The Israeli military has announced that it is expanding its air attacks in southern and eastern Lebanon. These attacks are aimed at locations they believe are being used by Hezbollah, a group based in Lebanon, to store or transport weapons.
Smokes rise, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Tyre, southern Lebanon on September 23, 2024.
On Monday, September 23, 2024, Israeli airstrikes killed more than 356 people in Lebanon. This was the deadliest attack since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Israeli military warned people living in southern and eastern Lebanon to leave their homes as they planned to expand their air campaign against Hezbollah.
The airstrikes targeted large areas in southern and northeastern Lebanon. The Israeli military reported hitting 800 sites in an effort to increase pressure on the Hezbollah group.
Hezbollah has launched more than 100 rockets across a wider and deeper area of northern Israel
A member of the Israeli security forces stands guard inside a cordoned-off area in Kiryat Bialik in the Haifa district of Israel, targeted by a reported strike by Lebanon’s Hezbollah on September 22, 2024.
Early on Sunday, September 22, 2024, Hezbollah fired over 100 rockets into northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa. At the same time, Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Lebanon. A Hezbollah leader said they were now in an “open-ended battle,” and both sides seem to be getting closer to full-scale war.
The rocket attack was a response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon that killed dozens of people, including a top Hezbollah commander, and targeted the group’s communication systems. In northern Israel, air raid sirens went off, causing hundreds of thousands of people to rush into shelters.
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On Saturday, September 21, 2024, Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said two of its top commanders were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Beirut. The strike, which happened the day before, killed 37 people in total, according to authorities.
Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said three children were also killed in the strike, which hit an underground meeting room in a crowded neighborhood in the southern part of Beirut, an area controlled by Hezbollah. The explosion left a large crater.
Before the recent fighting escalated with explosions last Tuesday, about 600 people had already been killed in Lebanon since October. Most of those killed were fighters, but more than 100 were civilians.
While Israel was carrying out airstrikes, air-raid sirens went off in northern Israel, warning of rockets being fired from Lebanon.
