Israel and Hezbollah exchange heavy fire as fears of war mount

Israel and the Hezbollah militant group exchanged heavy fire across Lebanon’s border on Sunday, fueling fears of a wider conflict in the region as the monthslong war in Gaza continues to rage.

“Dozens of rockets hit Israel which destroyed homes, cars and communities.” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said on X.

Israel‘s Magen David Adom rescue service said on X that three people were wounded by shrapnel in the barrage.

In a later statement, the IDF said its fighter jets had “struck dozens of Hezbollah terror targets, including launchers and military structures in dozens of areas in southern Lebanon.”

Hezbollah meanwhile, said it had launched dozens of rockets as part of its initial response to Friday’s airstrike on a densely populated suburb of Beirut that killed 45 people including senior leaders of the group. That attack followed the coordinated detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members across Lebanon.

Separately, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iraqi militias backed by Iran, said it had also launched drones at Israel on Sunday.

Israel and Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization, have traded fire since the outbreak of the war in Gaza that began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks when Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took around 250 others taken hostage. Around 100 people remain in captivity although a third are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza since then has killed more than 41,000 people, according to health officials in the enclave. Those figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Hezbollah said it began firing rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas and since then the low-level tit for tat attacks have killed dozens of people in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.

In a separate development, Israeli soldiers shut down Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on Sunday morning.

“This is a blatant attack on the Al Jazeera channel and Al Jazeera Network and those who are working with them, as well as on the freedom of speech and the task of delivering the truth,” the network’s bureau chief Walid Omari told Reuters.

Israel banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting within Israeli territory but it had continued to broadcast from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Last week, Israel’s government announced it was revoking the press credentials of Al Jazeera journalists in the country, four months after banning the channel from operating inside Israel.