Israel has carried out airstrikes in Lebanon in what it described as a pre-emptive action ahead of a planned large-scale Hezbollah attack, raising the risk of a regional war in the Middle East.
Hezbollah meanwhile announced it had carried out an attack with drones and more than 320 rockets against 11 Israeli military sites on Sunday morning as a “first phase” of its response to the death of one of its top commanders, Fuad Shukr, in an Israeli airstrike last month. It did not say when a second phase might come and how it might respond to the Israeli airstrikes, which its statement did not mention.
Israel said it still expected an “extensive” Hezbollah response and declared a 48-hour state of emergency, giving the military special powers. Sirens sounded in towns across northern Israel, the Tel Aviv airport was closed for a few hours and incoming flights were diverted.
The White House said Joe Biden was monitoring events, adding that Israel had the right to self-defence but that the US would “keep working for regional stability”.
The airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket and drone salvo have come at a time when the US and its regional allies are holding talks with Israel and Hamas aimed at agreeing a ceasefire in Gaza.
The Biden administration hopes that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza would calm regional tensions and make the conflict less likely to spread. The persistent failure to reach a Gaza deal however makes a regional war more likely as the Palestinian death toll climbs. It is already estimated at over 40,000, while violence is spreading across the West Bank, driven by militant Israeli settlers seeking to seize Palestinian land.
Sean Savett, a spokesperson for the US national security council, said in a written statement: “President Biden is closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon. He has been engaged with his national security team throughout the evening. At his direction, senior US officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts.
“We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability,” Savett added.
The Israeli news agency Ynet cited reports from Lebanon saying the air force struck 40 targets. A medical source told the Guardian that one person had been killed in an Israeli drone strike on a car in the town of Khiam, south Lebanon, while at least four others were reported as injured in separate strikes.
“Most of the strikes were in the valleys [away from populated areas], and besides the Syrian, we have no injuries,” a source within a first responder organisation which serves south Lebanon, told the Guardian. Hezbollah fighters are known to use the heavily forested areas of south Lebanon for cover as they carry out attacks against Israel.
In a written statement, Hezbollah said it had launched drones and more than 320 Katyusha rockets against 11 military targets in Israel.
The Iran-backed Lebanese Shia group described the salvo as the successful “first phase” of its retribution for Israel’s killing of Fuad Shukr, a high-ranking military commander, in an airstrike on a building in south Beirut at the end of July. The Hezbollah statement said further details of Hezbollah’s military actions would be published soon.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, were in an underground Israel Defense Forces (IDF) situation room in the early hours of Sunday to oversee the airstrikes, and the country’s security cabinet was due to meet at 7am, as Israel braced for the possibility of more cross-border fire.
“Hezbollah will soon fire rockets, and possibly missiles and UAVs [drones], towards Israeli territory,” the IDF spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, said.“From right next to the homes of Lebanese civilians in the south of Lebanon, we can see that Hezbollah is preparing to launch an extensive attack on Israel, while endangering Lebanese civilians.
“Hezbollah’s ongoing aggression risks dragging the people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, and the whole region, into a wider escalation,” Hagari said.
Gallant talked to his US counterpart, defence secretary Lloyd Austin, to update him on the unfolding situation. “Minister Gallant and Secretary Austin discussed the importance of avoiding regional escalation,” the Israeli defence ministry said in a statement.
But the statement added that Gallant had “emphasised that Israel’s defence establishment is determined to defend the citizens of Israel and will use all the means at its disposal to remove imminent threats”.
A Pentagon account of the call said Austin had “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s defence against any attacks by Iran and its regional partners and proxies”.