HAIFA, Israel: Israel and Hezbollah threatened Sunday to escalate cross-border attacks despite concerted calls from the international community for both sides to step back from the brink of all-out war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had dealt “an unimaginable series of blows to Hezbollah” after intense rocket attacks from Lebanon.
Defiant Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said the organisation was at a “new stage” in its fight against Israel.
The two men spoke after attacks in northern Israel forced hundreds of thousands to take refuge in bomb shelters and caused damage in the Haifa area.
“No country can tolerate attacks on its own people,” Netanyahu said, almost a year into the Gaza conflict that began with an Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and has also drawn in Iranian-backed groups across the region, including Hezbollah.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military operation would continue “until we can guarantee that communities in northern Israel can return safely to their homes.”
“This is our goal, this is our mission, and we will take the steps necessary to achieve it.”
Army commander Lt. Gen. Helgi Halevi vowed in a video statement to “attack anyone who threatens” Israelis.
The United States, Israel’s main ally, has said military escalation is not in Israel’s “best interests” and President Joe Biden has said Washington is doing all it can to prevent a broader conflict.
Biden said his administration “will do everything in our power to prevent the outbreak of a larger war. And we remain hard at work.”
Speaking ahead of the UN annual meeting, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Lebanon risked becoming “another Gaza”, saying it was “clear that both sides are not interested in a ceasefire” in the Gaza war.
Hezbollah rocket attacks reached Kiryat Bialik, near Israel’s largest city Haifa in northern Israel, leaving one building on fire, another riddled with debris and a burned vehicle.
“This is not fun, this is war,” resident Sharon Khakhmishvili said.
After nearly a year of cross-border attacks that began in October, Israel has signaled it will shift its focus to Iran-backed Hezbollah, which it says supports the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is fighting Israel.
Israeli forces on Friday bombed a Hezbollah stronghold in a densely populated area south of Beirut, killing Ibrahim Akil, leader of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said 45 people were killed in the attack.
This comes after a series of synchronized explosions on communications equipment across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday killed 39 people and injured around 3,000 that were blamed on Israel.
“We have entered a new phase with Israel: open reckoning,” Qassem said at Akil’s funeral in Beirut on Sunday.
“No threat can stop us… We are ready to face all military possibilities.”
Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces are spearheading the ground operation, and Israel has repeatedly called on them to push Hezbollah fighters back from the border.
Janine Hennis-Plusschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, wrote in a post on X that the region was “on the brink of imminent catastrophe.”
The Israeli army said more than 150 rockets, missiles and drones were fired into Israeli territory late Sunday night and into the early hours of the morning, mostly from Lebanon.
It said it struck Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in retaliation and to “prevent larger-scale attacks.”
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said three people were killed in Israeli military attacks in the south, while Hezbollah said two of its fighters were killed.
Israel’s civil defense agency ordered the closure of all schools in the north after the rocket attacks.
“I remember October 7, when everyone was at home,” Haifa resident Patrice Wolf told AFP.
Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area following the explosion on communications equipment this week.
Hezbollah said its “initial retaliation was to bomb the Rafael Military Industries facility in northern Israel with dozens of rockets.”
The statement said it targeted Ramat David air base deep inside Israel with Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets, believed to be the first time Hezbollah has used those types of rockets since the start of the Gaza war.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called the attack on communications equipment “unprecedented” and vowed that Israel, which has not commented, would retaliate.
Months of near-daily fighting have left hundreds of people dead, mostly militants, in Lebanon and dozens more dead in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and forced tens of thousands on both sides to flee their homes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that Israel would expand its war objectives to include the return of northern residents.
International mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying for months to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and an agreement to release the hostages, which diplomats have repeatedly said would help ease tensions in the region.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelati told AFP in an interview on Sunday that the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was having a “negative impact” on efforts to achieve a Gaza ceasefire.
“The problem is the lack of political will on the Israeli side,” he added.
Netanyahu’s critics in Israel accuse him of prolonging the war.
Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7 left 1,205 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which included hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages held by the militants, 97 remain in Gaza, 33 of whom have died, according to the Israeli military.
Israel’s retaliatory military attacks have killed at least 41,431 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to figures released by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry and deemed credible by the United Nations.