The shells hit the suburbs of Haifa, one of Israel’s main northern cities, leaving one building in flames, another filled with shrapnel and vehicles incinerated, Israeli troops said.
“Israel will not tolerate attacks against its inhabitants and cities”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
After almost a year of war between the Palestinian movement Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Stripthe front moved this week to the border with Lebanon, in the midst of a military escalation between Israeli troops and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. The Israeli army announced early Sunday morning new bombings against targets of the Islamist movement in southern Lebanon, after it fired more than 100 rockets at residential areas in northern Israel.
“During the night and into the early hours of the morning, Some 150 rockets, cruise missiles and drones were fired at Israeli territory, most of them towards the north,” The force said in a statement, adding that there were “a small number of impacts” but no “major damage.”
For its part, Hezbollah declared that it had attacked facilities Israeli military production and an air base in the Haifa area, “A first response” to the deadly explosions of their communications equipment on Tuesday and Wednesday. “Hundreds of thousands of people had to flee to bomb shelters in northern Israel,” army spokesman Nadav Shoshani told AFP.
The Israeli Civil Defense agency ordered the closure of schools until Monday afternoon in the regions in the north of the country, some of them located 80 kilometres from the border with Lebanon.
US raises alert level
The US State Department on Saturday raised the alert level in Lebanon to category four, “do not travel,” and urged all its citizens in the country to leave the territory while commercial flights are available, after Beirut authorities acknowledged that the situation had become “delicate and dangerous” and required “a state of constant vigilance and total readiness.”
Amid the escalation of violence that broke out this week in Israel’s neighbouring country, which has intensified in recent days, the Biden administration issued a statement encouraging its nationals “to leave Lebanon while commercial options remain available,” stressing that, as a result of “the unpredictable nature of the conflict (…) and the recent explosions,” flights are already operating “at a reduced capacity.” The warning also extends to “citizens in southern Lebanon, near the borders with Syria, and in refugee settlements.”
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The UN warning
“Even though the region is on the brink of imminent catastrophe, we will not tire of saying it: There is no military solution that provides greater security to any of the parties.“warned the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, on Sunday.
In Iraq, pro-Iranian armed groups claimed on Sunday drone fire towards Israel, whose authorities said they had intercepted “several suspicious flying objects” originating from that country.
The escalation on the border between Israel and Lebanon prompted Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati to cancel his participation in the UN General Assembly in New York, while calling for “an end to the terrible Israeli massacres.”
Behind him Failure of ceasefire negotiations in GazaIsrael announced Tuesday that it was including the border with Lebanon among its war targets to allow the return of tens of thousands of residents displaced by the violence.
The war in the Strip broke out on October 7, 2023 following an attack by the Palestinian Hamas movement in Israel, which killed 1,205 people, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli figures.
Of the 251 people kidnapped during the Islamist incursion, 97 remain captive in the enclave, of whom 33 were declared dead by the Israeli army.
The Israeli offensive has killed at least 41,431 Palestinians, according to figures from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-ruled territory, which the UN considers reliable.
Source: Ambito
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