Hezbollah has fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut while negotiators pressed on with ceasefire efforts to halt the all-out war.
Some of the rockets fired on Sunday reached the Tel Aviv area in the heart of Israel.
Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on an army centre killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded 18 others in the south-west between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon’s military said. The Israeli military expressed regret, saying the strike occurred in an area of combat against Hezbollah and that the military’s operations were directed solely against the militants.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 40 Lebanese troops since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, even as Lebanon’s military has largely kept to the sidelines.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the latest strike as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’ 7 October attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there last year. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.
Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes at Hezbollah, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war as Israel launched airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said about 250 projectiles were fired on Sunday, with some intercepted.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated seven people, including a 60-year-old man in severe condition from rocket fire on northern Israel.
Throughout the war, Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,700 people in Lebanon, according to the health ministry, while fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardment in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. About 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.
The European Union’s top diplomat called on Sunday for more pressure on Israel and Hezbollah to reach a ceasefire deal, saying one was “pending with a final agreement from the Israeli government.”
Josep Borrell spoke after meeting with Mikati and Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has been mediating with the group. Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200m euros ($208m) to assist the Lebanese military.
But Borrell later said that he did not “see the Israeli government interested clearly in reaching an agreement for a ceasefire” and that it seemed Israel was seeking new conditions. He pointed to Israel’s refusal to accept France as a member of the international committee that would oversee the ceasefire’s implementation.
The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN security council resolution that ended the month-long 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol with the presence of UN peacekeepers.
With talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza stalled, freed hostages and families of those held marked a year since the war’s only hostage-release deal.
“It’s hard to hold on to hope, certainly after so long and as another winter is about to begin,” said Yifat Zailer, cousin of Shiri Bibas, who is held along with her husband and two young sons.
About 100 hostages are still in Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead. Most of the rest of the 250 who were abducted in the 7 October Hamas attack were released in last year’s ceasefire.