Lebanon's Hezbollah militia fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Saturday, a barrage of fire likely carried out by Israel that targeted top leaders of the allied Hamas group in the Lebanese capital earlier this week. He warned that this was his initial reaction to being murdered.
The rocket attack came after Hezbollah leader Saeed Hassan Nasrallah said his group must retaliate for the killing of Hamas's deputy political leader Saleh Allouri in Hezbollah's stronghold south of Beirut. I woke up the next day.
Prime Minister Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah does not fight back, all of Lebanon will be vulnerable to Israeli attack.
As the war between Israel and Hamas intensifies, he appears to be pleading for action for the Lebanese people, even at the risk of escalating fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.
Hezbollah said on Saturday that it had fired 62 rockets at an Israeli air surveillance base on Mount Meron, receiving a direct hit.
The Israeli military said about 40 rockets had been fired at Meron and that the base had been targeted, but did not mention any attacks on the base. They announced that they had attacked a Hezbollah cell that had fired rockets.
The escalation in the cross-border situation comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken begins his fourth emergency diplomatic trip to the region since the Israeli-Hamas war broke out three months ago.
The war was sparked by a deadly attack by Hamas on southern Israel, in which the insurgents killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
Violent Israeli retaliation by air, land and sea has killed more than 22,600 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip's health ministry.
Israel has scaled back its military offensive in the northern part of the territory in recent weeks and ramped up heavy offensives in the south, vowing to crush Hamas.
In the south, most of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians have been forced into a small area by the humanitarian disaster and remain exposed to Israeli airstrikes.
On Saturday morning, the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis received the bodies of 18 people killed in an overnight airstrike on a house in the city's Ma'an district, said Saleh al-Hams, the hospital's director of nursing.
Citing eyewitnesses, he said more than 30 people, including evacuees, were evacuated to the house at the time of the damage.
Israel has blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties, saying it was integrated into Gaza's civilian infrastructure.
Still, the rising number of civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip has reinforced international criticism of Israel's actions in the war.
The United States has called on Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it continues to send arms and ammunition while protecting its close ally from international condemnation.
Blinken began his latest Middle East trip in Turkey on Saturday. The Biden administration believes that Turkey and others can exert influence, particularly against Iran and its proxies, to quell concerns of a regional conflagration.
These fears have been heightened in recent days by incidents in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran.
In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Mr. Blinken also plans to seek Turkish support for plans for post-war Gaza that are still in their infancy, including financial support for reconstruction efforts. or may include in-kind donations or some form of participation in the proposed scheme. A multinational force capable of operating within or adjacent to its territory.
From Turkey, Blinken will travel to Turkey's rival and NATO ally Greece, where he will meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at his official residence on the Mediterranean island of Crete.
Mr. Mitsotakis and his government support U.S. efforts to prevent the Israeli-Hamas war from escalating, and have indicated they will assist if the situation worsens.
Other stops on the trip include Jordan, followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday. Blinken is scheduled to visit Israel and the West Bank next week before concluding his trip to Egypt.
