Hezbollah Missiles Hit Haifa, Israel Steps up Bombings in South Lebanon

Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel's third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the Palestinian armed group fighting Israel in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with "Fadi 1" missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.

Hezbollah said it targeted areas north of Haifa in a second salvo of missiles later in the day. Israel's military said around 135 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday as of 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). Ten people were reported injured in the Haifa area and two others further south in central Israel.

The military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon, and that two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking the military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11.

It said it also carried out a targeted strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, where a thick plume of smoke could be seen.

Lebanon's health ministry said 10 firefighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building in the border-area town of Bint Jbeil, and that other aerial attacks on Sunday killed 22 people in a swathe of southern and eastern towns.

The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States, Israel's superpower ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing Middle East.

Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. One possible target is Iran's oil facilities.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA

An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched towards Haifa, also a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them. "Fallen projectiles were identified in the area. The incident is under review."

It said 15 other rockets were fired inland at Tiberias in Israel's northern Galilee region, some of which were shot down. Israel media said five more rockets hit the Tiberias area later.

Israel also intercepted two drones launched early on Monday from the east after sirens blared in the central areas of Rishon Lezion and Palmachim, the military said.

Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with a surprise attack on Israel a year ago, meanwhile targeted Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv with a missile salvo, the group said, setting off sirens in central areas of the country.

Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence apparatus after a series of deadly blows to the command structure of Hezbollah, Iran's most formidable Middle East proxy force, in Lebanon in recent weeks.

"Our counterattack on our enemies in Iran's axis of evil is necessary for securing our future and ensuring our security," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a special cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

"We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children's sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again," Netanyahu said.

Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs were again pounded by airstrikes overnight as Israel extended an aerial campaign on the area where Hezbollah has its headquarters.

Israel accuses the movement of deliberately embedding its command centers and weaponry beneath residential buildings in the heart of Beirut. Hezbollah denies storing weapons among civilians.

Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon and as the bombing campaign intensifies, many are afraid their country will face the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel's air and ground onslaught there.

ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH CONFLICT SPREADS

Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 in solidarity with Hamas. After a year of exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel mostly limited to the frontier region, the conflict has significantly escalated in Lebanon.

Israel has carried out ground incursions into Lebanon's Hezbollah-dominated south, which Hezbollah says it has repelled.

Israelis marked the first anniversary of the Hamas attack with ceremonies and protests on Monday including a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff.

In their attack through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, shattered many citizens' sense of security and sent their faith in its leaders to new lows.

The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.

The Gaza war has given rise to a multi-front Middle East conflict, drawing in Iran's broader "Axis of Resistance" - Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, Iraqi militia groups - and sparking several rare, direct confrontations between Israel and Iran.

Cyprus stands ready to help eliminate Syria’s remaining chemical weapons stockpiles and to support a search for people whose fate remains unknown after more than a decade of war, the top Cypriot diplomat said Saturday.

Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said Cyprus’ offer is grounded on its own past experience both with helping rid Syria of chemical weapons 11 years ago and its own ongoing, decades-old search for hundreds of people who disappeared amid fighting between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriots in the 1960s and a 1974 Turkish invasion, The AP reported.

Cyprus in 2013 hosted the support base of a mission jointly run by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to remove and dispose of Syria's chemical weapons.

“As a neighboring country located just 65 miles from Syria, Cyprus has a vested interest in Syria’s future. Developments there will directly impact Cyprus, particularly in terms of potential new migratory flows and the risks of terrorism and extremism,” Kombos told The AP in written replies to questions.

Kombos said there are “profound concerns” among his counterparts across the region over Syria’s future security, especially regarding a possible resurgence of extremist groups like ISIS in a fragmented and polarized society.

“This is particularly critical in light of potential social and demographic engineering disguised as “security” arrangements, which could further destabilize the country,” Kombos said.

The diplomat also pointed to the recent proliferation of narcotics production like the stimulant Captagon that is interconnected with smuggling networks involved in people and arms trafficking.

Kombos said ongoing attacks against Syria’s Kurds must stop immediately, given the role that Kurdish forces have played in combating extremist forces like the ISIS group in the past decade.

Saleh Muslim, a member of the Kurdish Presidential Council, said in an interview that the Kurds primarily seek “equality” enshrined in rights accorded to all in any democracy.

He said a future form of governance could accord autonomy to the Kurds under some kind of federal structure.

“But the important thing is to have democratic rights for all the Syrians and including the Kurdish people,” he said.

Muslim warned that the Kurdish-majority city of Kobani, near Syria’s border with Türkiye, is in “very big danger” of falling into the hands of Turkish-backed forces, and accused Türkiye of trying to occupy it.

Kombos said the international community needs to ensure that the influence Türkiye is trying to exert in Syria is “not going to create an even worse situation than there already is.”

“Whatever the future landscape in Syria, it will have a direct and far-reaching impact on the region, the European Union and the broader international community,” Kombos said.

Hezbollah Missiles Hit Haifa, Israel Steps up Bombings in South Lebanon