Israel launched more air strikes in Lebanon on Wednesday (25), killing more than 20 people after Hezbollah militants fired rockets at Israel in the heaviest exchanges of fire between the two arch-foes in a year.
Hezbollah claimed to have attacked the headquarters of the Mossad spy agency in Tel Aviv, Israel’s economic hub.
Meanwhile, world leaders have expressed concern that the conflict — which runs parallel to the war in Gaza — is rapidly escalating as the death toll in Lebanon rises.
The Israeli military carried out its heaviest airstrikes in a year of conflict this week, targeting Hezbollah leaders and striking hundreds of locations inside Lebanon as Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into Israel.
There was no let-up on Wednesday (25). Israel said its warplanes were carrying out extensive strikes in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 23 people were killed in Wednesday’s Israeli airstrikes. Most of the deaths were reported in the south of the country: four were in Joun, three in Ain Qana, two in Tibneen and three in Bint Jbeil.
Three more were killed in the mountainous village of Maaysrah, north of Beirut. Meanwhile, seven people were killed in what the ministry described as “consecutive Israeli airstrikes” on towns in the Baalbek-Hermel region of the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.
Dozens of people were also injured in the attacks.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said in a statement that it had fired a missile early Wednesday at the Mossad headquarters “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in defense of Lebanon and its people.”
The Israeli military said a single missile was intercepted by air defense systems after it was detected crossing from Lebanon. Spokesman Nadav Shoshani said he could not confirm what Hezbollah was targeting when it fired the missile from a village in Lebanon.
“The result was a heavy missile, heading towards Tel Aviv, towards civilian areas in Tel Aviv. The Mossad headquarters is not in that area,” he said.
Warning sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and elsewhere in central Israel, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.
The attack was the first time since the war began that a Hezbollah missile had been sighted over Tel Aviv, generally considered a target with the potential to trigger a sharp escalation in Israeli action.
Hezbollah has blamed Mossad for the recent assassination of its leaders.
The group also accused the spy agency of carrying out an extraordinary operation last week in which Hezbollah members’ communications devices were booby-trapped and exploded, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Israel expanded the areas it has been targeting since Tuesday night, with strikes for the first time in the tourist town of Jiyyeh, south of Beirut, and Maaysrah.
See: Line of cars fleeing city in Lebanon
Attacks also took place in Bint Jbeil, Tebnin and Ain Qana in the south, in the village of Joun in the Chouf district near the city of Sidon in the south, and in Maaysrah in the Keserwan district in the north.
Israeli officials said the Galilee region in northern Israel was hit by heavy shelling by Hezbollah on Wednesday morning.
In one round, about 40 rockets were fired. Some were intercepted in the air, others hit open areas or penetrated air defenses in populated areas, they said.
In the Israeli city of Safed, a nursing home was hit but there were no injuries, authorities said.
Near-daily exchanges of fire in the Israel-Lebanon border area have erupted since war broke out last October between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southern border, with Hezbollah saying it was acting in solidarity with its ally Hamas.
Israel’s focus now turns to its northern and southern borders in Lebanon.
As of Monday morning, the Israeli offensive has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.
An estimated half a million people have been displaced in Lebanon, Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said. In Beirut, thousands of people who fled southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.
Pope Francis called Israel’s attacks a “terrible escalation” of the Middle East conflict.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was pushing the region to the brink.
Israeli troops have been training for months for a possible ground operation inside Lebanon aimed at securing its northern border and allowing thousands of Israeli residents who fled for safety to return to their communities, a top war priority for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
This content was originally published in Israeli fighter jets kill more than 20 in Lebanon after Hezbollah attacks Tel Aviv on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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