HUNDREDS of Israeli civilians spent their night hiding in bomb shelters after Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets early Sunday.
Dramatic footage showed cars ablaze as the rockets were flying across a wider and deeper area of northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa.
X/@IDFVehicles were seen ablaze in the streets of northern Israel[/caption]
AFPThe destroyed homes in Israel after Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets overnight[/caption]
AFPFlames also engulfed nearby homes[/caption]
AFPFirst responders and Israeli security forces gather amid debris and charred vehicles in Kiryat Bialik in the Haifa district of Israel[/caption]
It comes as Lebanon and Israel appear to be spiralling toward all-out war following months of escalating tensions.
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel for a wave of explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people including two children and wounding around 3,000.
The rocket barrage overnight set off air raid sirens across northern Israel, sending thousands of people scrambling into shelters.
The Israeli military said rockets had been fired toward civilian areas, pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the IDF said: “Hezbollah’s terrorism targets civilians.
“Hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians spent their night hiding in bomb shelters, while barrages of rockets were flying over their heads, some hitting their homes, and rocket alert sirens were constantly sounding throughout the night.
“Thousands of children will stay in bomb shelters today instead of going to school due to the risk to their lives.
“We must stop this reality.”
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated four people for shrapnel wounds, including a 76-year-old man who was moderately wounded in Kiryat Bialik, a community near Haifa where buildings were damaged and cars set on fire.
It was not immediately clear if the damage was caused by a rocket or an Israeli interceptor.
The barrage came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 37 people, including two Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as women and children.
ReutersEmergency personnel work at a site of damaged houses and vehicles[/caption]
AFPFirst responders and Israeli security forces gather amid debris and charred vehicles in Kiryat Bialik[/caption]
X / @AggregateOsintHomes in northern Israel were destroyed and seen on fire[/caption]
X / @AggregateOsintIsrael’s iron dome in action[/caption]
Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of personal devices to explode just days earlier.
The Israeli military said it carried out a wave of strikes across southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours, hitting some 400 militant sites, including rocket launchers.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said those strikes had thwarted an even larger attack.
He said: “Hundreds of thousands of civilians have come under fire across a lot of northern Israel. They spent the night and now the morning in bomb shelters.
“Today we saw fire that was deeper into Israel than before.”
Israeli media reported that rockets fired from Lebanon early Sunday were intercepted in the areas of Haifa and Nazareth, which are further south than most of the rocket fire to date.
Israel cancelled school across the north, deepening the sense of crisis.
Wanted Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil has been killed in an Israeli airstrike on FridayAP
Fellow Hezbollah chief Ahmed Wahabi was also eliminated in the strike
ReutersResidents and the military assess the damage to an apartment block in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon[/caption]
AFPPeople stand on cars which were hit with flying debris in Friday’s air attack[/caption]
it had launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles a new type of weapon the group had not used before at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs.
A 17-year-old was killed and a 20-year-old was injured in a self-inflicted crash as rockets were raining down, Haaretz reports.
It is understood the pair lost control of their vehicle when the rocker alert alarms were activated in the Jezreel Valley.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided the West Bank bureau of Al-Jazeera, which it had banned earlier this year, accusing it of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups, allegations denied by the pan-Arab broadcaster.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire since the outbreak of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, when the militant group began firing rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas.
The low-level fighting has killed dozens of people in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the frontier.
In recent weeks, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to Lebanon and vowed to bring back calm to the border so that its citizens can return to their homes.
Hezbollah has said it will only halt its attacks if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, which appears increasingly elusive as long-running talks led by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly bogged down.
GettyIsraeli soldiers close Al Jazeera television’s office in Ramallah, West Bank on Sunday[/caption]
APThis image made from video provided by Al Jazeera English shows Israeli troops raiding their bureau in Ramallah, West Bank[/caption]
On Friday, an Israeli airstrike took down an eight-story building in a densely populated neighborhood in Beiruts southern suburbs as Hezbollah members were meeting in the basement, according to Israel.
Among those killed was Ibrahim Akil, a top Hezbollah official who commanded the groups special forces unit, known as the Radwan Force.
Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, told reporters Saturday that at least seven women and three children were killed in Fridays airstrike on the building.
He said another 68 people were injured, including 15 who were hospitalised.
It was the deadliest strike on Beirut since the bruising month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, and the casualty count could grow, with 23 people still missing, a government official said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attack broke up the groups chain of command while taking out Akil, who he said was responsible for Israeli deaths.
Akil had been on the U.S. most wanted list for years, with a $7 million reward, over his alleged role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon during the civil war in the 1980s.
Who was Ibrahim Aqil?
SLAIN Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil was regarded as the second in command of the Iran backed militia.
Aqil also sat on the Jihad Council which is seen as the highest military body for Hezbollah members.
He was believed to had have a $7million bounty placed on him by the US after his alleged involvement in a terrorist bombing in 1983.
The Islamic Jihad Organization attacked the US Embassy in Beirut and killed 63 people.
A few months later another bombing on a US Marines barracks in the capital led to the tragic deaths of 241 Americans.
Aqil was seen a key member of the terror group at the time.
The US Department of State also say he had been involved in a number of other terror related plots as well as kidnapping US and German hostages in the 1980s.
They labelled him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019 and offered the bounty in return for information on the commander.
