Israel has carried out airstrikes in Lebanon in what it described as a pre-emptive action before a planned large-scale Hezbollah attack, and Hezbollah launched a drone and rocket salvo against northern Israel, in a significant escalation of a simmering cross-border conflict.
Two Hezbollah fighters and a militant from an allied group were killed in the strikes on Lebanon. An Israeli navy officer was killed and two other service members injured on a patrol boat off the coast of northern Israel that was hit by shrapnel from an Iron Dome interceptor missile, Israeli media reported.
The Iranian-backed Lebanese Shia group said it had used drones and more than 320 rockets against 11 Israeli military sites as a “first phase” of its response to the death of one of its top commanders, Fuad Shukr, in an Israeli airstrike last month. It did not say when a second phase may come.
Hezbollah said it had completed its operations, which it claimed were successful, and was unaffected by the Israeli airstrikes, but a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Nadav Shoshani, said the Hezbollah rocket and drone assault had been “part of a larger attack that was planned and we were able to thwart a big part of it this morning”.
Shoshani said 100 Israeli fighter jets took part in the pre-dawn strikes, which had destroyed Hezbollah missile launch tubes, some of which had been aimed towards central Israel.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, insisted his country did not want a full-scale war but said it would “act according to developments on the ground”. Any Hezbollah missile attack on Israeli cities would be likely to trigger a massive Israeli response that would bring the prospect of an all-out war much closer.
Even without such a missile attack, Sunday’s hostilities between the IDF and Hezbollah were the most substantial since last October, when Hezbollah fired on northern Israeli settlements in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. More than 80,000 Israelis were evacuated from the border area and the two sides have exchanged almost daily fire in recent weeks.
Israel said it still expected an “extensive” Hezbollah response and declared a 48-hour state of emergency, giving the military special powers. Sirens sounded in towns across northern Israel, Tel Aviv airport was closed for a few hours and incoming flights were diverted.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran should know that the response was “another step towards changing the situation in the north and returning our residents safely to their homes” and that “this is not the end of the story”.
The White House said the US president, Joe Biden, was monitoring events, adding that Israel had the right to self-defence but that the US would “keep working for regional stability”.
The airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket and drone salvo have come at a time when the US and its regional allies are holding talks with Israel and Hamas aimed at agreeing a ceasefire in Gaza.
The Biden administration hopes that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza would calm regional tensions and make the conflict less likely to spread. The persistent failure to reach a Gaza deal, however, makes a regional war more likely as the Palestinian death toll climbs. It is already estimated at more than 40,000, while violence is spreading across the West Bank, driven by militant Israeli settlers seeking to seize Palestinian land.
Sean Savett, a spokesperson for the US national security council, said in a written statement: “President Biden is closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon. He has been engaged with his national security team throughout the evening. At his direction, senior US officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts.
“We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability,” Savett added.
The Israeli news outlet Ynet cited reports from Lebanon saying the air force struck 40 targets.
“Most of the strikes were in the valleys [away from populated areas], and besides the Syrian, we have no injuries,” a source within a first responder organisation which serves south Lebanon, told the Guardian. Hezbollah fighters are known to use the heavily forested areas of south Lebanon for cover as they carry out attacks against Israel.
Netanyahu and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, were in an underground IDF situation room in the early hours of Sunday to oversee the airstrikes, and the country’s security cabinet was due to meet at 7am, as Israel braced for the possibility of more cross-border fire.
“Hezbollah will soon fire rockets, and possibly missiles and UAVs [drones], towards Israeli territory,” the IDF spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, said.“From right next to the homes of Lebanese civilians in the south of Lebanon, we can see that Hezbollah is preparing to launch an extensive attack on Israel, while endangering Lebanese civilians.
“Hezbollah’s ongoing aggression risks dragging the people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, and the whole region, into a wider escalation,” Hagari said.
Gallant talked to his US counterpart, the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, to update him on the unfolding situation. “Minister Gallant and Secretary Austin discussed the importance of avoiding regional escalation,” the Israeli defence ministry said in a statement.
The statement added that Gallant had “emphasised that Israel’s defence establishment is determined to defend the citizens of Israel and will use all the means at its disposal to remove imminent threats”.
A Pentagon account of the call said Austin had “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s defence against any attacks by Iran and its regional partners and proxies”.