Israel face ‘battle of reckoning’ warns Hezbollah as war ‘enters new phase’ after wave of explosions rocked Lebanon --[Reported by Umva mag]

ISRAEL will face an “open-ended battle of reckoning”, Hezbollah has warned as they vowed to “enter a new phase of war” with their enemies on the border.

More than 100 rockets, cruise missiles, and drones were launched by the terror group in the north of the country on Sunday, just days after the pager and walkie-talkie blitz in Lebanon.

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First responders and Israeli security forces gather amid debris and charred vehicles in Kiryat Bialik in the Haifa district of Israel[/caption]

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The destroyed homes in Israel after Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets overnight[/caption]

AFP

Flames also engulfed nearby homes[/caption]

X/@IDF

Vehicles were seen ablaze in the streets of northern Israel[/caption]

X / @AggregateOsint

Israel’s iron dome in action[/caption]

MDA / Haaretz

A 17-year-old was killed after losing control of his car in Jezreel Valley as rocket sirens blasted[/caption]

Hezbollah forces on Israel’s northern border launched the huge barrage towards the coastal city of Haifa, wounding five people and killing a teenage driver who crashed his car in panic.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defences and air forces thwarted the salvo but buildings were left peppered with shrapnel and ablaze after rocket debris rained down.

Israel had hoped the stunning success of its attacks would halt the daily cross-border rocket blitz which has forced 80,000 people to flee south.

But embattled Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s determination to step up the fight could soon make a ground invasion of southern Lebanon inevitable.

The terror group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem on Sunday said his group was in a “new phase” in its battle against Israel, which it has waged from across the Lebanese border since the Gaza war erupted.

“We have entered a new phase, namely an open reckoning” with Israel, Qassem said at the funeral of a senior Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike this week.

“Threats will not stop us… We are ready to face all military possibilities,” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since made his first veiled admission that his Mossad agents were behind the stunning booby trap attacks which killed 37 and left hundreds maimed.

He said on Sunday: “Over the past few days we hit Hezbollah with a string of strikes that it didn’t imagine.

“If Hezbollah didn’t get the message, I promise you, it will get the message.

“We are determined to return our residents safely to their homes. No country can tolerate fire at its residents, rocket fire at its cities.”

Hezbollah’s longest range attack on Israel since October 7 came as more drones and cruise missiles launched by their allies in Iraq were also shot down.

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq said it has launched attacks, intercepted at Be’er Ora, close to Israel’s southern border at Eilat “in support of our people in Gaza.”

Israeli Defence Forces war jets went on to blitz 400 Hezbollah launch sites near the border as schools in Haifa were closed and hospital patients moved to secure locations.

The rocket barrage overnight set off air raid sirens across northern Israel, sending thousands of people scrambling into shelters.

The Israeli military said rockets had been fired toward civilian areas, pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the IDF said earlier on Sunday: “Hezbollah’s terrorism targets civilians.

“Hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians spent their night hiding in bomb shelters, while barrages of rockets were flying over their heads, some hitting their homes, and rocket alert sirens were constantly sounding throughout the night.

“Thousands of children will stay in bomb shelters today instead of going to school due to the risk to their lives.

“We must stop this reality.”

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Emergency personnel work at a site of houses damaged following a rocket attack from Lebanon[/caption]

AFP

First responders and Israeli security forces gather amid debris and charred vehicles in Kiryat Bialik[/caption]

X / @AggregateOsint

Homes in northern Israel were destroyed and seen on fire[/caption]

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said on Sunday it treated four people for shrapnel wounds, including a 76-year-old man who was moderately wounded in Kiryat Bialik, a community near Haifa where buildings were damaged and cars set on fire.

Hundreds of patients were rushed into underground hospital bunkers as rockets rained on northern Israel on Sunday.

Health chiefs ordered the move after spending months preparing fortified facilities to counter the growing threat.

Medical care was being shifted underground in the northern coastal city of Haifa with similar moves ordered in Safed, Nahariya, Afula, Tiberias and Nazareth.

Only essential cases were receiving treatment while all routine operations were cancelled as health services entered a state of emergency.

Rambam Hospital in Haifa was moving to its fortified underground parking lot.

The decision came following urgent talks over worsening security between the hospital’s management and the director-general of the Health Ministry.

A spokesperson for Rambam told Hebrew-language outlets that it would take several hours to move patients to the fortified underground area.

Health ministry chiefs later confirmed all hospitals and other medical facilities in northern Israel had been instructed to operate in “protected areas”.

Tensions were at boiling point following Israel’s devastating pager and walkie-talkie blitz of terrorist fighters and a missile strike which wiped out 16 top commanders.

The Israeli military said it carried out a wave of strikes across southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours, hitting some 400 militant sites, including rocket launchers.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said those strikes had thwarted an even larger attack.

He said: “Hundreds of thousands of civilians have come under fire across a lot of northern Israel. They spent the night and now the morning in bomb shelters.

“Today we saw fire that was deeper into Israel than before.”

AP

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Residents and the military assess the damage to an apartment block in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon[/caption]

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People stand on cars which were hit with flying debris in Friday’s air attack[/caption]

Israeli media reported that rockets fired from Lebanon early Sunday were intercepted in the areas of Haifa and Nazareth, which are further south than most of the rocket fire to date.

Israel cancelled school across the north, deepening the sense of crisis.

Hezbollah on Sunday 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 the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided the West Bank bureau of Al-Jazeera, which it had banned earlier this year, accusing it of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups, allegations denied by the pan-Arab broadcaster.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire since the outbreak of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, when the militant group began firing rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas.

The low-level fighting has killed dozens of people in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the frontier.

In recent weeks, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to Lebanon and vowed to bring back calm to the border so that its citizens can return to their homes.

IDF commander, Major General Uri Gordin said: “We have significantly harmed Hezbollah and we will continue and deepen the harm. We are at a point of change. Along with the defence mission, we are in high readiness for the additional attack plans on Hezbollah.”

But Israel does not want war with Lebanon, the Israeli president said on Sunday.

President Isaac Herzog was asked about the risk of a wider regional war breaking out in the Middle East.

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Israeli soldiers close Al Jazeera television’s office in Ramallah, West Bank on Sunday[/caption]

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This image made from video provided by Al Jazeera English shows Israeli troops raiding their bureau in Ramallah, West Bank[/caption]

He told Sky News that Israel is in a “dangerous situation” and says there is “clearly the potential of escalating dramatically”.

On whether Israel is now at war with Lebanon, he explained: “Israel is not interested to be at war with Lebanon. We do not want to get into a war with Lebanon.

“But Lebanon has been hijacked by a terror organisation which is also a political party called Hezbollah.”

The president then raises an image of Hezbollah’s military commanders that was released by the Israeli Defence Forces yesterday, emphasising the people that have been murdered in Friday’s Israeli airstrike on Beirut.

Hezbollah has said it will only halt its attacks if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, which appears increasingly elusive as long-running talks led by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly bogged down.

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike took down an eight-story building in a densely populated neighborhood in Beiruts southern suburbs as Hezbollah members were meeting in the basement, according to Israel.

Among those killed was Ibrahim Akil, a top Hezbollah official who commanded the groups special forces unit, known as the Radwan Force.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, told reporters Saturday that at least seven women and three children were killed in Fridays airstrike on the building.

He said another 68 people were injured, including 15 who were hospitalised.

It was the deadliest strike on Beirut since the bruising month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, and the casualty count could grow, with 23 people still missing, a government official said.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attack broke up the groups chain of command while taking out Akil, who he said was responsible for Israeli deaths.

Akil had been on the U.S. most wanted list for years, with a $7 million reward, over his alleged role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon during the civil war in the 1980s.

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