Lebanon strikes send Israelis to shelters as UN warns of ‘catastrophe’

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Zibqin – Copyright AFP Kawnat HAJU

Benoit Finck with Lisa Golden in Beirut

Hundreds of thousands of people sought shelter from Hezbollah rockets fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Sunday, the military said, as a UN official warned of imminent regional “catastrophe” from the worsening violence.

Israel has signalled its intention to turn its focus to Iran-backed Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border fire that began with the outbreak of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Further exchanges of fire came after military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari late Saturday said dozens of Israeli warplanes were “widely” striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

Analysts say Hezbollah — which says it is acting in support of ally Hamas — has been dealt a serious blow this week. Deadly attacks targeted its communications and decimated the leadership of its elite unit, although its ability to fight has not been crushed, the analysts said.

An Israeli air strike on Friday killed the head of Hezbollah’s elite unit Ibrahim Aqil, whose funeral in Beirut on Sunday is expected to draw large crowds.

“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,” United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said on social media platform X.

The death toll from Friday’s attack on a densely-populated Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut rose again Sunday and has reached 45, the health ministry said.

The Israeli army said more than 100 projectiles had been fired from Lebanon early on Sunday.

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

The military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the rocket fire and, Shoshani said, “to prevent a larger-scale attack”.

Israel’s rescue service said at least four people suffered “shrapnel injuries”, three near the city of Haifa.

– Warnings to leave –

Israel’s civil defence agency ordered all schools in the country’s north closed following the rocket fire.

“It reminds me of October 7 when everybody stayed home,” Haifa resident Patrice Wolff told AFP, referring to the day of the Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the Gaza war.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Sunday one person was killed and another wounded in an “Israeli strike” near the border.

Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area in response to the communication device blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 39 and wounded almost 3,000.

“In an initial response” to the explosions of the pagers and two-way radios, which it blamed on Israel, Hezbollah “bombed the Rafael military industry complexes” in northern Israel with “dozens” of rockets, the group said.

The US State Department urged Americans in Lebanon to leave the country while commercial options remain available. Jordan on Sunday urged its nationals to do the same.

On Saturday, an Israeli military statement said Israeli aircraft “struck thousands” of rocket launchers ready to fire from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah said it targeted at least seven military positions in northern Israel and the annexed Golan Heights with rockets.

Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said three children and seven women were killed in Friday’s strike on an underground meeting room in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Israel said the “targeted strike” had killed Aqil, the Radwan Force chief, and several other commanders.

The elite Radwan Force has spearheaded Hezbollah’s ground operations, and Israel has repeatedly called for its fighters to be pushed back from the border.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged that the communication device attack was an “unprecedented” blow, vowing that Israel — which has not commented on the blasts — would face retribution.

– ‘Objectives are clear’ –

Months of near-daily exchanges have killed hundreds in Lebanon, mostly fighters, and dozens in Israel and the annexed Golan, forcing tens of thousands on both sides to flee their homes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday announced an expansion of the country’s war goals to include the return of northern Israeli residents.

On Saturday, he said on X: “Our objectives are clear and our actions speak for themselves.”

International mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States have for months tried to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, which diplomats repeatedly said would help calm regional tensions.

An Iraqi coalition of pro-Iran armed groups claimed on Sunday a drone attack against Israel, where the military said it had intercepted “multiple suspicious aerial targets” coming from Iraq overnight, without causing casualties.

Netanyahu’s critics in Israel have accused him of dragging out the war. Thousands again gathered in Tel Aviv Saturday night demanding a deal to free captives still held in Gaza.

Hamas’s October 7 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, 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 41,391 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has acknowledged the figures as reliable.

In the occupied West Bank, Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera said Israeli forces raided its office in Ramallah to enforce a court-ordered 45-day closure, after an earlier ban preventing the news channel’s broadcasts from Israel.

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