Israel and Hezbollah trade heavy fire as cross-border strikes escalate

Israel and Hezbollah continued to trade hundreds of strikes on Sunday as the sides appear to be spiraling toward an all-out war following months of escalating tensions.

The Iran-backed militant group launched more than 100 rockets across a wider and deeper area of northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa. The barrage overnight set off air raid sirens across northern Israel, sending thousands of people scrambling into shelters.

Israel’s military said the rockets were fired “toward civilian areas,” pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.

Avi Vazana raced to a shelter with his wife and 9-month-old baby before he heard the boom of the rocket hitting in Kiryat Bialik. Then he went back outside to see if anyone was hurt.

“I ran without shoes, without a shirt, only with pants. I ran to this house when everything was still on fire to try to find if there are other people,” he said.

One rocket struck near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a community near Haifa, wounding at least three people and setting buildings and cars on fire. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said that a total of four people were wounded by shrapnel in the barrage.

Meanwhile, Israel launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon. The country’s health ministry said two people were killed and another wounded by Israeli strikes near the border, though it did not elaborate on other details.

The Israeli military said that it carried out a wave of strikes across southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours, hitting about 400 militant sites, including rocket launchers. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said those strikes had thwarted an even larger attack.

“Hundreds of thousands of civilians have come under fire across a lot of northern Israel. They spent the night and now the morning in bomb shelters,” he said. “Today we saw fire that was deeper into Israel than before.”

The military also said it had intercepted multiple aerial devices fired from the direction of Iraq, after Iran-backed militant groups there claimed to have launched a drone attack on Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take whatever action was necessary to restore security in the north and allow people to return to their homes.

“No country can accept the wanton rocketing of its cities. We can’t accept it either,” he said.

Israeli media reported that rockets fired from Lebanon early Sunday were intercepted in the areas of Haifa and Nazareth, which are further south than most of the rocket fire to date. Israel canceled school across the north, deepening the sense of crisis.

Hezbollah said that it had launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles — a new type of weapon the group hadn’t used before — at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, “in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs.

The barrage came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 45 people, including one of Hezbollah’s top leaders. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel for a wave of explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people — including two children — and wounding around 3,000. The attacks were widely blamed on Israel, which hasn’t confirmed or denied responsibility.

Israel and Hezbollah began trading fire at the outbreak of the war in Gaza nearly one year ago/hub/cmsframework/reroute/content_collection/2dd9ad74-5028-48d6-8b74-8bfc348c319a#link={when the militant group started firing rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas. The low-level fighting has killed dozens of people in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the frontier.

Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau raided by Israel

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli troops raided the offices of the satellite news network Al Jazeera, ordering the bureau to shut down.

Armed Israeli troops entered the office and told a reporter live on air that it would be shut down, saying that staff needed to leave immediately. The network later aired what appeared to be Israel troops tearing down a banner on a balcony used by the Al Jazeera office.

“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, in the live footage. “I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment.”

Al-Omari said that Israeli troops began confiscating documents and equipment in the bureau, as tear gas and gunshots could be seen and heard in the area.

Al Jazeera aired footage of Israeli troops live on its Arabic-language channel ordering the office to be shut for 45 days. It follows an order issued in May that saw Israeli police raid Al Jazeera’s broadcast position in East Jerusalem, seizing equipment there, preventing its broadcasts in Israel and blocking its websites.

The move marked the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country. However, Al Jazeera has continued operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, territories that the Palestinians hope to have for their future state.

The Israeli military didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Al Jazeera denounced the move as it continued broadcasting live from Amman, Jordan.

Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi later described the raid as affecting “the mouthpiece of Hamas and Hezbollah,” the Shiite militia in Lebanon that Israel targeted with strikes Sunday after cross-border fire from the militants.

“We will continue to fight the enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters,” Karhi posted on X. He didn’t address what authority Israel cited to order the bureau closed.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate denounced the Israeli raid and order.

“This arbitrary military decision is a new aggression against journalistic work and media outlets,” it said.

Criticism of Al Jazeera isn’t new. Washington singled out the broadcaster during the U.S. occupation of Iraq after its 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and for airing videos of Osama bin Laden.

Al Jazeera has been closed or blocked by other governments in the Middle East.