Middle East conflict explodes as Israel drops bombs inside Lebanon while Hezbollah fires 150 rockets towards the Iron Dome

Israeli jets have launched airstrikes in Lebanon after their military said Hezbollah was preparing to fire rockets and missiles towards Israel. 

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said: ‘In a self-defense act to remove these threats, the (Israeli military) is striking terror targets in Lebanon, from which Hezbollah was planning to launch their attacks on Israeli civilians.

Hagari warned Hezbollah would ‘soon fire rockets, and possibly missiles and drones’ into Israel.

Shortly after their announcement, Hezbollah announced they had launched an attack on Israel with a large number of drones in retaliation for the killing of one of its commanders, Fuad Shukr.

Shukr was wiped out by an Israeli airstrike after being lured toward the top of a building in Beirut. 

Hezbollah said the attack was targeting ‘a qualitative Israeli military target that will be announced later’ as well as ‘targeting a number of enemy sites and barracks and Iron Dome platforms.’

It said the strikes were an initial response to the killing of Fouad Shukur, a top commander with the group, in a strike in Beirut‘s southern suburbs last month.

Fears have been high in recent weeks that the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip could escalate into a regional conflict

A view shows smoke and fire on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon August 25, 2024

An intelligence official told The New York Times that Israel’s preemptive attack was aimed at missile launchers that had been programmed to fire at 5 a.m. local time towards Tel Aviv. 

The official told the outlet that all the launchers that had been targeted were destroyed, and that Israel was anticipating a harsh response from Hezbollah. 

Sirens began sounding in northern Israel soon after the warning from the Israeli military, and additional sirens later joined in across the north.

Lebanese media reported strikes in the country’s south without immediately providing more details. Social media footage showed what appeared to be strikes in southern Lebanon.

Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv began diverting incoming flights and delaying others due to takeoff Sunday after the Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.

In his statement, Hagari added: ‘We can see that Hezbollah is preparing to launch an extensive attack on Israel, while endangering the Lebanese civilians.

‘We warn the civilians located in the areas where Hezbollah is operating to move out of harm’s way immediately for their own safety’. Hagari didn’t provide additional details on the intelligence he cited. 

While the IDF X page added: ‘Hezbollah has just launched over 150 projectiles from Lebanon toward Israeli territory. We target terrorist infrastructure, they target civilians.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, were managing the latest operation from military headquarters in Tel Aviv. 

Gallant declared a ‘special situation on the home front,’ and Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet was set to meet later Sunday morning.

A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean Savett, said President Joe Biden was ‘closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon’.

Savett said: ‘At his direction, senior U.S. officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts. 

‘We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability.’

Lebanese media reported strikes in the country’s south without immediately providing more details

A phone call lured Hezbollah chief Fuad Shukr (pictured) towards the top of a Beirut building he was in minutes before he was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike last month

A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean Savett, said President Joe Biden was ‘closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon’ 

This photo taken from a position in northern Israel shows an Israeli Air Force fighter jet firing flares as it flies to intercept a hostile aircraft that launched from Lebanon over the border area with south Lebanon on August 25, 2024

Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system over the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel on August 23, 2024

Lloyd J. Austin III, US Secretary of Defense, spoke with Gallant on Saturday night to discuss Israel responses to Hezbollah attacks, according to the Pentagon. 

Austin reaffirmed the US ‘ironclad commitment’ to defending Israel against any attacks by ‘Iran and its regional partners and proxies’, the statement said. 

Fears have been high in recent weeks that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip would spill over into a regional conflict. 

This was only exacerbated after the killing of Hezbollah commander Shukr and the suspected Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Shukr, who was responsible for the 1983 massacre of 241 American and 58 French troops in a Beirut bombing, was killed on July 30, along with his wife, two other women, and two children. 80 people were also injured in the strike, which was attributed to the IDF. 

The Wall Street Journal revealed that Shukr received a call from someone who told him to go from the second floor of the building he was in to his apartment on the seventh floor. 

A Hezbollah official told the newspaper that he was easier to target on the higher floor. 

The official added that the call likely came from someone who had breached the terror group’s communications network, adding that Israeli intelligence had likely beaten its counter surveillance measures through better technology and hacking capabilities. 

This photo taken on Aug. 23, 2024 shows the smoke caused by an Israeli shelling in Khiam, Lebanon

Hezbollah fighters gather prior to the funeral procession for late senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, killed in an Israeli strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, earlier this month

ran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Ismail Haniyeh (L) before Israel’s lethal strike on the Hamas leader in Tehran, Iran July 30, 2024

Shukr, long known as the ‘Ghost’ because of how rarely he was seen in public, is believed to have first gone into hiding after he helped plan the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight from Athens to the US. 

Haniyeh, who had escaped the horrors of the war in Gaza while residing in Qatar, travelled to Iran to attend the inauguration of new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian earlier this month. 

Israel appeared to seize the chance to hit Haniyeh, attacking his residence in Tehran in the early hours of the morning and killing the Hamas leader along with a security guard.

The assassination, confirmed by both Hamas and Iranian authorities, marks the most high-profile killing since October 7.

The White House said on Friday it was still prepared for Iran to strike back against Israel, even as the Middle East held its breath for a resolution to the conflict in Gaza.

Rockets fired from Lebanon are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system

John Kirby, national security spokesman, described ceasefire talks in Cairo as ‘constructive’ even though the Palestinian terror group Hamas had not sent representatives.

At the same time, Iran’s promised attack on Israel, in retaliation for the killing of Haniyeh on Iranian soil, has yet to materialize.

But Kirby told reporters on a briefing call: ‘It’s still a very perilous situation. I can’t predict what Iran’s going to do or not going to do. 

The Pentagon has moved an extra aircraft carrier strike group into the region to make Iran think twice about launching a response. 

Kirby called on Hamas to join the ceasefire talks. On Thursday they included negotiators from Israel, the United States, Egypt and Qatar but not Hamas.

The region was plunged into turmoil on Oct. 7 last year when Hamas gunmen killed more than 1200 people in Israel.