Tel Aviv — Israel said a barrage of hundreds of rockets was fired at the north of the country Sunday by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in neighboring Lebanon. The assault came after days of devastating strikes by the Israel Defense Forces, which said it was targeting Hezbollah sites around the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Israeli officials said there were some injuries caused by the Hezbollah rocket fire, but many of the weapons were intercepted by Israel’s advanced missile defense systems.
The IDF’s intense assault on Hezbollah saw it send missiles slamming into buildings in longtime Hezbollah strongholds around Beirut over the weekend, killing dozens of people, according to Lebanese health officials.
Hezbollah started launching rockets at Israel in support of its Gaza-based Hamas allies the day after they sparked the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory with their Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack.
Israel’s exchange of fire with Iran’s most powerful so-called proxy group has been escalating in recent days despite yet another U.S. diplomatic push for a cease-fire.
American and Israeli officials said over the weekend, even as the death toll mounted in Lebanon, that a truce agreement between Hezbollah and Israel could be imminent.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Mike Herzog told Israel’s Army Radio on Monday that a cease-fire deal could be reached “within days.”
The deal in the works “is supposed to distance Hezbollah, to allow the residents of the north [of Israel] to return to their homes,” he said, referring to the Israeli government’s long-stated objective of enabling tens of thousands of residents to come back to homes abandoned close to the Lebanese border amid the Hezbollah rocket fire.
He said that if a deal was reached, Israel would maintain the right to respond to “disturbances” going forward. He said some, unspecified points still needed to be finalized in the negotiations, but added: “We are close to a deal,” and “it can happen within days.”
In lieu of any agreement thus far, tension remained high across Lebanon on Monday, where the health ministry said Israeli’s offensive against Hezbollah had killed more than 3,750 people as of Sunday, left some 15,630 more wounded and displaced about 1.4 million people from their homes. Many of the casualties have been women and children, according to the ministry.
Thaier Al-Sudani/REUTERS
All school and university classes in Beirut were cancelled by the nation’s education ministry until January, citing safety concerns in the wake of Israel’s devastating strikes over the past week.
That includes one of the deadliest strikes on central Beirut to date. Carried out over the weekend, the IDF attack killed more than 80 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
The IDF said it was targeting Hezbollah weapons and fighters embedded within the civilian population and infrastructure around Beirut.
Beirut resident Abeer Darwich disputed that, claiming Israel had “attacked peaceful people in their homes.”
Tucker Reals and
contributed to this report.
