Israel strikes Lebanon after Hezbollah fires missile toward Tel Aviv

Pope Francis has branded Israel’s sweeping strikes on Lebanon this week a “terrible escalation” in its hostilities with Hezbollah as he called for the international community to work to bring the violence to an end.

Speaking at the end of his weekly general audience at the Vatican, the pope, who had recently been suffering from the flu, did not name Israel outright, but said he was “saddened by news from Lebanon in recent days that bombardments have caused much destruction and many victims.”

“I express my closeness to the Lebanese people, who have already suffered too much in the recent past,” he said, with Lebanon still reeling from a series of crises.

“Let us pray for peace,” he said, adding that the world should not “forget tormented Ukraine, Myanmar, Palestine, Israel, Sudan, all the suffering peoples.”

KIRYAT BIALIK, Israel — One of the relatively few Hezbollah rockets to break through Israel’s air defenses and hit a populated area in came crashing down in the town of Kiryat Bialik on Sunday.

Three people were wounded and several houses were damaged by fire and shrapnel in the town just north of Haifa.

Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum visited the site on Tuesday to offer their support for residents and to voice their determination to fight Hezbollah. Among them was Ariel Kallner, a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing Likud party. 

“The people here are afraid, but they are very, very strong,” Kallner told NBC News. “The Israeli people are very strong and we are in a war for our existence. We were attacked. We have been attacked for 11 months from Lebanon, by Hezbollah. We almost didn’t do anything, but enough is enough. We need to fight back. We need to bring security for our civilians.”

Asked about concerns that Netanyahu’s decision to escalate in Lebanon would dash hopes of a hostage deal in Gaza, Kallner said he didn’t accept the argument. “We are committed to our hostages and we are committed to the security of our citizens. And these two goals are do not restrict each other,” he said.

Warning sirens sounded in Tel Aviv this morning as a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defense systems after it was detected crossing from Lebanon, the Israeli military said.

It was the first Hezbollah attack on the country’s economic hub.

Killing Hezbollah commanders will not defeat the Iran-backed militant group, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today, after Hezbollah confirmed the killing of another senior commander in an Israeli airstrike.

“The loss of valuable and influential members of Hezbollah was undoubtedly a setback, but Hezbollah’s organizational strength and human resources far surpass such losses, and the ultimate victory will be theirs,” Khamenei said according to the state news agency IRNA.

“Hezbollah’s organizational strength and human resources are far greater than anything these actions can undermine. Their power, capability, and resilience are well beyond the reach of such attacks,” Khamenei said.

His warning came after Hezbollah confirmed that senior commander Ibrahim Muhammad Kobeisi was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut yesterday, the latest assassination of the group’s leadership in recent weeks.

Diplomacy, not war, is the only solution that will see displaced civilians in northern Israel and southern Lebanon able to return to their homes, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC’s “TODAY” show this morning.

In an interview with host Savannah Guthrie, Blinken said that Washington did not believe “that war’s the solution” as he urged a “diplomatic agreement” between Israel and Hezbollah to bring mounting hostilities to an end and prevent an all-out war in the region.

Blinken said the U.S. was focused on a “plan to deescalate” the spiraling situation at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. He noted that the U.S., Israel’s biggest arms supplier, has a “longstanding relationship and security relationship with Israel,” but he said there was still an opportunity to “stop any escalation” and prevent a full-scale war.

Demonstrators gathered to express their solidarity with Lebanon and Palestinians in New York City last night.

Hezbollah fired more than 300 rockets and missiles into Israeli territory yesterday, injuring six people, the Israeli military said today.

IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said this morning that “the number of injuries could have been higher, but we were able to prevent a larger-scale attack through our operations, which removed threats in real-time.”

Israel also has a comprehensive aerial defense system to protect against missile and rocket attacks.

A man sleeps on the sidewalk in the southern coastal town of Sidon, Lebanon today.

Egypt, Jordan and Iraq warned in a joint statement today that Israel is pushing the Middle East toward a “whole-scale war” as they urged a halt to the “dangerous escalation in the region.”

Foreign ministers of the three nations met yesterday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where they called for an end to Israel’s nearly yearlong offensive in Gaza and condemned “the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, stressing that Israel is pushing the region into a whole-scale war.”

The three ministers called on the international community and the United Nations Security Council to “assume their relevant responsibilities to stop the war” as they blamed Israel for the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Middle East, which they warned would have “serious consequences for the entire region.”

The Israeli military pounded southern Lebanon and the Bekaa area with “extensive strikes” this morning following an attack from Hezbollah targeting Tel Aviv.

The IDF said around 9 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) that it was carrying out a barrage of strikes in the region, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes amid ramped up attacks from Israel that have left hundreds dead.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it continued to fire into Israel, with the IDF saying around 40 “projectiles” had been identified as crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Several were intercepted, while one projectile hit what the IDF said was an assisted living facility in the area of Safed, with no injuries reported.

Lebanon’s foreign minister has warned that the number of people displaced from their homes in the country’s south is likely approaching “half a million” after Israel ramped up its aerial assault on the region in strikes that have killed more than 550 people, according to local health officials.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace yesterday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said he believed the number of people displaced was “probably” approaching half a million.

“Israel has, I guess, now more than 60,000 displaced… They used to have sixty. We used to have 110. Now, probably they’re approaching half a million,” he said.

Habib said Lebanese officials were “trying our best to help the people,” but he emphasized that Lebanon was “still weak economically,” with the country still feeling the impacts of a protracted economic and political crisis, as well as the Port of Beirut explosion and the Covid-19 pandemic.

An Israeli anti-missile system launches missiles to intercept rockets fired from Lebanon, as seen from Haifa, northern Israel last night.

HAIFA, Israel — The IDF has said there is “no evidence” to support Hezbollah’s claim this morning that a missile fired toward Tel Aviv was targeting spy agency Mossad’s headquarters in the city’s suburbs.

Hezbollah said it had launched the attack at 6:30 a.m. local time (11:30 p.m. ET yesterday) and had targeted the headquarters of Mossad, which it blamed for “assassinating leaders and blowing up pagers and wireless devices” in attacks earlier this month.

IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said today there was no evidence to support that claim. He suggested Hezbollah was firing missiles that were “aimed directly at civilians” in its attacks on Israel.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Lebanon today that for the “first time in history” targeted economic center Tel Aviv.

The missile was fired from the area of Nafakhiyeh in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces said earlier this morning, before announcing its forces had struck the launcher it was fired from.

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said it was the “first time in history, as far as I can confirm, that Hezbollah has fired a rocket or missile towards Tel Aviv.” Shoshani said millions of people were forced to seek safety in bomb shelters before the missile was intercepted.

Israel has an extremely robust aerial defense system, with the missile fired from Lebanon intercepted by “David’s Sling,” a short to medium range system designed to intercept long-range rockets and certain cruise missiles.

Tens of thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon as Israel mounts a major aerial offensive on the area that has killed more than 550 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Hezbollah has hit back with cross-border fire as Israel warned yesterday it planned to “accelerate” its campaign against the Iran-backed militant group.

The flare in hostilities has stoked fears of an all-out war in the region, with European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warning yesterday, “we are almost in a full-fledged war.”