The Hezbollah militia reported carrying out an attack on an industrial complex and an Israeli military base near the port city of Haifa in northern Israel on Sunday morning, while the Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah described the attack as retaliation for the “brutal massacre” carried out by Israel last week, in which coordinated explosions using electronic devices left people dead and wounded across Lebanon.
The Iran-backed militia also said it had attacked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Ramat David air base near Haifa in response to “repeated Israeli aggression in various regions of Lebanon.”
The name of Ibrahim Akil, the top Hezbollah commander killed Friday in an Israeli raid on a Beirut suburb, was not mentioned.
The death toll from an Israeli raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a hotbed of the Hezbollah movement, has risen to 45, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military reported on Sunday that Hezbollah had carried out about 115 attacks on civilian targets in northern Israel.
IDF forces were on high alert in the region to repel the attacks and “intensify” attacks on Hezbollah, the report said, with the attacks penetrating further south than before.
Air raid sirens were also heard southwest of Nazareth, which is inland from Haifa.
Lebanese authorities described the Israeli airstrikes as the heaviest since the war in the Gaza Strip began on October 7 last year. Some 70 targets had been hit within 20 minutes, they said.
