Israel, Hezbollah exchange heaviest strikes in months, raising regional tension

JERUSALEM - Israel and Hezbollah on Sunday exchanged their heaviest strikes since the Gaza war began in October, with Israeli war planes bombing sites across southern Lebanon and Hezbollah firing a barrage of drones and rockets across the border - a dramatic but contained escalation that stopped short of all-out war.

Israel said it launched a preemptive strike on “thousands” of Hezbollah rocket and missile systems that were poised to take part in a major attack on Israeli targets. The Lebanese militant group, for its part, said the attack went according to plan, and had only targeted military installations.

Two Hezbollah members were killed, according to the group, along with a fighter from the allied Amal Movement, while state media in Lebanon reported damage to electricity and water infrastructure in the south.

Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah said the rocket volleys were meant to overwhelm Israel’s air defense systems so that drones could “pass through.” But Israeli officials said most of the more than 150 projectiles were intercepted by air defense systems, and there were no reports of deaths or injuries inside Israel.

“Nasrallah in Beirut and Khamenei in Tehran should know that this is another step on the way to changing the situation in the north,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday as he gathered his cabinet in Tel Aviv, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, Hezbollah’s main patron.

Hezbollah launched cross-border strikes on Oct. 8, the day after the Hamas assault on Israel, and has traded fire with the Israeli military nearly every day since. Tensions intensified after Israel’s targeted killing last month of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, which the group promised to avenge. Israel said Shukr was instrumental in dozens of strikes in recent months, including a rocket blast on a soccer field that killed 12 children last month in a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack.

Iran, too, has threatened to launch retaliatory attacks against Israel following the brazen July assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was attending the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran. Israel declined to comment publicly on the operation, but told Washington immediately afterward that it was responsible, U.S. officials said.

With all sides on edge, U.S. and regional diplomats have scrambled to head off a wider war by resuscitating deadlocked cease-fire talks aimed at ending the fighting in Gaza. Israeli and U.S. negotiators, including CIA Director William J. Burns, convened Sunday in Cairo.

At least 126 civilians and noncombatants and almost 400 Hezbollah fighters have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon during the tit-for-tat exchanges in recent months, according to figures compiled by The Washington Post. Hezbollah strikes have killed at least 24 civilians and 19 soldiers in that period, Israeli officials said. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced on both sides of the border.

As Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire overnight into Sunday, there were fears that the conflict had entered a new and dangerous phase. Israeli officials briefly halted flight activity at Ben Gurion Airport; Tel Aviv closed beaches, restricted recreational activities and said it was opening 240 air raid shelters.

But flights had resumed by 7 a.m. local time and Israel’s Home Front Command sounded an all-clear shortly after noon, lifting restrictions in most parts of the country.

The Israel Defense Forces said it struck the Hezbollah targets on Sunday after obtaining intelligence that the group was about to launch a major attack on targets across northern and central Israel. IDF officials would not comment on the specific targets.

Shortly before 5 a.m., after what it called “relevant conversations” with U.S. and other allied officials, the IDF said it deployed more than 100 aircraft to strike Hezbollah sites clustered in 40 areas of southern Lebanon.

“In the past hour, we identified extensive preparation by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to fire toward the Israeli Home Front,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a recorded statement posted on X at the time of the strikes. “After extensive identification, the [Israeli air force] and Northern Command began proactively and broadly striking Hezbollah targets in order to remove the threats aimed at the citizens of Israel.”

A senior American defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said Sunday that the United States was not involved in the strikes but did provide Israel with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to track incoming attacks by Hezbollah.

Sean Savett, a U.S. National Security Council spokesman, said President Joe Biden was “closely monitoring” the situation. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke Sunday with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s defense against any attacks by Iran and its regional partners and proxies,” according to a readout from the Pentagon.

Both sides signaled a desire to stop short of all-out war, at least for now.

Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, hailed the attack as a success in a televised speech Sunday evening, saying the two-phase operation - involving some 340 Katyusha rockets and dozens of drones - had been aimed at facilities involved in the killing of Shukr, including an intelligence base near Tel Aviv.

“All the rockets were launched within minutes, and all the drones crossed the border,” Nasrallah said, denying that Israeli strikes had affected the launches. Shukr’s assassination had “crossed all red lines,” he said, and Hezbollah had responded to “balance deterrence.”

“Today’s operation is over,” he concluded, adding that the group would “reserve the right to respond” as it gathered intelligence about the targets it had struck. But Lebanon, he added, “can breathe a sigh of relief.”

The Israeli military, for its part, did not report any significant damage from the attacks, reverting back to the language it has used throughout the conflict. “We are determined to change the security situation in the north,” IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said on Telegram, so that residents “can return to their homes safely.”

Residents of Haifa, a port city in northern Israel, woke up to the sounds of explosions, which continued into the morning. While some residents retreated to fortified safe rooms in their homes, less wealthy families complained they had nowhere to go amid a lack of government-provided facilities.

“Nobody I know has a shelter,” said Miriam Haddad, an Arab Christian woman who lives on a hill overlooking the port, which came under heavy fire during the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.

“If the IDF ended the war in Gaza, this all would be finished,” said Bashira Bahdadt, a 68-year-old Muslim resident of Haifa. “Every day there are more dead, dead, dead.”

Outside a Haifa coffee shop, Nurit Livnet Levanson and her partner, Galit, stood beside their 19-year-old daughter, Mika, who is serving in the Israeli air force. “We’re doing our best to be prepared for whatever will come,” Mika said.

Her mother criticized Netanyahu, saying he was looking out for his own political survival rather than the safety of people in the north. “Our prime minister is not doing his job,” she said. “We just hope for peace.”

Lebanese civilians said they were awoken by explosions far louder than the usual thud of Israeli strikes, which have become routine over the past 10 months. Some ran into streets from shaking buildings; others sheltered in doorways and corridors.

“We do not have shelters and did not leave the house because we didn’t have any place to hide,” said Hasan Zoubie. The father of two in the village of Mansouri jumped from bed when the attacks began shortly after 4 a.m. It was too dark to go outside, so he gathered his family into a corner to wait out strikes that lasted for hours.

“Not even during the 2006 [war] did we hear these loud, scary sounds,” said Samah Kashmir, 36, who lives farther north in Wadi al-Hujair. She and her extended family huddled on a balcony as the sounds of explosions rattled doors and broke windows inside their home.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz issued a message Sunday to dozens of foreign ministers, appealing for their support against Hezbollahr but stressing that Israel “is not seeking a full-scale war and will act according to developments on the ground.” Netanyahu said in statement that the military remained under instructions to “act proactively” against Hezbollah.

Arab leaders condemned the combatants for flirting with a wider conflict. Jordan, a key regional intermediary, warned in a statement of “dangerous repercussions” that threatened the “security and stability” of the Middle East. Egypt called for concerted international efforts to keep a new “war front” from opening along the Israel-Lebanon border even as negotiators worked to end the fighting in Gaza.

The pace of cross-border violence had already picked up in recent days. Israel killed seven Hezbollah fighters Friday, the highest single-day toll for the group since March. In response, Hezbollah conducted a higher-than-average salvo of 15 attacks on Israel, hitting the Meron air base and other military installations.

El Chamaa, George and Haidamous reported from Beirut and Hudson from Haifa. Kareem Fahim in Istanbul, Dan Lamothe in Washington, Niha Masih in Seoul, Rachel Pannett in Wellington, New Zealand, and Lior Soroka and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.