New Israeli strikes on Lebanon after 492 killed

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Israel announced dozens of new air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon on Tuesday, a day after 492 people, including 35 children, were killed in the deadliest bombardment since a devastating war in 2006.

Israel’s overnight strikes on southern Lebanon came after it said it had killed a “large number” of fighters when it hit about 1,600 suspected Hezbollah targets around the country.

Hezbollah said it had launched volleys of missiles at Israeli military bases, hours after 180 of its projectiles and an unmanned aerial vehicle crossed into Israeli airspace, sending people in the city of Haifa running for shelter.

The group 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 Israeli military said more than 50 projectiles were fired into northern Israel in less than 10 minutes on Tuesday morning, most of which were intercepted.

“Everyone is heading (to Lebanese capital Beirut) with their children and their belongings — it’s the first time we see such panic since 2006,” said Lebanese journalist Nazir Reda, who was driving to his hometown near the Israeli border to get his family away from the violence.

Longtime foes Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in near-daily cross-border exchanges of fire for nearly a year, since Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel for decades, and other Iran-backed fighters in the region have been drawn into the violence.

Monday’s bombardment of Lebanon was by far the largest, not just in the past year, but since the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006.

Monday’s raids killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and wounded 1,645, according to the health ministry, which said “thousands of families” had fled their homes.

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

That war killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers, and devastated large swathes of Hezbollah’s strongholds.

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

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.

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.

He added, “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.

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 Oct, 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”.

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 defence 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 Turkiye 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”.

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

The offensive had come in response to Hamas’s Oct 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 Hamas, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

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