Hezbollah launches missile barrage at Israel to avenge top commander

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones against Israel on Sunday in retaliation for the assassination of a senior commander in Beirut last month, the Iranian-backed movement said, as Israel’s cabinet met to prepare a response.

Israeli jets hit targets in Lebanon shortly before the strikes as the military assessed that Hezbollah was preparing to begin the barrage, the military said.

Hezbollah said it had launched more than 320 Katyusha rockets towards Israel and hit 11 military targets. It said the barrage had completed “the first phase” of its response to the assassination of Fuad Shukr, a senior commander, in Beirut but that the full response would take “some time”.

Expectations of an escalation between the two sides had risen since a missile strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights last month killed 12 youngsters and the Israeli military assassinated Shukr in Beirut in response.

Israel’s cabinet was to meet at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced.

Most of the Israeli strikes were hitting targets in southern Lebanon but the military was ready to strike anywhere there was a threat, an Israeli military spokesperson said.

Gallant declared a state of emergency, and flights to and from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv were suspended for around 90 minutes, but the airports authority said normal operations were expected to resume by 7 a.m.

In northern Israel, warning sirens sounded and multiple explosions were heard around several areas as Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defense system shot down rockets coming from southern Lebanon. Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said it was on high alert all over the country.

The Israeli military issued civil defense instructions from central Israel to the north, limiting gatherings but authorizing people to go to work as long as they were able to reach air raid shelters quickly. There were no casualties immediately reported in Israel, according to the ambulance service.