Hezbollah, Israel exchange heavy fire in ‘new phase’ of fighting

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By Timour Azhari and Miro Maman

BEIRUT/HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) -Hezbollah and Israel exchanged heavy fire into Sunday, as the Lebanese militant group sent rockets deep into northern Israeli territory after facing some of the most intense bombardment in almost a year of conflict.

Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem told mourners at the funeral of one of the group’s commanders killed last week in Beirut: “We have entered a new phase, the title of which is the open-ended battle of reckoning.”

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said operations would continue until it was safe for evacuated people on his side of the border to return – also setting the stage for a long conflict as Hezbollah has vowed to fight on until a ceasefire in the parallel Gaza war.

The conflict – which sharply escalated over the past week – has raged since Iran-backed Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians facing an Israeli offensive further south in Gaza.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded in an attack widely blamed on Israel but which it has not confirmed or denied responsibility for.

The next day, Israel launched its heaviest bombardment of Lebanon yet. Friday saw Hezbollah’s senior commander and founder of the elite Radwan forces, Ibrahim Aqil, killed along with several other senior military figures in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburb.

Saturday again saw unprecedented bombardment that the Israeli military said struck around 290 targets, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels.

“In recent days we have inflicted a series of blows on Hezbollah that it never imagined,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement on Sunday. “If Hezbollah has not understood the message, I promise you, it will understand the message.”

SIRENS SOUND, SCHOOLS CLOSED

Speaking at Aqil’s funeral in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday afternoon, Hezbollah’s Qassem said Israel was seeking to paralyse the group, but would not succeed.

Qassem said Israel’s escalation of the conflict would lead to further displacement of its own citizens.

Israel has closed schools, restricted gatherings in the north and ordered hospitals there to move patients and staff to protected areas – many have secured or underground facilities designed to withstand rocket fire.

Air raid sirens sounded constantly in Israel on Sunday. About 150 rockets, cruise missiles and drones were fired at Israel overnight and into Sunday, most of which were intercepted by air defences, including an “aerial target” that came from the east, the military said.

Several buildings were struck, including a house badly damaged near the Israeli city of Haifa. Rescue teams treated wounded but there were no reports of deaths. Residents had been instructed to stay near bomb shelters and safe rooms.

Hezbollah said it hit a barracks and another Israeli position with squadrons of attack drones on Sunday, and also launched rockets at military-industrial facilities in an “initial response” to the device attacks last week.

An official in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a grouping of Iran-backed armed factions, said they launched cruise missile and explosive drone attacks at Israel at dawn on Sunday as part of “a new phase in our support front” with Lebanon.

“Escalation in Lebanon means escalation from Iraq,” the official said.

The move will stoke fears that the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon could spread into the rest of the region.

CHRISTIAN CLERIC MOURNS

The U.N. special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasscharet, said in a post on X that “with the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer”.

Lebanon’s top Christian cleric Bechara Boutros al-Rai said in his sermon on Sunday that Lebanon was “deeply saddened” by the casualties among civilians and within Hezbollah in this week’s attacks, in a very rare case of the Christian leader expressing condolences to the group.

“We direct an appeal to the (United Nations Security Council) to put an end to this war by all available means,” Rai said.

Israel wants Hezbollah to cease fire and withdraw forces from the border region, adhering to a U.N. resolution signed with Israel in 2006, irrespective of any Gaza deal.

Tens of thousands of people have left their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza.

The Gaza conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the enclave has killed more than 41,300 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, plunging Gaza into a humanitarian crisis and displacing nearly the entire 2.3 million-strong population.

(Reporting by Muhammad Al Gebaly, Timour Azhari, Maya Gebeily, Hatem Maher, Adam Makary, Ari Rabinovitch and Emily RoseWriting by Lincoln Feast and Ari RabinovitchEditing by William Mallard, Frances Kerry and Andrew Heavens)