Hezbollah stepped up attacks on Israel in retaliation after an Israeli military strike killed one of its senior commanders, Taleb Abdallah, on Tuesday. The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets at Israel on Wednesday but caused minimal damage.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that its warplanes had struck “Hezbollah military installations” in villages on the Lebanese border overnight.
Israeli officials have warned of stronger action against Hezbollah and are facing growing pressure from the political right and displaced militants, but so far neither side has called for all-out war.
The United States, France and other mediators have warned of the dangers of a regional war and have sought to foster a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah that could restore calm on both sides of the border, but analysts say an agreement is unlikely as long as Israel’s military operation in Gaza continues.
Residents in southern Gaza reported heavy Israeli shelling on Thursday.
Saeed Lulu, who had taken refuge in the southern al-Mawasi area that Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone” for civilians, said he heard the attack sometime between midnight and 6 a.m. The attack appeared to have hit the southwestern edge of al-Mawasi, Lulu said.
“We are very worried,” said Lulu, 37. “This is supposed to be a safe place, but if they attack us here we have nowhere else to run.”
The Palestinian Authority’s official Wafa news agency reported that Israel had stepped up missile and artillery fire on Al-Mawasi, where many Gaza residents have taken refuge, after warning people to flee the Rafah neighborhood, where hundreds of thousands fled earlier in the war.
The Israeli army denied the Wafa report, saying it was not attacking a “humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi and was pressing ahead with operations in Rafah, where its soldiers were in “direct confrontation” with Hamas fighters.
Fighting in Rafah has been ongoing since early May, when Israeli forces launched an offensive into the city center in a key step toward defeating remaining Hamas forces and dismantling the group’s infrastructure.
