Hezbollah launches missile attack on Israeli military base after deadly airstrike kills 37 in Beirut | World News

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it fired a barrage of rockets at a military base inside Israel early Sunday, following an Israeli airstrike more than a day earlier that killed at least 37 people, including a top leader of the militant group, as well as women and children. It was not immediately clear whether any of the rockets had hit their target. Israel’s emergency medical services said one man was lightly wounded by shrapnel from a rocket that was intercepted in a village in the Lower Galilee.

Local media reported that rockets launched from Lebanon were intercepted in the Haifa and Nazareth areas. The Israeli military said only that it had monitored the launching of “about ten rockets” from Lebanon, most of which were intercepted.

Hezbollah claimed to have launched “dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles” – a new type of weapon the group had not used before – at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, “in response to repeated Israeli attacks that targeted several Lebanese regions and led to the downfall of many civilian martyrs.”

In July, the group had released a video with what it said was footage it had filmed from the base using surveillance drones. Israel and Hezbollah had exchanged heavy fire on Saturday as rescue workers in Beirut searched through the rubble of an apartment building that was flattened by the Israeli strike the day before.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel for a series of explosions, apparently detonated remotely, that targeted pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people – including two children – and wounding some 3,000. The attacks were largely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike flattened an eight-story building in a densely populated neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs as Hezbollah members were meeting in the basement, according to Israel. Among the dead was Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah official who commanded the group’s special forces unit, the Radwan Force. Also killed was Ahmed Wahbi, a senior commander in the group’s military wing, according to the Israeli military.

Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters on Saturday that at least seven women and three children were killed in Friday’s airstrike on the building. He added that 68 other people were wounded, including 15 who were hospitalized.

It was the deadliest attack in Beirut since a bloody month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, and the death toll could rise, with 23 people still missing, a government official said.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attack disrupted the group’s chain of command by eliminating Akil, who he said was responsible for Israeli deaths and had been on the U.S. wanted list for years.

“This is our commitment to the fallen and their loved ones. This is our commitment to the residents of the north. And this is a clear message to all those who seek to harm us,” he posted on X.

The Israeli government has prepared for an expected increase in Hezbollah rocket attacks by placing new limits on the size of gatherings and other restrictions in the north of the country, near Israel’s border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah confirms more than a dozen operatives killed
Akil, the prime target, had been sought by the United States for years for his alleged role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s. Last year, the U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his “identification, location, arrest and/or conviction.”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan called Akil’s death “a good outcome” and said he had “American blood on his hands” for the embassy attack.

“It seems like 1983 was a long time ago,” Sullivan said. “But a lot of families and a lot of people still live with that memory every day.”

Wahbi was described as a commander who played important roles within Hezbollah for decades and was imprisoned in an Israeli jail in southern Lebanon in 1984. Hezbollah said he was one of the “field commanders” during a 1997 ambush in southern Lebanon that left 12 Israeli soldiers dead.

Hezbollah announced last night that 15 of its members had been killed by Israeli forces, but did not say how or where they died. Meanwhile, Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said Saturday that 16 Hezbollah fighters were killed in Friday’s attack.

Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket attacks continue
Israel and Hezbollah clashed on Saturday in a fierce exchange of fire. The Israeli military confirmed that some 90 rockets had been fired at northern Israel and that Israel had attacked more than 400 rocket launchers in Lebanon during the day.

Israeli defense spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari anticipated an increase in rocket attacks and announced updated security guidelines for areas north of Haifa, which include limits of 30 people in open spaces and 300 in closed spaces. Work and school can continue if people can reach protected areas in time. But as students and teachers in some places would not be able to reach shelters in the required time, Sunday classes were canceled in at least two border regions within an hour of the announcement.

Earlier this week, Israel’s security cabinet said that stopping Hezbollah attacks in the north of the country, which would allow displaced residents to return to their homes, is now an official war goal, as Israel is considering a wider military operation in Lebanon that could trigger an all-out conflict. Israel has since sent a powerful combat force to its northern border.

Hezbollah has maintained that it will stop its attacks only when a ceasefire is reached between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire regularly since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel triggered Israel’s devastating military offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks had mainly hit areas of northern Israel that had been evacuated and less populated parts of southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah bombings preceded Israeli attack
Friday’s attack came hours after Hezbollah launched one of its heaviest bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting, mostly targeting Israeli military installations. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets.

The militant group said its latest wave of rocket salvos was a response to Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon. However, it came days after massive explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies killed at least 37 people, including two children, and wounded roughly 3,000 others.

Abiad, the Lebanese health minister, said on Saturday that hospitals across the country were full of wounded.

The pager and walkie-talkie attacks have been largely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. They marked a major escalation in the past 11 months of simmering conflict along the border between Israel and Lebanon.