Israel intensifies strikes in Lebanon

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Mourners pray at a funeral in Houch El Rafqah, Lebanon, for 26 family members who were killed Sunday in an Israeli air strike in Almat, in the Jbeil district of Lebanon, on Tuesday. DANIEL BEREHULAK — THE NEW YORK TIMES

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By Euan Ward and Jack Nicas

The New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon >> Israel’s military struck neighborhoods south of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway and issued sweeping new evacuation warnings across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, intensifying Israel’s conflict with the militant group just as diplomatic momentum appeared to be building toward talks aimed at a temporary cease-fire.

A series of strikes hit the Dahiya, a once densely populated suburb south of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. Plumes of thick, acrid smoke rose above the city skyline after a wave of missiles shook the area, sending schoolchildren running for cover miles from the blasts as Israeli surveillance drones buzzed overhead.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it had conducted “intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah terrorist targets” in the Dahiya area. “The targets include command centers, weapons production sites and additional Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure.”

Lebanese authorities said they were assessing the extent of casualties and damage from the Dahiya strikes.

After the strikes, the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for 14 towns and villages in southern Lebanon, the second wave of such alerts in 48 hours after nearly a month without them. Some of the towns had already been emptied and largely leveled by Israel’s ground offensive, which began last month.

Israel’s military said Tuesday that it had struck about 100 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon over the past day. Elsewhere in Lebanon, at least 23 people were killed in Israeli strikes, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Strikes from Lebanon killed two people in northern Israel on Tuesday, Israeli authorities said.

The Israeli military said in the statement that Hezbollah “systematically embeds its terrorist infrastructure into the heart of civilian areas,” calling it “a further example of Hezbollah’s cynical exploitation of Lebanese civilians as human shields.”

Hezbollah has been attacking northern Israel nearly every day since October 2023, when the Iran-backed militant group launched cross-border assaults in support of its ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

During that time, it has fired more than 14,000 rockets toward Israel, according to the Israeli military, but Israel’s air-defense system has intercepted most of them. Still, the threat has forced a broad evacuation of Israel’s north.

On Monday, the attacks continued, with Hezbollah firing 200 projectiles into Israel, according to Israel’s military. On Monday night, Israel launched one of its farthest strikes into northern Lebanon since the war began, killing eight people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The flurry of strikes amounts to an escalation from both sides. And the exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah this week has been larger than usual. The deepening of the conflict comes despite what appeared to be growing efforts at a diplomatic settlement. Since the confrontation began last year, Lebanese and United Nations officials say, 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than a fifth of the population has been displaced.

Last week, a senior Israeli official visited Russia to gauge if the country could assist in enforcing a truce in Lebanon. On Tuesday, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, repeated calls for a cease-fire in a meeting with Egypt’s president. And on Monday, Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said the United States had renewed efforts to broker talks, adding, “There is progress.”

But that stance was soon contradicted by his predecessor, Israel Katz, who was named defense minister last week. In an online post Tuesday, Katz said he had met with Israeli generals and told them to continue the offensive against Hezbollah.

“In Lebanon, there will be no cease-fire and there will be no respite,” he wrote. “We will continue to hit Hezbollah with full force until the goals of the war are achieved. Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own.”

Mikati’s embattled Lebanese government has been pushing to fully put in place a U.N. resolution that ended the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah, in 2006. The agreement, though widely considered a resounding failure in the years since, is today viewed by Lebanese and U.S. officials as a potential road map for peace.