Rockets hit Lebanon: Hezbollah and Israel are at war after a deadly Israeli attack

Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire on Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment of southern Lebanon in nearly a year of war, while Hezbollah claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on military targets in northern Israel.

The Israeli army announced that it had hit about 290 targets on Saturday, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers, and said it would continue to hit the targets of the Iran-backed movement.

Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many northern parts of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early Sunday.

Sirens sounded all nightć while several rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems, the army said.

Israeli media reported that a number of buildings were hit directly or by falling projectile fragments, and emergency services reported that they treated some lightly injured people. There are no reports of other casualties.

Hezbollah said it hit Israel’s Ramat David air base with dozens of missiles in response to “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon,” the group said early Sunday on its Telegram channel.

The successive barrage rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah on Ramat David are the deepest strikes it has undertaken since the start of hostilities.

Iraqi militants, who are also supported by Iran, claimed in a statement that they carried out a drone attack on Israel early on Sunday.

The escalating attacks come less than 48 hours after an Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah commanders killed at least 37 people in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, according to authorities.

Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed group, confirmed that senior commander Ibrahim Akil and second-in-command Ahmed Wahbi were among the 16 members killed Friday in the deadliest attack in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.

The Israeli military said it struck an underground gathering of Akil and other commanders of Hezbollah’s elite Radvan force, and almost completely destroyed their military chain of command.

The attack flattened a multi-story apartment building in a crowded suburb and damaged a neighboring kindergarten, a security source said.

Among the dead were three children and seven women, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced.

Friday’s attack sharply escalated the conflict and dealt another blow to Hezbollah after two days of attacks that blew up pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members.

The death toll from the attacks, believed to have been carried out by Israel, rose to 39 with more than 3,000 injured.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

As an initial retaliation for the attacks with explosive devices, Hezbollah announced on Sunday on its Telegram channel that it had launched rockets at Israeli military industry facilities.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he was concerned about the escalation, but that Israel’s killing of a Hezbollah leader was justified.

Hezbollah has said it will continue to fight Israel until it agrees to a truce in its war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.