Hezbollah launches 62 rockets towards Israel in ‘initial response’ to death of senior Hamas leader

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah group on Saturday said that it launched at least 62 rockets towards northern Israel in what it called an “initial response” to the targeted killing of senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut earlier this week. The rocket attack came after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrullah said that his group must retaliate for the death of the Hamas deputy political leader.

The rockets were fired at a key Israeli observation post earlier today, while Israel claimed to have struck a “terrorist cell” in retaliation, raising concerns of the war spilling over in the Middle East as United States and European Union diplomats visited the region to seek ways for a cessation of hostilities.

There are no immediate reports of casualties or damage in the exchange of fire. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that it had responded to Saturday’s rocket attack with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strike on “the terrorist cell responsible for the launches toward the area of Metula”. It also struck a series of Hezbollah targets in Ayta ash Shab, Yaroun, and Ramyeh in southern Lebanon.

Tensions high amid diplomatic talks

The killing of al-Arouri flared tensions between Hezbollah and Israel – Hezbollah warned on Tuesday that the “crime would not go unpunished”, calling the the Israeli strike as a “serious assault on Lebanon, its people, its security and its sovereignty… and a dangerous development in the course of the war between the enemy and the axis of resistance.”

This comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was kicking off an urgent Middle East diplomatic tour, his fourth to the region since the Israel-Hamas war erupted three months ago. Israel has been scaling back its military assault in the north of the territory and pressing its heavy offensive in the south, vowing to crush Hamas.

Blinken and EU senior diplomat Josep Borrell began a new diplomatic push on Friday to stop the spillover from the three-month-old Gaza war into Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Red Sea shipping lanes. This comes as the Iran-backed Houthis seem determined to continue attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea unless Israel stops bombarding Gaza.

Blinken held talks on Saturday with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and was scheduled also to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israeli military action in Gaza. Turkey has sharply escalated its opposition against Israel, even threatening to declare it a war criminal, but has also offered to mediate in the war.

Blinken is also due to visit Israel, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He will also meet Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose government has been supportive of US efforts to prevent the war from spreading.

The situation in Gaza

At least 122 Palestinians have been killed and 256 others injured in Gaza in the past 24 hours alone, said the Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has so far killed 22,722 people and devastated the densely populated enclave of 2.3 million people.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, the local European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in an overnight airstrike on a house in the city’s Maan neighborhood, said Saleh al-Hamms, head of the nursing department at the hospital.

There has been no let-up in the conflict despite several trips to the region by Blinken and other senior diplomats. The traumatised residents of Gaza, most of whose population has been displaced by the bombardment, are facing a devastating humanitarian crisis, with food, medicine and fuel supplies running low.

Israel says that it has killed 8,000 militants since the October 7 Hamas attack while losing 175 soldiers in the Gaza operations. Israel has held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the group is embedded within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. International pressure on Israel has grown due to the rising death count in Gaza.

(with inputs from agencies)