Israel struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Iran-backed Islamist militant organisation fired rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday, a day after a wave of Israeli airstrikes killed nearly 500 people in Lebanon and sent tens of thousands fleeing for safety.
Hezbollah said it had targeted several Israeli military targets overnight including an explosives factory about 35 miles (60km) into Israel and the Megiddo airfield near the town of Afula, which it attacked three separate times.
Officials in Israel said more than 50 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into northern parts of the country on Tuesday morning, most of which were intercepted.
The fighting has raised fears that the US, Israel’s close ally, and Iran, which has proxies across the Middle East, will be drawn into a wider conflict. On Tuesday Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, expressed fears of a regional conflagration but said Hezbollah, which Iran helped to found in 1983, “cannot stand alone” against Israel.
“Hebzollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by western countries, by European countries and the United States,” Pezeshkian said in an interview with CNN translated from Farsi to English.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, described the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah as almost a “full-fledged war”, as world leaders gathered in New York for the opening of the 79th United Nations general assembly.
“If this is not a war situation, I don’t know what you would call it,” Borrell said before the UN gathering, citing the increasing number of civilian casualties and the intensity of military strikes. He said efforts to reduce tensions were continuing but Europe’s worst fears about a spillover were becoming a reality.
That warning was echoed by the US, with a senior state department official saying Washington was discussing “concrete ideas” with allies and partners to prevent the war from broadening.
Diplomatic efforts appear to have had little impact so far, with Lebanon recording more casualties on Monday than in any other single day since the 15-year civil war that started in 1975.
Israeli officials have said the recent rise in airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon is designed to force the group to agree to a diplomatic solution, cease its own attacks on Israel or unilaterally withdraw its forces from close to the contested border.
Many experts and officials question the assumption that air power or other military operations can achieve such strategic aims. Others point out that Hezbollah has repeatedly pledged to stop firing into Israel if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
A US state department official said: “I can’t recall, at least in recent memory, a period in which an escalation or intensification led to a fundamental de-escalation and led to profound stabilisation of the situation.”
After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza, Israel has shifted its focus to its northern frontier. About 60,000 people were evacuated from northern Israel in the days after the 7 October raid by Hamas into southern Israel that triggered the conflict, and they have been prevented from returning by the ongoing exchanges of fire across the contested border with Lebanon.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, has said the campaign of airstrikes will continue until the residents are back in their homes. He said Monday marked a “significant peak” in the nearly year-long conflict.
“This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment – the results speak for themselves,” Gallant said. “Entire units were taken out of battle as a result of the activities conducted at the beginning of the week in which numerous terrorists were injured.”
The Israeli military said Israeli strikes had hit long-range cruise missiles, heavyweight rockets, short-range rockets and explosive drones.
Though Hezbollah has remained defiant, there is no doubt that the waves of strikes have further ramped up pressure on the group, which was already reeling from heavy losses last week when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.
That operation killed 42 and wounded several thousand. It was widely blamed on Israel, which has not confirmed nor denied responsibility.
The US has said it would send a small number of additional troops to the Middle East, given the escalating tensions.
The Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, urged the UN and world powers to deter what he called Israel’s “plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns”. He said he was cancelling a scheduled cabinet meeting to fly to New York to “make further contacts” with leaders to try to end the violence.
In Lebanon, displaced families slept in shelters hastily set up in schools in Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon. With hotels quickly booked to capacity or rooms priced beyond the means of many families, those who did not find shelter slept in their cars, in parks or along the seaside.
Well-wishers offered up empty apartments or rooms in their houses in social media posts, while volunteers set up a kitchen at an empty petrol station in Beirut to cook meals for the displaced.
In the eastern city of Baalbek, the state-run National News Agency reported that queues formed at bakeries and petrol stations as residents rushed to stock up on essential supplies in anticipation of further strikes.
In northern Israel, Galilee Medical Center said two people arrived with minor head injuries from a rocket falling near their car. Several others were being treated for light wounds from running to shelters and traffic accidents when alarms sounded.
Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly called for the Israel-Lebanon border crisis to be resolved through diplomacy, but in a call with Gallant on Monday he said the US “remains postured to protect US forces and personnel and determined to deter any regional actors from exploiting the situation or expanding the conflict”.
French officials have requested an emergency UN security council meeting to discuss the situation and called on all sides to avoid a regional conflagration.
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, expressed support for Lebanon and condemned what he termed “indiscriminate attacks against civilians”, Beijing’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.