A fireball lit up the sky and smoke billowed over Beirut on Sunday as Israel unleashed intense strikes targeting Hezbollah, almost a year since the Hamas attack that sparked war in Gaza.
In Gaza, Israel’s military said it encircled the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza after indications Hamas was rebuilding despite nearly a year of devastating air strikes and fighting.
As another strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati appealed to the international community to put pressure on Israel for a ceasefire.
Israel is on high alert ahead of Monday’s anniversary of Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack which triggered the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Israel has now turned its focus northwards to Hezbollah, Hamas’s Iran-backed ally in Lebanon, and has vowed to avenge an Iranian missile attack.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold was hit by more than 30 strikes, with a petrol station and a medical supplies warehouse also hit.
“The strikes were like an earthquake,” said shopkeeper Mehdi Zeiter, 60.
Israel’s military said it struck weapons storage facilities and infrastructure while taking measures “to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.
AFPTV footage showed a massive fireball over a residential area, followed by a loud bang and secondary explosions. Smoke still billowed from the site after dawn.
In the Sabra area, near the southern suburbs, dozens of people, some carrying bags on foot and others on motorbikes, fled one of the most intense bombardments of the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Hezbollah said it fired rockets at Israeli forces during a casualty evacuation, used artillery at another site in the south and launched assault drones on an Israeli military base.
Lebanon’s education minister said the start of the new school year was being postponed until November 4 because of “security risks”.
– ‘Ongoing threat’ –
Ahead of Monday’s grim anniversary, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a televised briefing: “We are prepared with increased forces in anticipation for this day”, when there could be “attacks on the home front”.
Last year’s October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militants 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.
One year later, Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas continues despite the focus shifting to Lebanon and Hezbollah.
On Sunday the military said it had “encircled” the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza after intelligence detected “efforts by Hamas to rebuild its operational capabilities”.
The army said it had killed about 440 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon “from the ground and from the air” since Monday, when troops began “targeted” ground operations.
Israel says it aims to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by almost a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel to return home.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Iran an “ongoing threat” after Tehran, which backs armed groups across the Middle East, launched around 200 missiles at Israel Tuesday in revenge for Israeli killings of militant leaders including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Iran’s attack killed a Palestinian in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and damaged an Israeli air base, according to satellite images.
It came the same day Israeli ground forces began raids into Lebanon after days of intense strikes on Hezbollah strongholds.
– ‘Resistance won’t back down’ –
One Israeli military official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the issue publicly, said the army “is preparing a response” to Iran’s attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted Iran had twice launched “hundreds of missiles” at Israel since April.
“Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and to respond to these attacks and that is what we will do,” he said in a statement.
Netanyahu’s critics accuse him of obstructing efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and deal to free hostages still held by Hamas.
A senior Hezbollah source said Saturday the group had lost contact with Hashem Safieddine, widely tipped as its next leader, after air strikes in Beirut.
The movement has yet to name a new chief after Israel assassinated Nasrallah late last month in a massive strike in Lebanon’s capital.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday that “the resistance in the region will not back down”.
Across Lebanon, strikes against Hezbollah have killed more than 1,110 people since September 23, according to a tally based on official figures.
– ‘Never-ending nightmare’ –
UN’s refugee agency head Filippo Grandi said Lebanon “faces a terrible crisis” and warned “hundreds of thousands of people are left destitute or displaced by Israeli air strikes”.
Israeli bombardment has put at least four hospitals in Lebanon out of service, the facilities said.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said it rejected a request by Israel’s military to “relocate some of our positions” in south Lebanon.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in Damascus Saturday after visiting Beirut, renewed his call for ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon, and threatened Israel with an “even stronger” reaction to any attack on Iran.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators tried unsuccessfully for months to reach a Gaza truce and secure the release of 97 hostages still held there.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Sunday an Israeli strike on a mosque-turned-shelter in central Deir al-Balah killed 26 people. Israel said it had targeted Hamas militants.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,870 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry and described as reliable by the UN.
Ahead of the October 7 anniversary, thousands joined pro-Palestinian rallies in London, Paris, Cape Town and other cities.
Israel’s President Herzog said his country’s October 7 “wounds still cannot fully heal”.
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