BEIRUT —
Israel launched what it called preemptive strikes into Lebanon early Sunday to thwart an attack by the militant group Hezbollah, which still managed to lob hundreds of rockets and drones targeting military sites deep in Israeli territory.
It was the heaviest round of fighting between the two sides since the tit-for-tat conflict began last fall, and each claimed victory while insisting it didn’t want a full-scale regional war.
A strike force of some 100 Israeli warplanes attacked southern Lebanon before 5 a.m. local time. Observers said Israel conducted more than 40 strikes targeting at least a dozen villages and towns as well as forested areas that Hezbollah has been using as cover for its operations.
Minutes later, Hezbollah launched some 340 rockets and drones targeting more than 11 military sites, according to the group. Its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised speech Sunday that the attack was meant as vengeance for Israel’s assassination last month of Hezbollah senior military commander Fuad Shukr.
The effect of the Israeli strikes on Lebanon remains unclear, but the Lebanese ministry of health said three people were killed and that the attacks had caused extensive damage to water and electricity infrastructure.
The Israeli military said one naval soldier died after being wounded by shrapnel from an Iron Dome interceptor missile, according to reports in Israeli media.
Soon after the launches, Hezbollah issued a statement saying “the first stage” of the attack had ended in “complete success,” while Israeli officials touted the effectiveness of the strikes in wiping out a large portion of the munitions and launchers Hezbollah had dedicated for the operation.
“We are striking Hezbollah with surprising crushing blows,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Cabinet meeting. “Three weeks ago, we eliminated its chief of staff and today we thwarted its attack plan.”
In an address to Israeli officers, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We hit the enemy before it launched and threw it off balance.”
Adding that Israel had been “very, very successful” in neutralizing Hezbollah’s assets, he explained: “In other words, by attacking thousands of targets, we prevented the launch of hundreds of rockets.”
In a televised address later Sunday, Nasrallah dismissed those claims, saying the operation had proceeded as planned and that Israel’s missiles had “no effect whatsoever.”
He added the initial barrage overwhelmed Israeli interceptor defense systems and allowed drones to continue to their intended targets: the Glilot base in a northern suburb of Tel Aviv and another base he did not name located 46 miles from Lebanon’s border.
The Glilot base is home to Unit 8200, Israel’s top signals intelligence-gathering unit, which Nasrallah said was involved in Shukr’s assassination.
The region has been on edge since the back-to-back assassinations last month of Shukr and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in a blast in Tehran for which Israel denies responsibility. Many fear a region-wide conflagration that would pit the U.S. in a fight against Iran.
Shukr’s assassination came after 12 youngsters were killed in a missile strike on Majdal Shams, a town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel blamed Hezbollah for the strike, a claim Hezbollah has denied.
The current conflict began Oct. 8 — the day after Hamas militants from Gaza stormed into southern Israel and killed some 1,200 people while taking 250 others hostage.
In solidarity with Hamas, Hezbollah began a rocket campaign on northern Israel. Since then, Israel has killed more than 500 Hezbollah fighters and roughly 133 Lebanese civilians while 110,000 have been displaced, according to the United Nations. In Israel and the Golan Heights, 22 soldiers have been killed along with 27 civilians, and 60,000 people have been displaced.
The U.S. has been spearheading a push for negotiations toward a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip that it hopes would mollify Hezbollah and Iran, which supports the Lebanese Shiite Islamist group.
Negotiators met in Cairo on Sunday, even as Israel has forged ahead with its onslaught on the enclave, where Palestinian health authorities say more than 40,300 people have been killed.
In his address, Nasrallah said the latest Hezbollah attack on Israel had been delayed to “give the negotiations a chance.”
A wider confrontation with Hezbollah would plunge Israel into a multi-front war with an adversary many times stronger than Hamas. Hezbollah has developed an arsenal of some 150,000 rockets, missiles and drones.
In response to the attacks Sunday, ‘several airlines canceled flights into Tel Aviv and Beirut, even as Ben Gurion airport quickly restored normal operations and Rafic Hariri airport continued with many flights as scheduled. Later, the Israeli military lifted many of the measures it ordered as part of a state of emergency declared early Sunday.
Still, many in southern Lebanon were surprised by the sheer intensity of the Israeli attack.
“It’s the first time we heard sounds like this. The whole town was shaking,” said one resident in Ibl al-Saqi, a town about five miles north of the Lebanese-Israeli border. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared harassment from authorities.
Despite bellicose rhetoric from Israel and Hezbollah, both sides expressed a readiness to de-escalate what had been a long building to the latest exchange of attacks. Israel said it considered the matter finished. At the same time, Netanyahu warned adversaries that “this is another step to changing the situation in the north [of Israel].”
“This is not the end of the story,” he said.
Nasrallah said if the damage to Glilot and the second base was “satisfactory and achieves the intended goal,” then the group would consider its need to avenge Shukr sated.
“And if the result is not in our opinion enough, then we’ll reserve for ourselves the right to respond until a later date,” Nasrallah said.
“Let people relax their nerves.”
