Jerusalem:

Israel warned residents of south Lebanon “not to return” to their homes on Saturday as Hezbollah said it launched missiles across the border on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

In cities around Israel, markets were closed and public transport halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed.

But with the country at war, troops remained engaged in combat in Hamas-run Gaza and in southern Lebanon, a traditional Hezbollah stronghold, amid a firestorm of criticism over the wounding of four UN peacekeepers.

In a message addressed to south Lebanese, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X: “For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice… Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk.”

The war between Israel and Hezbollah has since September 23 killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, and forced more than a million to flee their homes.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said it had launched missiles at an Israeli army base near the northern city of Haifa.

In a statement the group said its fighters were “targeting the explosives factory there with a salvo of… missiles”.

Air raid sirens sounded in northern Israel, with the Israeli military saying it had intercepted a projectile launched from Lebanon.

Israel began pounding Gaza shortly after suffering its worst ever attacks from Iran-backed Hamas militants on October 7 last year, and it launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 30.

After the Yom Kippur holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel’s expected retaliation against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.

‘Deliberately targeted’

on Friday, Israel faced severe diplomatic backlash over what it said was a “hit” on a United Nations peacekeeping position in Lebanon.

Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were hurt in the second such incident in two days, the UNIFIL mission said Friday.

The Israeli military said its soldiers had responded with fire to “an immediate threat” around 50 metres (yards) from the UNIFIL base in Naqura.

But the Irish military’s chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was “not an accidental act” while French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the UN peacekeepers had been “deliberately targeted”.

Both Ireland and France are major contributors to UNIFIL.

As Israel faced a chorus of condemnation by UN chief Antonio Guterres, Western allies and others, its military pledged to carry out a “thorough review”.

UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon are on the frontline of the Israel-Hezbollah war, which has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.

Four peacekeepers have been injured including two Indonesians who were hurt on Thursday when a tank shot at their watchtower, according to UNIFIL.

Diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire”.

Lebanon’s military said on Friday that an Israeli strike on one of its positions in south Lebanon killed two soldiers.

In a show of support for Iran’s ally Hezbollah, the speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited on Saturday the site of a deadly Israeli strike earlier this week that, according to a source close to Hezbollah, targeted Hezbollah’s security chief Wafiq Safa.

Neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed whether Safa was indeed the target of the strike, but according to the Lebanese health ministry, the raid killed 22 people.

The visit to Lebanon, a signal of defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s second-ever direct attack.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed this week that his country’s response would be “deadly, precise and surprising”.

The United States is pushing for a “proportionate” response that would not tip the region into a wider war, with President Jore Biden urging Israel to avoid striking Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.

Gaza deaths

Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has wrought devastation and, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, killed 42,175 people, a majority civilians.

Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army laying siege to an area around Jabalia in the north, causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

“The bombardment has not stopped. Every minute there are shells, rockets and fire on the buildings and everything that moves”, Areej Nasr, 35, told AFP after fleeing from Jabalia to Gaza City Thursday.

On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in the area, including on schools being used as shelter by displaced people.

An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy artillery shelling, explosions and gunfire Saturday further south in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.

Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman, on Saturday posted another evacuation warning for an area near Jabalia.

“The specified area, including the shelters within it, is considered a dangerous combat zone,” Adraee said on X, ordering residents to move to the humanitarian zone in the southern part of the strip.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

1. On Saturday night, Hezbollah fired at least 10 missiles into northern towns and cities of Israel’s Jezreel Valley, the Times of Israel reported. This was the deepest incursion by Hezbollah rockets into Israeli territory since the conflict began in early October. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intercepted most of the missiles, but one man in his 60s suffered minor injuries from shrapnel.
2. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the missile barrage and stated that it had aimed at the Ramat David Airbase. Located 50 km from the Lebanon border, the airbase is a key strategic site for the Israeli Air Force. 
3. In response, Israeli jets carried out a series of retaliatory strikes across southern Lebanon. The IDF reported that its airstrikes targeted at least 110 Hezbollah positions, including rocket launchers and operational facilities. The IDF claims it successfully disrupted Hezbollah’s preparations for further rocket launches.
4. The IDF stated that their Saturday afternoon air raids hit approximately 290 Hezbollah sites, including thousands of rocket launcher barrels, as part of their strategy to dismantle Hezbollah’s rocket-firing capabilities. These preemptive strikes were launched to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to launch large-scale attacks on Israeli territory.
5. The intensification of Israeli airstrikes follows Hezbollah’s earlier attack on Israeli military targets, including seven positions in northern Israel and the Golan Heights. Israel’s military reported that Hezbollah had fired about 90 rockets at Israeli forces during these engagements.
6. In addition to military targets, Israel conducted an airstrike on southern Beirut, killing senior Hezbollah commanders. According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, the strike left 37 people dead. Among those killed were three children and seven women. Hezbollah confirmed that Ibrahim Aqil, the head of its elite Radwan Force, and other high-ranking commanders were among the dead. 
7. Following the loss of its commanders, Hezbollah vowed retaliation. Ahmed Mahmud Wahbi, another high-ranking Hezbollah commander, was also killed in the same Israeli strike. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah condemned the attack, calling it an act of war, and promised retribution against Israel.
8. The United Nations has expressed concern over the situation, calling for “maximum restraint” from all parties. Germany and other nations have urged an immediate de-escalation. International mediators, particularly from the United States, are working to prevent the Israel-Hezbollah conflict from spiralling into a regional war.
9. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an expansion of the country’s war objectives, including the return of northern Israeli residents, who have been forced to evacuate due to Hezbollah’s attacks. Netanyahu said the military’s focus was on dismantling Hezbollah’s ability to pose a threat to Israel’s northern borders, stating that the country’s actions speak for themselves.
10. Amid the heightened conflict, the US State Department has issued an advisory for American citizens in Lebanon, urging them to leave the country while commercial flights are still available. The US raised its travel advisory for Lebanon in July following another Israeli strike that killed a Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

A building heavily damaged in an overnight Israeli strike stands in Kfar Rumman near the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh on September 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israel dropped leaflets over a Lebanon border village on Sunday (September 15, 2024) urging residents to leave, state-run media said, but Israel’s military told media a brigade had taken the initiative without approval.

It was the first time Israelis had told residents of south Lebanon to evacuate in 11 months of cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israel over the Gaza war, triggered by Hezbollah ally Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

“The Israeli enemy dropped leaflets over Wazzani calling on those in the area and its surroundings to evacuate,” the official National News Agency said, referring to a southern border village.

Also read: Lebanon Health Ministry says three killed in Israeli strike

Wazzani mayor Ahmed al-Mohammed shared with media a picture of the leaflets that showed a map of the region with the areas marked for evacuation marked in red.

The leaflet read in Arabic: “To all residents and refugees living in the area of the camps, Hezbollah is firing from your region. You must immediately leave your homes and head north of the Khiam region before 04:00 pm (1300 GMT). Do not return to this area until the end of the war”.

It added: “Anyone present in this area after this time will be considered a terrorist.”

Wazzani is an agricultural region where Syrians are often hired to work the land.

Asked about the incident, an Israeli military spokeswoman said the leaflets had been dropped by drone in an area from which rockets had been fired into northern Israel.

“This was an initiative of the 769 Brigade, it was not approved by the Northern Command. An investigation has been opened,” she added.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli aircraft regularly drop leaflets urging residents to evacuate before an attack.

On Saturday (September 15, 2024) Hezbollah’s second-in-command Naim Qassem warned that an all-out war by Israel aimed at returning 100,000 displaced people to their homes in areas near the Lebanon border would displace “hundreds of thousands” more Israelis.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.

A view shows smoke and fire on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel, after Israel said it had noted armed group Hezbollah preparing to attack Israel and had carried out pre-emptive strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon August 25.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers in south Lebanon on Sunday morning that were aimed at northern and central Israel.

“Approximately 100 IAF fighter jets … struck and destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels that were located and embedded in southern Lebanon,” the Military said in a statement.

“Most of these launchers were aimed toward northern Israel and some were aimed toward central Israel,” they added.

Israel PM says will ‘do everything’ to restore security in north

Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority announced on Sunday (August 25, 2024) the resumption of flights to and from the country’s main international airport after a brief suspension as the Israeli military struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Operations at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv resumed at 7:00 am (0400 GMT), spokesman Roy Steinmetz said, adding that “planes diverted to other airports will also take off from Ben Gurion again.”

Muslim clergymen and other people pray during the funeral of victims killed during overnight Israeli bombardment in the village of Habariyeh in southern Lebanon on March 27, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
| Photo Credit: AFP

An Israeli airstrike on a paramedics centre linked to a Lebanese Sunni Muslim group in south Lebanon killed seven of its members early on March 27 and triggered a rocket attack from Lebanon that killed one person in northern Israel, officials said.

The strike on the village of Hebbariye came after a day of airstrikes and rocket attacks between Israel’s military and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group along the Lebanon-Israel border, raising concerns of further escalation along the frontier that has been active for the past five months of the Israel-Hamas war.

The airstrike after midnight hit an office of the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps, according to the Lebanese Ambulance Association. It was one of the deadliest single attacks since violence erupted along the border.

The paramedics association listed the names of seven volunteers who were killed in the strike. It said the strike was “a flagrant violation of humanitarian work.”

Hebbariye resident Ali Noureddine said the seven dead were pulled out from the rubble before sunrise on Wednesday.

Muheddine Qarhani, head of the Emergency and Relief Corps, told reporters at the scene that the center that was struck was set up late last year, after the latest round of violence broke out. He said they were surprised that a paramedic group was targeted.

“They were here waiting to respond to a rescue call and ended up getting hit by missiles that brought the building over their heads,” he said.

The Israeli military said it struck a military building in Hebbariye and killed a member of Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and several other militants. It said the man was involved in attacks against Israel.

Hours later, Hezbollah said it retaliated against the airstrike by firing dozens of rockets Wednesday morning on the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona and a military base there.

Rescue services in Israel said that a 25 year-old man was killed when a direct hit sparked a fire in an industrial park in Kiryat Shmona. Footage from the scene showed thick black smoke pouring out of a building.

Another person was lightly injured. Around 30 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel, according to the Israeli military.

Nada Khleif was in her small bakery in Hebbariyeh when the strike heavily damaged her business and a nearby apartment, where two of her relatives were unharmed.

“The bakery was my only means of living. It is gone now,” she said.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group began launching rockets toward Israel one day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7. The near-daily violence has mostly been confined to the area along the Lebanon-Israel border, and international mediators are scrambling to prevent an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The fighting has killed nine civilians and 11 soldiers in Israel. Nearly 240 Hezbollah fighters and about 40 civilians have died in Lebanon.