Israel and Hezbollah trade fire across the Lebanon border as more bombs hit Gaza

Key PointsThe Israel-Lebanon border has seen regular exchanges of fire since the Hamas-Israel war broke out on 7 October.Arouri’s killing on Tuesday in a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut has raised fears of further escalation.Israel kept up its bombing of Gaza on Saturday as its war on Hamas approached its fourth month.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired more than 60 rockets at an Israeli military base on Saturday in response to the killing in Beirut of Hamas’s deputy leader.

“As part of the initial response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri… the Islamic resistance (Hezbollah) targeted the Meron air control base with 62 missiles of various types,” the group said in a statement.

The Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on 7 October.

Arouri’s killing this week in a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut, which a US defence official said was carried out by Israel,

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In a speech on Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that the group would respond swiftly “on the battlefield” to Arouri’s killing.

On Saturday, air raid sirens went off in towns and cities across northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli military said it had identified around 40 rocket launches from Lebanese territory on Saturday morning and its forces had struck a cell responsible for some of them.

Later on Saturday, Hezbollah claimed further attacks on Israeli troops and positions, with the Israeli army saying it had retaliated.

The Israeli army said it had “struck a series of Hezbollah terror targets” across southern Lebanon including “a launch post, military sites and terrorist infrastructure”.

It said its fighter jets struck two Hezbollah military compounds containing significant assets, including one used by the group’s surface-to-air missile unit.

It said that earlier in the day a missile had been fired at one of its drones.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that Israeli bombardments and air strikes hit several southern towns and villages.

One of the strikes hit a house in Sidon district, approximately 25 kilometres from the border, the news agency said.

Hezbollah said five of its fighters were killed on Saturday, without providing further details.

Efforts to prevent wider regional war

With tensions escalating on the border, EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell was in Lebanon as part of efforts to prevent a wider regional war.

“It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” he told a news conference in Beirut.

Borrell added that he would be travelling to Saudi Arabia next to discuss “a joint EU-Arab initiative” for peace.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Greece as part of a tour that will take him to several Arab states ahead of talks in Israel and the occupied West Bank next week.

Blinken said he wants to make sure the conflict in the Middle East “doesn’t spread”.

“One of the real concerns is the border between Israel and Lebanon, and we want to do everything possible to make sure we see no escalation,” he added.

Nearly three months of cross-border fire has killed 180 people in Lebanon, including 134 Hezbollah fighters, but also more than 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.

In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Islamist political party and militant group formed in 1982 after Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon that year.

It is backed by Iran and leads a multi-party alliance that holds just under half the seats in Lebanon’s parliament.

Hezbollah is listed as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, the US, Germany and the UK.

The European Union lists only its military wing as a terrorist organisation. However, Hezbollah itself makes no distinction between its political and military wings.

Benjamin Netanyahu vows ‘complete victory’

Israel kept up its bombing of Gaza on Saturday as its war on Hamas approached its fourth month, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to achieve “complete victory” over the Palestinian militants.

AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

Victims of the bombardment were brought to the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered.

A defiant Netanyahu vowed that Israel would continue its campaign to “eliminate Hamas, return our hostages and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel”.

“We have to put everything aside… until the complete victory is achieved,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel had “completed the dismantling of the Hamas military framework in the northern Gaza Strip” and would now focus on the centre and the south.

Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas’ 7 October attack in which more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government. More than 22,722 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, most of the women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

The 7 October attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Hamas is a Palestinian political and military group, which has governed the Gaza Strip since the most recent elections in 2006.

Hamas’s stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state and stop the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, illegal under international law.

Hamas in its entirety is listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and seven other countries, including Australia. But the UN Assembly rejected classifying Hamas as a terrorist group in a 2018 vote.

In 2021 the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories dating back to 2014, including the recent attacks of both Israel and Hamas.

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