Arab states strongly condemned Israel for the escalating hostilities with Hezbollah, which have intensified to levels unseen in nearly a year.

The war erupted after Hamas and other Palestinian militants launched the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, drawing in Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups.

Israel said it killed a “large number” of Hezbollah militants when it hit about 1,600 sites in southern and eastern Lebanon, including a “targeted strike” in Beirut in what the Israeli military called “Operation Northern Arrows.”

Hezbollah said Ali Karake, its third-in-command, was alive and had moved to safety after a source said the strike on the capital targeted him.

The group said early Tuesday it had launched “volleys” of missiles at Israeli military sites, after state media reported new raids in eastern Lebanon.

People in Israel’s coastal city of Haifa were seen running for cover on Monday when air raid sirens sounded.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the strikes killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and wounded 1,645 others. Health Minister Firass Abiad said “thousands of families” had been displaced.

Explosions near the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon sent smoke billowing into the sky.

“We sleep and wake up to bombardment… that’s what our life has become,” said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the southern village of Zawtar.

‘Most Difficult Week for Hezbollah’

Global powers urged Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the brink of all-out war, as the violence shifted from Israel’s southern border with Gaza to its northern frontier with Lebanon.

France and Egypt called on the United Nations Security Council to intervene, while Iraq requested an urgent meeting of Arab states on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said the strikes hit combat infrastructure Hezbollah had been building for two decades.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Monday “a significant peak” in the operation.

“This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment – the results speak for themselves,” he said.

“Entire units were taken out of battle as a result of the activities conducted at the beginning of the week in which numerous terrorists were injured.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was acting to change the “security balance” in the north.

Hezbollah Wave of Rockets

Hezbollah, which has been trading near-daily fire with Israel in support of Hamas, said it was in a “new phase” of confrontation.

The group said it launched rockets at Israeli military sites near Haifa and two bases in retaliation for Israeli strikes on the south and the Bekaa.

The attack came after an Israeli strike on southern Beirut on Friday killed its elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, and coordinated communications device blasts that Hezbollah blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Since the cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began in October, tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled their homes.

An Israeli military official, who cannot be further identified under military rules, said the operation seeks to “degrade threats” from Hezbollah, push them back from the border, and then to destroy infrastructure.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nations and world powers to deter what he called Israel’s “plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns.”

‘Full-Fledged War’ Nearing

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier, said Washington was “working to de-escalate in a way that allows people to return home safely.”

The Pentagon said it was sending a small number of additional US military personnel to the Middle East after thousands were deployed earlier alongside warships, fighter jets, and air defense systems.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity at the UN General Assembly, said that Washington opposed an Israeli ground invasion targeting Hezbollah and had “concrete ideas” on how to de-escalate the crisis.

G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement that “no country stands to gain” from escalating conflict, warning of “unimaginable consequences” if a regional war broke out.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell warned that Israel and Hezbollah were “almost in full-fledged war,” ahead of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

UN chief Antonio Guterres was “gravely alarmed” by civilian casualties in Lebanon, his spokesman said.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon warned “any further escalation of this dangerous situation could have far-reaching and devastating consequences.”

Qatar, a mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks, said Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon “puts the region on the brink of the abyss,” while Turkey said the strikes threatened “chaos” and Jordan urged an immediate end to the escalation “before it is too late.”

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the strikes and ordered Palestinian medical staff in Lebanon to provide support for the wounded.

Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, accused Israel of seeking “to create this wider conflict.”

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,455 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

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The announcement comes as fears of a broader regional war grow, with Israel striking hundreds of targets in Lebanon in what is by far the deadliest cross-border escalation in nearly a year of violence between Israel and Hezbollah.

“In light of increased tension in the Middle East, and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder told journalists, declining to provide further information for security reasons.

The United States has thousands of troops in the Middle East region, as well as warships, fighter jets, and air defense systems deployed to protect both its forces and Israel.

Ryder warned of the potential for the Israel-Hezbollah violence to escalate, calling for a diplomatic solution.

“Clearly there is the potential for these tit-for-tat operations between Israel and (Hezbollah) to escalate and to potentially spiral out of control into a wider regional war, which is why it’s so important that we resolve… the situation through diplomacy,” Ryder said.

World powers have implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply in recent days from Israel’s southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, has exchanged near-daily fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas.

The Palestinian militant group carried out the worst-ever attack on Israel on October 7, sparking a conflict that has drawn Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups around the region into the violence.

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The military said that “approximately 20 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon” shortly before 5:00 am (0200 GMT), followed by a barrage of “approximately 85 projectiles” launched from Lebanon after 6:00 am (0300 GMT).

“Hundreds of thousands of people had to take refuge in bomb shelters at that time across northern Israel,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told AFP.

The military in an earlier statement said the rocket fire sparked fires, while Israel’s medical emergency service said at least four people suffered “shrapnel injuries,” three of whom in the area of the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Israel’s civil defense agency has ordered all schools in the country’s north closed following the rocket fire, the latest escalation in nearly a year of cross-border exchanges throughout the Gaza war.

When you see sirens sounding alerts, picture this.

This is the result of one of Hezbollah’s indiscriminate missile and rocket launches at Israel. This time, they hit a children’s playground. pic.twitter.com/DJJwAhnORA

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 20, 2024

Educational activities would not be permitted across northern Israel until at least Monday at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT), the military’s Home Front Command said, affecting “hundreds of thousands of children” according to Shoshani.

“In Haifa, a lot of school are closed… and offices are empty,” said resident Patrice Wolff, who works in the medical industry.

He told AFP there was “more and more pressure” coming from Hezbollah as well as from Israeli forces on the Lebanese group.

The military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the rocket fire.

Shoshani said the military had hit a range of targets over the past day, mostly “rockets launchers and rocket launcher barrels.”

The Israeli strikes were meant “to prevent a larger-scale attack,” the military spokesman told an online press briefing.

A steady escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah has stoked fears of all-out war.

Israeli officials this week have signaled their intention to turn the focus of military operations from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

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Israel has not commented on the attacks that killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 over two days but has said it will widen the scope of its war in Gaza to include the Lebanon front.

“Such terrorist acts, that are undoubtedly due to the desperation and successive failures of the Zionist regime, will soon be met with a crushing response from the resistance front,” Guards commander General Hossein Salami said in a message to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, quoted by state media.

The resistance front led by Iran includes Tehran-backed groups across the Middle East, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and Shiite armed groups in Iraq as well as Palestinian militant group Hamas.

In April, Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, after it bombed an annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Most were intercepted by allied air forces or Israel’s own air defenses.

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The Iran-backed group blamed Israel for the first wave of blasts on Tuesday, vowing revenge and stoking fears of all-out war in the region.

“The new wave of walkie-talkie explosions… killed nine people and wounded more than 300,” the health ministry said in a statement.

A source close to the Iran-backed group said walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in its Beirut stronghold during the funerals of Hezbollah members killed in Tuesday’s blasts.

“A number of walkie-talkies exploded in Beirut’s southern suburbs,” the source said, with Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers confirming devices had exploded inside two cars in the area.

The explosions caused panic, according to an AFP photographer covering the funerals.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported “pagers” and “devices” had also exploded in Hezbollah strongholds in the east and south, with AFP correspondents hearing explosions in those regions.

A hospital source in the eastern city of Baalbek told AFP 25 people had been wounded after walkie-talkies exploded.

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The son of Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar was among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The source had earlier said the son of another Hezbollah lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, was also killed, but later confirmed that the son was alive but injured.

The blasts “killed nine people, including a girl,” minister Firass Abiad said in a casualty update.

“About 2,800 people were injured, about 200 of them critically” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands, and stomach, he added.

The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, her family and a source close to the group said.

Iran’s ambassador to Beirut was also wounded in a pager explosion but his injuries were not serious, state media reported.

In neighboring Syria, 14 people were wounded “after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded,” Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Israeli military said it had “no comment,” when contacted by AFP about the pager blasts.

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Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading near-daily cross-border fire, with the Lebanese militant group saying it is acting in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in the ongoing war in Gaza.

“We have enough forces to deal with Gaza and we should concentrate on what is going on in the north,” Gantz said, speaking in Washington at a Middle East forum where he also said Iran and its proxies were “the real issue.”

“The time of the north has come and actually I think we are late on this,” the former army chief and centrist politician added.

Gantz said Israel had made a mistake in evacuating much of the north of the country as hostilities with Hezbollah flared following the October 7 Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war.

“In Gaza, we have crossed a decisive point of the campaign,” he said. “We can conduct anything we want in Gaza.”

“We should seek to have a deal to get out our hostages but if we cannot in the coming time, a few days or few weeks, or whatever it is, we should go up north.”

“We are capable of… hitting the state of Lebanon if needed,” he said.

“The story of Hamas is old news,” he added, saying instead that “the story of Iran and its proxies all around the area and what they are trying to do is the real issue.”

Gantz left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s government in June over its lack of a post-war plan for Gaza.

The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, official Israeli figures show.

Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 40,972 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The UN human rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also referred to the situation on the Lebanese border Sunday during a tour of the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, telling troops “we are preparing for anything that may happen in the north.”

“The shift of the center of gravity can happen quickly and can also involve you in a short period of time,” Gallant said, according to a statement issued by his office.

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The result was perhaps the biggest exchange of fire in 10 months of a war that began with a Hamas attack launched from Gaza and has triggered both new violence on the Lebanon-Israel border and fears of a broader conflagration in the Middle East.

The Israeli military said around 100 of its fighter jets had struck more than 270 targets, “90 percent” of which “were short-range rockets aimed at northern Israel.”

Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed Lebanese armed group, denied that thousands of launchers had been destroyed or that Israel had thwarted a larger attack. It said its own operation “was completed and accomplished.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet the strikes were “not the final word” in the campaign against Hezbollah.

A soldier in the Israeli navy was killed in combat and two more wounded, the military said, with an official telling AFP their boat may have been hit by one of their own side’s air-defense interceptors.

WATCH how the IAF acted precisely today to stop a large-scale terrorist attack from Hezbollah.

Our operation in Lebanon targeted the terrorist infrastructure Hezbollah planned to use against us, protecting Israeli families and homes. pic.twitter.com/2J3sqAnFWB

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 25, 2024

Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces throughout the Gaza war, in what Hezbollah says is support for its Palestinian ally Hamas.

But fears of a wider regional conflagration soared after attacks in late July, blamed on Israel, killed Iran-aligned militant leaders including the Hamas political chief and a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, which prompted vows of revenge.

Britain and Jordan were among those to appeal on Sunday for an end to the escalation and a ceasefire in Gaza.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also called for the UN Security Council to take “deterrent” and “effective” measures against Netanyahu and his ministers who “kill all chances of achieving peace.”

Homes Damaged

Hezbollah said its militants launched “a large number of drones” and “more than 320” Katyusha rockets targeting “enemy positions” across the border.

The group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah named the “main target” as the Glilot military intelligence base near Tel Aviv, which Israeli media reported is home to the headquarters of the Mossad spy agency.

Israel’s military said there were “no hits” on the base.

A secondary target, said Nasrallah, was Ein Shemer, a military airport used by Israeli drones.

He also appeared to suggest Hezbollah’s retaliation for Shukr’s killing was over, saying “if the result is satisfactory” then its response “has been accomplished.”

An AFP photographer in Acre, an Israeli city 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border, reported damage to three homes from a Hezbollah rocket that struck a roof, with shrapnel smashing windows and destroying a bed.

“There were explosions in the area of Haifa,” said Abigail Levy, a resident of the coastal city further south. “I was stopped and was told not to go to the beach.”

AFPTV footage from early Sunday showed dozens of interceptor rockets being launched into dense clouds above the Upper Galilee in northern Israel.

An AFP photographer saw a Hezbollah drone exploding into a huge fireball as it was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force.

Hezbollah announced two of its fighters had been killed, while its ally the Amal movement also reported the death of a member. No casualties were immediately reported in Israel.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel “was aware” of six militants “killed in the strikes.”

Another military spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, said Hezbollah’s strikes were “part of a larger attack that was planned and we were able to thwart a big part of it this morning.”

The fighting disrupted air travel in Israel and Lebanon, with both British Airways and Air France among those suspending flights to Tel Aviv.

We are still operating to thwart real-time threats.

IDF fighter jets have just struck additional Hezbollah launchers in several areas in southern Lebanon and a terrorist cell operating in the area of Khiam in southern Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/j6E1WNwb4d

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 25, 2024

‘Stop the Escalation’

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, one of several Iran-backed groups that have been drawn into the Gaza war’s periphery, hailed the Hezbollah attack and declared that their own retaliation was “definitely coming.”

The fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah has killed hundreds, mostly in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told an emergency cabinet meeting he was in contact with “Lebanon’s friends to stop the escalation.”

General Charles Brown, the most senior officer in the US military, arrived in Israel on Sunday evening to meet his Israeli counterpart Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military said.

The United States is Israel’s top military supplier.

A US defense official said Washington had helped track the Hezbollah barrage, although it was not involved in shooting down any drones or rockets or in the strikes on Lebanon.

The Flightradar24 tracking website on Sunday afternoon showed a US Navy surveillance drone had been flying over nearby Mediterranean waters.

Gaza Talks

Hamas hailed Hezbollah’s Sunday attack as “a slap in the face” for Israel, and the Palestinian movement on Sunday night said it fired a rocket toward Tel Aviv.

Israel’s military said it landed in an “open area” south of the city.

In the leadup to Sunday’s major exchange, Western and Arab diplomats had sought to head off regional retaliation, stressing the urgency of reaching a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose officials have been mediating Gaza truce talks for months alongside the US and Qatar, “warned of the dangers of a new front opening in Lebanon” and called for progress in the talks to enable a “path to calm and stability in the region” his office said.

A Hamas official said on Sunday the group’s delegation had left the Egyptian capital after meeting with mediators.

In Gaza, witnesses said battles raged in the area of Deir al-Balah, in the territory’s central region.

Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,405 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not break down civilian and militant deaths. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants in their attack, 105 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

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Fatah, the Palestinian movement based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Khalil Maqdah was killed in a strike near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

The Israeli military said it targeted the brother of Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah’s armed wing. It accused them both of “directing attacks and smuggling weapons” to the West Bank and collaborating with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

In response, the slain militant’s Fatah movement, which is headed by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and rivals the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas, accused Israel of bidding to trigger a wider regional war.

Maqdah’s killing marks the first such attack on a senior Fatah member in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement following the Gaza war.

The “assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region,” Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah’s central committee, told AFP in Ramallah.

It came only hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left empty-handed after a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Blinken appealed to Hamas to urgently accept a US-backed truce proposal, while also entering into a public spat with Israel over its future presence in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“Time is of the essence,” Blinken said before flying out of Doha after stops in Qatar, Egypt and Israel on his ninth regional tour seeking to halt the Gaza war.

“This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line,” he said of the truce proposal.

The United States has presented ideas to bridge gaps and, through Qatar and Egypt, pressed Hamas to return to talks this week in Cairo.

But a day after Blinken said US ally Israel was on board, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.

Netanyahu insisted Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli forces seized from Hamas, whom Israel says relies on secret tunnels to bring in weapons.

Sticking Point

Blinken said Israel had already agreed on the “schedule and location” of troop withdrawals from Gaza.

Since the conflict began, it was made “very clear that the United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel,” Blinken said when asked about Netanyahu’s remarks.

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called Netanyahu’s “maximalist statements” unhelpful for reaching a truce.

Blinken acknowledged differences and called for “maximum flexibility” from both Israel and Hamas.

Egypt, the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel, has been infuriated by the border takeover.

Hamas said it was “keen to reach a ceasefire” but protested “new conditions” from Israel in the latest US proposal.

On the ground, Gaza was again rocked by air strikes, AFP reporters, first responders, and witnesses said.

The Israeli military said it struck about 30 targets throughout Gaza and that troops “eliminated dozens” of militants.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said death appeared to be the “only certainty” for Gaza’s 2.4 million people, with no way to escape Israel’s bombardment.

“Absolutely nowhere is safe,” said UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge. “People… feel like they’re being chased around in circles.

“Death seems to be the only certainty,” she told AFPTV.

As tensions escalated, Lebanon’s health ministry said earlier Israeli strikes in the country’s east killed one person and wounded 20, hours after four were killed in the south.

Cross-border skirmishes have taken place almost daily between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, but fears of a greater crisis soared when Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed on a visit to Tehran on July 31.

Iran has vowed retaliation, blaming Israel for the assassination, but has held off so far, with the United States sending additional forces and warning a wider war could destroy prospects for a Gaza ceasefire.

Elsewhere in the region, a merchant vessel was struck by three projectiles off Yemen after exchanging fire with two boats, British maritime security agency UKMTO said.

There was no immediate claim for the attack, but it comes as Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi movement keeps up a campaign against international shipping that it says is in support of Gaza.

Hostage Appeal

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in agreeing a deal to end fighting, free Israeli hostages, and allow vital humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Netanyahu has faced public protests in Israel urging him to accept a truce, which would bring back hostages whose plight has plagued Israelis.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from tunnels in Gaza, some of whom were killed in its operations.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 105 are still being held hostage inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,223 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

In a stark reminder of what’s at stake for Netanyahu, a young Israeli woman symbolizing the 251 hostages called for their swift return.

“Avinatan, my boyfriend, is still there, and we need to bring them back before it’s going to be too late. We don’t want to lose more people than we already lost,” Noa Argamani said while visiting Japan.

The post Israel Kills Top Palestinian Militant as Gaza Truce Talks Stumble appeared first on The Defense Post.

The strikes came more than 24 hours after Israel carried out similar raids deep inside east Lebanon and as tensions mounted in the wake of the Israeli killing of a top Hezbollah commander.

“Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa” valley killed one person “and wounded 20 others,” the health ministry said in an updated toll.

The statement said one person was in critical condition while “eight children and a pregnant woman were moderately wounded.”

A Hezbollah source, requesting anonymity, said several strikes hit east Lebanon near the city of Baalbek, including the village of Nabi Sheet, without specifying what was targeted.

A source from a local hospital told AFP that five children no older than 10, all from the same family, were among the wounded.

The strikes around midnight came after similar raids in the Bekaa region on Monday evening that Israel said targeted “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities.”

They also came as Hezbollah said four of its fighters had been killed, after the health ministry said Tuesday that four people died in Israeli strikes in the southern border village of Dhayra.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian armed group Hamas, has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began in October.

The violence has largely been restricted to the Lebanon-Israel border area, although Israel has repeatedly struck the country’s eastern Bekaa valley near the border with Syria where Hezbollah also has a strong presence.

Hezbollah claimed a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions on Tuesday, including sending barrages of Katyusha rockets at several north Israel military positions in stated retaliation for Israeli strikes, including in Dhayra.

The Shiite Muslim movement also said it launched “squadrons of explosive-laden drones” and “intense rocket barrages” at several Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights in response to Monday night’s strikes in the Bekaa valley.

Health Workers ‘Targeted’

The Israeli military in separate statements said a total of around 115 “projectiles” were identified crossing from Lebanon.

It also said that “numerous suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon,” with air defenses intercepting some of them.

No injuries were reported, though the military said the incidents sparked fires in some areas.

The military also said air forces struck projectile launchers and several “Hezbollah military” structures in south Lebanon.

Lebanon’s health ministry said three emergency personnel from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were hurt Tuesday when the Israeli military “targeted them” in south Lebanon, causing “significant damage to the ambulance they were traveling in.”

The ministry “condemned in the strongest terms the repeated targeting of health workers in south Lebanon.”

Several militant groups in Lebanon operate health centers and emergency response operations, with at least 21 rescue workers killed since October, according to an AFP tally.

Fears of a major escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond to twin killings blamed on Israel late last month.

An Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, shortly before an attack in Tehran blamed on Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The cross-border violence has killed some 590 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 128 civilians, according to AFP‘s tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

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