The Israeli military said it struck more than 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon within a 60-minute period as part of widespread attacks on Monday.
“The IAF (Air Force) launched a massive air operation and struck more than 120 terrorist hideouts in southern Lebanon within an hour,” the army said in a statement.
Israel escalated its battle with Lebanon’s Hezbollah on multiple fronts on Monday, as Hamas warned of a long war on the first anniversary of the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said both wars would ensure that the violence that struck his country last October 7 could never be repeated.
Israel’s military said air defenses also intercepted a missile fired from Yemen.
Tehran, which arms and funds Hezbollah and supports Yemeni rebels, praised Hamas’ October 7 attack as Iran waits for what would be retaliation for an Iranian missile attack on Israel last week.
Pope Francis condemned the “shameful inability” of world powers to end the conflict in the Middle East, which EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said “is on the brink of a full-blown conflict that the international community is unable to control.” Looks incapable”.
Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said, “The movement has chosen to continue fighting in a long war of attrition, which is painful and costly for the enemy”.
He also said that many of the people taken hostage in Gaza last October 7 were facing a “very difficult” situation.
thousands of militants killed
A senior Hamas official acknowledged that “several thousand fighters from the movement and other resistance groups were killed in the battle”.
When the Gaza war began, Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hamas, but troops found themselves returning to areas again in the face of signs the movement was trying to rebuild.
“We are changing the security reality in our region; for the sake of our children, for the sake of our future, to ensure that what happened on October 7 will never happen again. Never again,” Netanyahu said in a cabinet address. ” ,
“Never again” is a phrase associated with efforts to ensure that the genocide and other genocides do not happen again.
Netanyahu has also vowed to bring home the hostages still held in Gaza, but critics in Israel have accused him of hindering international efforts for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal.
Late last month Israel turned its attention north toward Hezbollah, stepping up airstrikes in Lebanon and carrying out “targeted” ground attacks since last week.
Netanyahu says its aim is to ensure that thousands of Israelis forced to flee Hezbollah’s fire can return home safely.
On Monday the army said it would expand its operation against Hezbollah to the Lebanese coast south of the al-Awali River, and warned people to stay away from the coast in the area.
It said Hezbollah had fired about 135 shells into Israel on Monday, while Israeli forces retaliated “by striking more than 120 terrorist targets in southern Lebanon within an hour.”
more soldiers deployed
Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli troops in two border villages in south Lebanon, including Maroun al-Ras, where it has reported previous clashes, as the army said it had deployed another division for cross-border operations. Have deployed.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said the first 10 firefighters died in the bombing.
Israel’s military said at least four shells were fired from Gaza shortly after the commemorations began on 7 October, and it retaliated against “terrorist infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip”.
Hamas said it fired rockets near the Gaza border and at Tel Aviv, while Hezbollah twice said it fired rockets at areas north of the major coastal city of Haifa.
As its troops were fighting what Israel calls a war of survival, vigils and rallies at the sites of the massacre called for the return of the hostages a year after the abduction.
The October 7 attack killed 1,206 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Families of the dead wept in Reim, a kibbutz community where Hamas fighters killed at least 370 people at the Nova music concert venue, the deadliest attack of the day.
President Isaac Herzog held a moment of silence at 6:29 a.m. – the moment the attack began.
Mourners also gathered in Israel’s commercial center Tel Aviv amid sounds of war after Hamas fired rockets.
“It still feels surreal, like a nightmare that we still have to wake up from,” said resident Ariel Tamir.
In Jerusalem, Shir Seagal said the wait for her captive father’s return from captivity has been excruciating.
He said, “A year has passed but a really long day has passed that feels like an eternity.”
As early as October 7, 2023, the Hamas attack began with thousands of rockets fired at Israeli border communities.
At the same time militants stormed Gaza’s fortified border and attacked about 50 different sites, including kibbutzim communities and army bases as well as concerts.
The terrorists went door to door and shot residents.
Gaza’s ‘cemetery’
Hours later, Israel launched a military offensive that reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble, displacing almost all of its 2.4 million residents at least once amid a continuing humanitarian crisis.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Monday that the war had turned Gaza into a “cemetery”.
The militants took 251 hostages in Gaza, where 97 people are still being held, 34 of whom have been killed according to the Israeli military.
An Israeli campaign group on Monday announced the death of Gaza hostage Idan Shativi, 28, who was abducted at the music festival.
Official figures show more than 1,110 people have been killed and more than a million displaced since Israel’s advance into Lebanon began in late September.
According to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry, 41,909 people, mostly civilians, have been killed there since the war began. The United Nations has considered these figures reliable.
Israel’s military says 349 soldiers have been killed since ground attacks in Gaza began on October 27.
People in Gaza just want the war to end.
“It feels like the world stopped on October 7,” said Israa Abu Matar, 26, a displaced woman.
“I have grown old seeing my children hungry, scared, having nightmares and screaming day and night from the sounds of bombings and shells.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
