TEL AVIV: Israel’s army said Hezbollah fired around 160 projectiles into its territory from Lebanon on Sunday, with the Lebanese group saying its attacks had targeted the Tel Aviv area as Israel escalated its bombardment of Lebanon and Gaza.
“As of 15:00 (1300 GMT), approximately 160 projectiles that were fired by the Hezbollah have crossed from Lebanon into Israel today,” the army said. Medical agencies reported that several people had been injured, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it had “launched, for the first time, an aerial attack using a swarm of attack drones on the Ashdod naval base” in southern Israel.
Later, it said it fired “a barrage of advanced missiles and a swarm of attack drones” at a “military target” in Tel Aviv, and had also launched a volley of missiles at the Glilot army intelligence base in the city’s suburbs.
The Israeli military did not comment on the specific attack claims when contacted by AFP.
But it said earlier that air raid sirens had sounded in several locations in central and northern Israel, including in the greater Tel Aviv suburbs.
The wave of projectiles follows at least four deadly Israeli strikes in central Beirut in the past week, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
In a speech on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem had said the response to the recent strikes on the capital “must be expected on central Tel Aviv”.
The Lebanese army, meanwhile, said that a soldier was killed on Sunday and 18 others injured, “including some with severe wounds, as a result of an Israeli attack targeting a Lebanese army centre in Amriyeh”.
Though the Lebanese army is not a party to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli strikes have killed 19 Lebanese soldiers in the last two months, authorities have said.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops after nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, which sparked the Gaza war.
Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them since September this year.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military also escalated its military campaign in Gaza. Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 35 Palestinians were killed and 94 wounded in Israeli military attacks during the latest 24-hour.
Israeli forces issued new evacuation orders for Gaza City’s Shujayea, prompting hundreds of Palestinians to flee after a day in which 38 people were killed across the enclave.
Since October 7, 2023, at least 44,176 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in the ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza, the territory’s health ministry said, which the United Nations considers reliable.
READ ALSO: Over 55 Killed in Israeli Strikes in Lebanon
Gaza’s civil defence agency said a drone attack overnight seriously injured a hospital chief in an attack on the healthcare facility, and 11 people were killed in Israeli raids on the Palestinian territory.
Hussam Abu Safia heads the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza, as the Palestinian territory is in the grip of a dire humanitarian crisis, Al Jazeera reported.
Abu Safia suffered an injury to his back and left thigh from metal fragments after an attack on the hospital complex, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal told AFP.
On Saturday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “reiterated US commitment to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the border”, a Pentagon spokesperson said.
United States envoy Amos Hochstein was in Lebanon and Israel this week, meeting with both countries’ senior officials, to try to negotiate an end to the war.
After talks in Beirut, he said a deal was “within our grasp” but as he headed to Israel both sides put out statements that dented hopes of rapid progress.
