launched a “squadron of attack drones” in response to Israeli attacks, including an attack last week that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
Since Israel stepped up its bombings against targets in Lebanon on September 23, at least 1,315 people have been killed in the war, according to an AFP tabulation of Lebanese health ministry figures, although the actual toll is likely higher.
Netanyahu’s comments came days before several new airstrikes had already hit targets around Lebanon, including a northern Christian-majority village that killed at least 21 people, according to the Health Ministry.
Yousef, the manager of a restaurant near the Binyamina base, told AFP he heard “a big bang” before several ambulances arrived.
Hezbollah said around noon on Monday it had launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa, before another “major rocket attack” in the evening on the northern Israeli city of Safed.
It said its fighters were also “involved in violent clashes” in the Lebanese border village of Aita al-Shaab and fighting elsewhere.
The army said airstrike sirens sounded across central Israel in the evening, including over the commercial center of Tel Aviv, before it reported intercepting two drones coming from Syria.
‘Never ending’ attacks
After nearly a year of tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli forces along the Lebanese border, Israel stepped up its attacks against targets in Lebanon late last month before sending ground troops across the border.
Israel wants to push back Hezbollah to secure its northern border and allow thousands of people displaced by rocket attacks last year to return home safely.
Hezbollah says its attacks are in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7 last year, starting the ongoing Gaza war with Israel.
The International Organization for Migration said last week it had verified 690,000 displaced people in Lebanon.
Monday’s deadly Israeli airstrike on the village of Aito in northern Lebanon, which is located far from the main war zone and in a mostly Christian area, was a break from the usual pattern.
Israel has concentrated its firepower mostly on Shia Muslim-dominated areas in the south and Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut’s suburbs.
An AFP photographer in Aito said the missile destroyed a residential building. Body parts were scattered in the debris.
Anis Abla, civil defense chief in the southern border town of Marjayoun, told AFP that his rescue teams were exhausted.
“Our rescue operation is becoming increasingly difficult as the attacks never end and target us,” he said.
Lebanon’s health ministry condemned Israel’s “continued targeting of medical, relief and paramedics teams”.
Israel has also faced criticism over injuries and damage to the UN peacekeeping force, which has been deployed in Lebanon since 1978.
Five peacekeepers were injured in a series of incidents last week, with the UN force on Sunday accusing Israeli troops of breaking down a gate with two tanks and entering one of their positions.
The Israeli military said that a tank “drove several meters into a UNIFIL post” during the “fire” and while attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers.
anti missile defense
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, which has troops in the UNIFIL mission, told Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a phone call on Monday that UNIFIL “has a clear mandate from the Security Council, and it needs to carry out its operations unhindered.” Permission should be granted,” Harris’ office said.
Hamas’ attacks on Israel last year triggered the war in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
This number also includes hostages who died in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed 42,289 people in the Hamas-run territory, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
The war there and in Lebanon shows no signs of abating, leading to fears of a broader regional conflict as Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas, has engaged in diplomatic efforts with allies and other powers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement in Oman, the latest stop on a regional diplomatic tour.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned of “a regional war that will be costly for everyone” during a meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday.
Just before the attack on an Israeli military base on Sunday, the Pentagon had said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system called THAAD to Israel to further strengthen its ally’s defenses against a possible Iranian attack.
Israel is still considering its response to the October 1 missile attack by Iran, the latest of two against Israel this year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
