JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese Hezbollah movement launched heavy barrages of rockets into Israel on Sunday, and the Israeli army said houses had been destroyed or burned near Tel Aviv, after a powerful Israeli airstrike killed at least 29 people in Beirut the day before. .
Israel also attacked Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, where intensified bombing over the past two weeks coincided with signs of progress in US-led ceasefire talks.
Hezbollah, which had previously vowed to respond to attacks on Beirut by targeting Tel Aviv, said it had launched precision missiles at two military sites in and around Tel Aviv.
Police said there were multiple crash sites in the Petah Tikvah area on the east side of Tel Aviv, and several people suffered minor injuries.
The Israeli military (IDF) said a direct attack on a neighborhood had left “houses in flames and ruins.” Television images showed an apartment damaged by rocket fire.
The IDF said Hezbollah had fired 240 rockets at Israel, many of which were intercepted, and sirens sounded across most of the country. At least four people were injured by shrapnel.
Video obtained by Reuters showed a projectile exploding after crashing into the roof of a building in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.
The army warned on social media that it planned to attack Hezbollah facilities in southern Beirut ahead of attacks that demolished two apartment blocks, according to security sources in Lebanon. The IDF later said it had attacked command centers “deliberately embedded between civilian buildings.”
On Saturday it carried out one of its deadliest and most powerful attacks in central Beirut.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry on Sunday raised the death toll from 20 to 29. It said 84 people had died in total on Saturday, raising the death toll to 3,754 since October 2023.
The IDF did not comment on Saturday’s attack in the capital or say what it had attacked.
Israel launched an offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah in September, attacking the south, the Bekaa Valley and southern suburbs of Beirut with airstrikes after nearly a year of hostilities sparked by the Gaza war.
US CEASE-FIRE PROPOSAL AWAITS ISRAEL’S RESPONSE
The Israeli offensive has uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon.
Israel says it aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
American mediator Amos Hochstein highlighted progress in the negotiations during a visit to Beirut last week, before traveling to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz and then returning to Washington.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday that a US ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from Israel.
“We must put pressure on the Israeli government and keep pressure on Hezbollah to accept the American proposal for a ceasefire,” he said in Beirut after meeting with Lebanese officials.
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had called a meeting of his security cabinet for 5:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT).
Diplomacy has focused on reestablishing a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. It requires Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Israeli border and for the Lebanese army to deploy in the buffer zone.
The Lebanese army said on Sunday that at least one soldier had been killed and 18 others wounded in an Israeli attack that caused severe damage to a military center in Al-Amiriya, near the southern city of Tyre.
The Israeli military said it regretted the incident and was investigating, and that it was fighting Hezbollah, not the Lebanese army.
Lebanon’s interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attack “represents a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts to reach a ceasefire, strengthen the army’s presence in the south and implement… 1701.”
Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208 million) to support the Lebanese army.
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