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Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Israeli army says it struck 300 targets in Lebanon in stepped-up pressure on Hezbollah

by

113 days ago
20240923

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said it struck 300 tar­gets Mon­day in Lebanon in one of the most in­tense bar­rages of airstrikes in near­ly a year of fight­ing against the Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group.

Lebanon’s health min­istry said 50 peo­ple were killed and 300 wound­ed in the strikes.

The army an­nounced the ac­tion on so­cial me­dia, post­ing a pho­to of what is said was the mil­i­tary chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Hale­vi, ap­prov­ing ad­di­tion­al at­tacks from mil­i­tary head­quar­ters in Tel Aviv.

Hale­vi and oth­er Is­raeli lead­ers have promised tougher ac­tion against Hezbol­lah in the com­ing days. As Is­rael was car­ry­ing out the at­tacks, Is­raeli au­thor­i­ties re­port­ed a se­ries of air-raid sirens in north­ern Is­rael warn­ing of in­com­ing rock­et fire from Lebanon.

As the mil­i­tary was car­ry­ing out the at­tacks, Is­raeli au­thor­i­ties re­port­ed a se­ries of air-raid sirens in north­ern Is­rael warn­ing of in­com­ing rock­et fire from Lebanon.

Ear­li­er Mon­day, Is­rael urged res­i­dents of south­ern Lebanon to evac­u­ate from homes and oth­er build­ings where it claimed Hezbol­lah has stored weapons, say­ing the mil­i­tary would con­duct “ex­ten­sive strikes” against the mil­i­tant group.

It was the first warn­ing of its kind in near­ly a year of steadi­ly es­ca­lat­ing con­flict and came af­ter a par­tic­u­lar­ly heavy ex­change of fire on Sun­day. Hezbol­lah launched around 150 rock­ets, mis­siles and drones in­to north­ern Is­rael in re­tal­i­a­tion for strikes that killed a top com­man­der and dozens of fight­ers.

There was no sign of an im­me­di­ate ex­o­dus from the vil­lages of south­ern Lebanon, and the warn­ing left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some res­i­dents could live in or near tar­get­ed struc­tures with­out know­ing that they are risk.

The in­creas­ing strikes and coun­ter­strikes have raised fears of an all-out war, even as Is­rael is still bat­tling Hamas in Gaza and try­ing to re­turn scores of hostages tak­en in Hamas’ Oct. 7 at­tack. Hezbol­lah has vowed to con­tin­ue its strikes in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Pales­tini­ans and Hamas, a fel­low Iran-backed mil­i­tant group. Is­rael says it is com­mit­ted to re­turn­ing calm to its north­ern bor­der.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists in south­ern Lebanon re­port­ed heavy airstrikes tar­get­ing many ar­eas Mon­day morn­ing, in­clud­ing some far from the bor­der.

Lebanon’s state-run Na­tion­al News Agency said the strikes hit a forest­ed area in the cen­tral province of By­b­los, about 130 kilo­me­ters (81 miles) north of the Is­raeli-Lebanese bor­der, for the first time since the ex­changes be­gan in Oc­to­ber. No in­juries were re­port­ed there. Is­rael al­so bombed tar­gets in the north­east­ern Baal­bek and Her­mel re­gions, where a shep­herd was killed and two fam­i­ly mem­bers were wound­ed, ac­cord­ing to the news agency. It said a to­tal of 30 peo­ple were wound­ed in strikes.

The Lebanese Health Min­istry asked hos­pi­tals in south­ern Lebanon and the east­ern Bekaa val­ley to post­pone surg­eries that could be done lat­er. The min­istry said in a state­ment that its re­quest aimed to keep hos­pi­tals ready to deal with peo­ple wound­ed by “Is­rael’s ex­pand­ing ag­gres­sion on Lebanon.”

An Is­raeli mil­i­tary of­fi­cial said Is­rael is fo­cused on aer­i­al op­er­a­tions and has no im­me­di­ate plans for a ground op­er­a­tion. The of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty in keep­ing with reg­u­la­tions, said the strikes are aimed at curb­ing Hezbol­lah’s abil­i­ty to launch more strikes in­to Is­rael.

Lebanese me­dia re­port­ed that res­i­dents re­ceived text mes­sages urg­ing them to move away from any build­ing where Hezbol­lah stores arms un­til fur­ther no­tice.

“If you are in a build­ing hous­ing weapons for Hezbol­lah, move away from the vil­lage un­til fur­ther no­tice,” the Ara­bic mes­sage reads, ac­cord­ing to Lebanese me­dia.

Lebanon’s in­for­ma­tion min­is­ter, Zi­ad Makary, said in a state­ment that his of­fice in Beirut had re­ceived a record­ed mes­sage telling peo­ple to leave the build­ing.

“This comes in the frame­work of the psy­cho­log­i­cal war im­ple­ment­ed by the en­e­my,” Makary said, and urged peo­ple “not to give the mat­ter more at­ten­tion than it de­serves.”

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear how many peo­ple would be af­fect­ed by the Is­raeli or­ders. Com­mu­ni­ties on both sides of the bor­der have large­ly emp­tied out be­cause of the near-dai­ly ex­changes of fire.

Is­rael has ac­cused Hezbol­lah of trans­form­ing en­tire com­mu­ni­ties in the south in­to mil­i­tant bases, with hid­den rock­et launch­ers and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture. That could lead the Is­raeli mil­i­tary to wage an es­pe­cial­ly heavy bomb­ing cam­paign, even if no ground forces move in.

The mil­i­tary said it had tar­get­ed more than 150 mil­i­tant sites ear­ly Mon­day. Res­i­dents of dif­fer­ent vil­lages in south­ern Lebanon post­ed pho­tos on so­cial me­dia of airstrikes and large plumes of smoke. The state-run Na­tion­al News Agency al­so re­port­ed airstrikes on dif­fer­ent ar­eas.

An Is­raeli airstrike on a Beirut sub­urb on Fri­day killed a top Hezbol­lah mil­i­tary com­man­der and more than a dozen fight­ers, as well as dozens of civil­ians, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren.

Last week, thou­sands of com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­vices, used main­ly by Hezbol­lah mem­bers, ex­plod­ed in dif­fer­ent parts of Lebanon, killing 39 peo­ple and wound­ing near­ly 3,000. Lebanon blamed Is­rael for the at­tacks, but Is­rael did not con­firm or de­ny any re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Hezbol­lah be­gan fir­ing in­to Is­rael a day af­ter the Oct. 7 at­tack in what it said was an at­tempt to pin down Is­raeli forces to help Pales­tin­ian fight­ers in Gaza. Is­rael has re­tal­i­at­ed with airstrikes, and the con­flict has steadi­ly in­ten­si­fied over the past year.

The fight­ing has killed hun­dreds of peo­ple in Lebanon, dozens in Is­rael and dis­placed tens of thou­sands on both sides of the bor­der. It has al­so sparked brush fires that have de­stroyed agri­cul­ture and scarred the land­scape.

Is­rael has vowed to push Hezbol­lah back from the bor­der so its cit­i­zens can re­turn to their homes, say­ing it prefers to do so diplo­mat­i­cal­ly but is will­ing to use force. Hezbol­lah has said it will keep up its at­tacks un­til there is a cease-fire in Gaza, but that ap­pears in­creas­ing­ly elu­sive as the war nears its an­niver­sary.

Hamas-led mil­i­tants stormed in­to south­ern Is­rael on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, and ab­duct­ing around 250. Some 100 cap­tives are still held in Gaza, a third of whom are be­lieved to be dead, af­ter most of the rest were re­leased dur­ing a week­long cease-fire in No­vem­ber.

Is­rael’s of­fen­sive has killed over 41,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry, which does not dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween civil­ians and fight­ers in its count. It says women and chil­dren make up a lit­tle over half of those killed. Is­rael says it has killed over 17,000 mil­i­tants, with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence.

Mroue re­port­ed from Beirut. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Ab­by Sewell in Beirut con­tributed to this re­port.

By  MELANIE LID­MAN and BASSEM MROUE

JERUSALEM (AP)


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