Hezbollah Fires over 200 Rockets into Israel after Killing of Senior Commander

A smoke plume billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Kfarshuba in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 26, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by RABIH DAHER / AFP)
A smoke plume billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Kfarshuba in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 26, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by RABIH DAHER / AFP)
TT

Hezbollah Fires over 200 Rockets into Israel after Killing of Senior Commander

A smoke plume billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Kfarshuba in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 26, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by RABIH DAHER / AFP)
A smoke plume billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Kfarshuba in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 26, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by RABIH DAHER / AFP)

The Lebanese Hezbollah group says it has launched over 200 rockets at several military bases in Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed one of its senior commanders.
The attack by the Iran-backed militant group on Thursday was one of the largest in the monthslong conflict along the Lebanon-Israel border, with tensions boiling in recent weeks.
The Israeli military said "numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets" had entered its territory from Lebanon, many of which it said were intercepted. There were no immediate reports of casualties, The Associated Press said.
It acknowledged on Wednesday that it had killed Mohammad Naameh Nasser, who headed one of Hezbollah's three regional divisions in southern Lebanon, a day earlier.
Hours later, Hezbollah launched scores of Katyusha rockets and Falaq rockets with heavy warheads into northern Israel and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. It launched more rockets on Thursday and said it had also sent exploding drones into several bases.
The US and France are continuing to scramble to prevent the skirmishes from spiraling into an all-out war, which they fear could spillover across the region.
The relatively low-level conflict erupted shortly after the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it is striking Israel in solidarity with Hamas, another Iran-allied group that ignited the war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel.
The group's leadership says it will stop its attacks once there is a cease-fire in Gaza, and that while it does not want war, it is ready for one.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, say they could decide to go to war in Lebanon if efforts for a diplomatic solution fail.
Hezbollah's retaliation comes a day after a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, Amos Hochstein, met with French President Emmanuel Macron’s Lebanon envoy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, in Paris.
The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 450 people — mostly fighters but also dozens of civilians — have been killed.
Israel sees Hezbollah as its most direct threat and estimates that it has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, including precision-guided missiles.
In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war that ended in a draw.



UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
TT

UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli forces raided four of its schools in east Jerusalem, ordering their closure.

Israel has severed all ties with the agency, known as UNRWA, and bars it from operating in its territory. It says the agency allowed itself to be infiltrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, allegations denied by UN officials.

UNRWA said police entered a training center by force on Tuesday, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the Qalandiya Training Center.

It said police and city officials ordered the closure of three other schools in east Jerusalem, two of which proceeded with the school day.

Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said police did not enter the UN buildings and that Jerusalem municipal authorities carried out the closures. He said police were deployed to protect the city workers, using “riot dispersal” means in one case where a crowd threw stones at them outside a UN facility.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, said the raids were an “unacceptable violation of United Nations privileges and immunities,” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”