Hezbollah retaliates against Israel with drone and rocket barrage – live

Israel sustained “very little damage” from Hezbollah’s rocket attacks this morning, the military said after an initial assessment.

“We’re still in a situation assessment of the aftermath of the attack… there is still some fire happening,” Israeli military spokesperson lieutenant-colonel Nadav Shoshani said, adding that the military remained on high alert.

“But I can tell you there was a little damage… very little damage.” He said around 100 Israeli aircraft took part in Sunday’s strikes.

Hezbollah is also expected to issue a statement soon to provide more details on what it says it hit.

Israel’s spy chief David Barnea will head an Israeli delegation to the Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo today, Israel’s Army Radio reported, citing diplomatic officials.

The fresh round of ceasefire talks aimed at ending the Israel-Hamas war will be taking place hours after Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy strikes this morning, marking an escalation.

Hezbollah has said it will halt the fighting if there is a cease-fire in Gaza.

A 20-year-old Sergeant, Amit Tsadikov, has been killed in combat in southern Gaza, according to Israeli military.

According to Israel’s Ynetnews, approximately 337 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive on the Palestinian enclave since 7 October.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel would take all measures necessary to defend itself, after the Iranian-backed Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel in retaliation for the killing of a senior commander.

“We are determined to do everything possible to defend our country, to return the residents of the north safely to their homes and to continue to uphold a simple rule: Whoever harms us, we harm him,” he said in a statement.

One person has died after an Israeli airstrike hit a car in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam on Sunday, according to Lebanon’s state news agency and a security source.

The strike was part of broader Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah launched a missile barrage across the border in retaliation for the assassination of one of its top commanders in an Israeli strike last month.

“Israel does not seek a full-scale war but will act according to development on the ground,” Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz has said, according to the Reuters news agency.

Hezbollah said it fired more than 320 Katyusha rockets at 11 Israeli military bases and barracks, including the Meron base and four sites in the occupied Golan Heights.

It targeted Israeli military bases to “facilitate the passage of drones” towards their desired targets deep inside Israel.

“The first phase has been completed with complete success,” the statement reads.

“This phase involved targeting zionist barracks and sites to facilitate the passage of attack drones towards their intended targets deep within the entity.”

“And the drones have passed as planned,” it said.

In the US, a spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean Savett, said president Joe Biden was “closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon.

“At his direction, senior US officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts,” Savett said. “We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability.”

In recent weeks, diplomats from the US and Europe have made numerous visits to Israel and Lebanon, trying to prevent the escalation from spiralling into a regional war that could draw in the US and Iran.