Hezbollah missiles hit Haifa, Israel steps up bombings in south Lebanon

Beirut: Israel’s military said it intercepted most of a barrage of rockets fired toward Tel Aviv by Hamas, as fighting escalated on Monday.

Sirens sounded across central Israel, and two people were injured, according to Israeli health officials. The Israel Defence Force had warned earlier of an “immediate” threat of rocket fire from the militant organisation on the anniversary of the October 7 terror attack.

Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group fighting Israel in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65km away.

Hezbollah said it targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles later in the day. Israel’s military said around 135 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday as of 5pm local time. Ten people were reported injured in the Haifa area and two others further south in central Israel.

Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon, and that two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking the military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 10 firefighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building in the border-area town of Bint Jbeil, and that other aerial attacks on Sunday killed 22 people in southern and eastern Lebanese towns.

The Israeli military has described its ground operation as “localised, limited and targeted” but it has steadily increased in scale since it began last week.