Hezbollah fires missiles at Israel in response to the killing of a senior Hamas leader

Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel on Saturday, warning that the barrage was its initial response to the targeted killing, supposedly by Israel, of a senior Hamas leader in the Lebanese capital earlier this week.

The missile attack came a day after the Hezbollah leader Mr. Hassan Nasrallah He said his group must avenge the killing of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy political leader of Hamas, an ally of the militia, in Hezbollah's stronghold south of Beirut. He said that if Hezbollah did not respond to the attack, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to an Israeli attack. He appeared to be making his case to respond to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as the war between Israel and Hamas intensifies.

Hezbollah said that it fired 62 missiles towards an Israeli air control base in Mount Meron and that it recorded direct hits. She added that the missiles also hit two army positions near the border. The Israeli army said that about 40 missiles were fired towards Meron and that a base was targeted, but it did not mention that the base was bombed. It said it hit the Hezbollah cell that fired the missiles.

The official Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon hit the outskirts of the village of Kawthariyah al-Siyad, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border, adding that there were casualties. Such strikes deep into Lebanon are rare since the fighting began on the border about three months ago. The National News Agency also said that Israeli forces bombed border areas, including the town of Khiam. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

Separately, the armed wing of the Islamic Group in Lebanon, the country's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a close ally of Hamas, said it fired two rockets toward the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday evening. Two members of the group were killed in the raid that led to Al-Arouri's death.

The cross-border escalation came as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken began an urgent diplomatic tour in the Middle East, his fourth in the region since then. The war between Israel and Hamas It broke out three months ago. The war was sparked by a deadly attack by Hamas on southern Israel in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took nearly 250 hostage.

In recent weeks, Israel has reduced its military offensive in northern Gaza and continued its violent offensive in the southern Strip, vowing to crush Hamas. In the south, most of Gaza's 2.3 million people are being crammed into smaller areas in a humanitarian catastrophe while still being subjected to Israeli aerial bombardment.

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said on Saturday that 122 Palestinians were martyred in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number since the beginning of the war to 22,722. The number does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. The ministry said that two-thirds of those killed were women or children. The ministry said the total number of wounded rose to 58,166.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah received at least 46 bodies overnight, according to hospital records seen by The Associated Press. Many of them were men who had apparently been shot. Fighting raged between Israeli forces and militants in the area. Records showed that among the dead were also five members of one family who were killed in an air strike.

Recent leaflets dropped by Israel urged Palestinians in some areas near the hospital to evacuate, citing “dangerous fighting.”

In the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, the center of the Israeli ground attack, the European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in a night air strike on a house in the Ma'an neighborhood of the city, according to Saleh Al-Hams, head of the relief mission in Gaza. Hospital nursing department. He said, citing eyewitnesses, that more than thirty people were taking shelter in the house, including some displaced people.

Israel held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying that the group had barricaded itself inside civilian infrastructure in Gaza. However, international criticism of Israel's conduct in the war increased due to the high civilian death toll. The United States urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it continues to send weapons and munitions while shielding its close ally from international criticism.

Blinken began his final trip to the Middle East in Turkey on Saturday. the Biden administration It is believed that Turkey and others can exert their influence, especially over Iran and its proxies, to allay fears of a regional conflagration. These fears have escalated in recent days with incidents occurring in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.

In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken sought Turkish support for emerging plans for post-war Gaza that could include cash or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a proposed multinational force that could work. In or near the territory.

From Türkiye, Blinken She was traveling to Greece, Turkey's rival and NATO ally, to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at his home on the island of Crete. Mitsotakis and his government were supportive of US efforts to prevent the war between Israel and Hamas from spreading and indicated their willingness to help if the situation deteriorated.

Other stops on the trip include Jordan, followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday. Blinken is scheduled to visit Israel and the West Bank next week before concluding his tour in Egypt.

The European Union foreign policy chief said during a visit to Beirut that he aims to launch a European-Arab initiative to revive the peace process that would lead to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Josep Borrell said he will visit Saudi Arabia on Sunday.