Lebanon’s Hezbollah fires 200 rockets at Israel as Gaza war rages

The Lebanese Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets and drones at Israeli army positions on Thursday, escalating tensions between the two opponents in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

After months of stalemate in efforts to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had agreed to send a delegation for talks aimed at securing the release of hostages kidnapped in the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war.

The announcement came a day after Hamas said it had “ideas” to end the nearly nine-month conflict, following a phone call between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden.

“The leaders discussed Hamas’ recent response” and “the President welcomed the Prime Minister’s decision to authorize his negotiators to work with mediators from the United States, Qatar, and Egypt to finalize the agreement,” the White House said.

Israel launched a military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7 in response to an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist militant group on its territory.

The next day, Hezbollah opened a front on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon in support of its ally Hamas, and since then there have been almost daily cross-border shelling attacks between the two sides.

Hezbollah said it fired more than 200 rockets and “explosive drones” at army positions in northern Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in retaliation for an Israeli attack that killed one of the Iran-backed group’s commanders.

In the morning, air raid sirens blared across northern Israel and an AFP correspondent observed rockets crossing the border. Although most of them were intercepted by Israeli air defenses, they sparked forest fires.

A military source later said a soldier was killed by a rocket fired at northern Israel.

– Fighting in Gaza City –

The Gaza war broke out after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli figures.

The militants also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the army, 42 of them are dead.

In response, Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hamas, and the Israeli military launched an offensive that killed at least 38,011 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s Health Ministry.

According to the Gaza Strip’s Civil Defense Force, seven people were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday, including five at a school in Gaza City in the north of the besieged area.

Fighting raged in the Shujaiya district and in Rafah on the southern border with Egypt, where an Israeli evacuation order raised fears of a new major offensive.

Since the order was issued on Monday, tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the eastern areas of Rafah and nearby Khan Yunis.

According to the United Nations, an estimated 1.9 million people are displaced in the Gaza Strip, and about nine out of 10 people in the area have been displaced at least once since the war began.

“Behind these numbers are people who have fears and worries. And they probably had dreams and hopes; I fear these are becoming fewer and fewer today,” said Andrea De Domenico, head of the United Nations humanitarian office in the Palestinian territories.

“People who have been pushed around like pawns in a board game for the last nine months.”

– Evacuation order –

According to the United Nations, up to 250,000 people were affected by Israel’s order to evacuate an area of ​​117 square kilometers (45 square miles) – equivalent to a third of Gaza territory.

According to an AFP count, at least 496 people were killed in the border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, most of them fighters, but also 95 civilians.

According to Israeli authorities, at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed on their side of the UN-patrolled border.

Meanwhile, the Gaza war, which is at the heart of the violence, continues to rage, and shootings, air strikes and artillery shelling have rocked the city of Gaza for eight days.

Israeli troops “destroyed tunnel routes in the area and eliminated dozens of terrorists in close combat with tank fire and air strikes,” the military said.

– ‘Maelstrom of human misery’ –

Israel is facing an international outcry over the rising number of civilian deaths that punishes the siege and mass destruction in the Gaza Strip.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, called this week for an end to the “whirlpool of human misery”.

Netanyahu insisted that Israel would destroy Hamas and bring the remaining hostages home.

Biden, who is under growing domestic pressure over Washington’s support for Israel, outlined a plan in late May for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

There has been little progress since then, but Hamas said on Wednesday it was in talks with representatives of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to end the conflict.

Hamas said its Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh had “established contact with the mediator brothers in Qatar and Egypt to discuss the ideas the movement is discussing with them with the aim of reaching an agreement.”

Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday: “Israel is examining the (Hamas) statements and will provide its response to the mediators.”

The biggest obstacle so far is Hamas’s demand for a permanent end to the fighting, which Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners firmly reject.

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