Israel’s military said its air force struck on Saturday thousands of rocket launchers in southern Lebanon that posed an ‘immediate’ threat, as fears grew of all-out war with Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Israeli aircraft ‘struck thousands of launcher barrels that were ready for immediate use to fire toward Israeli territory’ as well as ‘approximately 180’ other, unspecified targets, a military statement said.
The military said Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired some 90 rockets at Israel on Saturday as cross-border exchanges again intensified, raising fears of all-out war.
Hezbollah said it fired rockets at two military positions in northern Israel on Saturday, as the Israeli military said it was carrying out new strikes against Hezbollah targets.
In separate statements, the Iran-backed group said it fired ‘a salvo of Katyusha rockets’ each at two Israeli barracks ‘in response’ to Israeli attacks ‘on steadfast southern villages and civilian houses’.
Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati said Saturday he had cancelled a trip to the United Nations General Assembly and decried ‘horrific massacres’ after deadly attacks in Lebanon blamed on Israel.
Mikati said in a statement that he cancelled his trip ‘in light of the developments linked to the Israeli aggression on Lebanon’, after this week saw an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs and attacks on Hezbollah devices blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah movement, which has been exchanging fire with Israel for months, on Saturday announced that two commanders of its elite operations unit had been killed by an Israeli strike on Beirut, which authorities said left 37 people dead.
Health minister Firass Abiad said three children were also killed in Friday’s strike on an underground meeting room, which AFP journalists said left a huge crater in a densely populated neighbourhood of the capital’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Israel said the strike killed the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil, and several other commanders.
The Iran-backed group later said it targeted at least seven military positions in northern Israel and the annexed Golan Heights with rockets, and AFP correspondents reported heavy Israeli strikes in south Lebanon.
Abiad, Lebanon’s health minister, said emergency services worked ‘through the night’ to recover victims from the Beirut strike, adding that ‘a residential building collapsed on top of occupants’ after the Israeli attack.
The Radwan Force has spearheaded Hezbollah’s ground operations, and Israel has repeatedly demanded through international mediators that its fighters be pushed back from the border.
Hezbollah said a second senior commander, Ahmed Mahmud Wahbi, was also killed on Friday. It said he headed the group’s operations against Israel from the onset of the Gaza war in October until the start of this year.
Confirming the death of Aqil, who was wanted by the United States for involvement in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, Hezbollah hailed him as ‘one of its great leaders’.
It was the second Israeli strike on Hezbollah’s military leadership since the Gaza war began. In July, an Israeli strike on Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a top operations chief.
Friday’s strike also followed sabotage attacks on pagers and two-way radios used by Hezbollah on Tuesday and Wednesday, which killed 39 people. Hezbollah blamed Israel, which has not commented.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed Thursday that Israel would face retribution for those blasts.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the world body was ‘very concerned about the heightened escalation’ and called for ‘maximum restraint’ from all sides.
Israel’s military said it conducted a ‘targeted strike’ against Aqil, which a source close to Hezbollah said killed 16 Radwan Force members.
‘The command of the Radwan Force was meeting in the basement of the building,’ the source said.