Hezbollah fires 250 rockets & projectiles from Lebanon into northern, central Israel

Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel on Sunday, 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 cease-fire efforts to halt the all-out war.

Some of the rockets 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 southwest between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon’s military said. The Israeli military expressed regret, saying that the strike occurred in an area of combat against Hezbollah and that the military’s operations are directed solely against the militants.

Israeli strikes have killed over 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 cease-fire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

Hezbollah fires rockets after strikes on Beirut Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes at Hezbollah, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several top commanders.

The Israeli military said some of the projectiles fired Sunday were 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, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast in the central city of Petah Tikva and a 70-year-old woman who suffered smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire there.

In Haifa, a rocket hit a residential building that police said was in danger of collapsing. It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by rockets or interceptors.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that at least 44,211 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.

The toll includes 35 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,567 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

With inputs from agencies.