Jerusalem:
Israel warned residents of southern Lebanon on Saturday “not to return” to their homes, as Hezbollah said it had launched rockets across the border on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
In cities around Israel, markets were closed and public transportation halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed.
But while the country was at war, troops remained locked in fighting in Hamas-run Gaza and in southern Lebanon, a traditional Hezbollah stronghold, amid a storm of criticism over the wounding of four U.N. peacekeepers.
In a message addressed to southern Lebanese, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X: “For your own safety, do not return to your homes until further notice… Do not go south; anyone who goes south could be putting their life in danger. .”
The war between Israel and Hezbollah has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese Health Ministry figures, and forced more than a million people to flee their homes.
On Saturday, Hezbollah said it had launched rockets at an Israeli army base near the northern city of Haifa.
In a statement, the group said its fighters “attacked the explosives factory there with a volley of… rockets.”
Air raid sirens sounded in northern Israel, with the Israeli army saying it had intercepted a projectile launched from Lebanon.
Israel began bombing Gaza shortly after suffering its worst-ever attacks from Iran-backed Hamas militants on October 7 last year, and launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 30.
After the Yom Kippur holiday, attention is likely to return to Israel’s expected retaliation against Iran, which fired about 200 missiles into Israel on October 1.
‘Deliberately targeted’
On Friday, Israel faced severe diplomatic backlash over what it said was a “hit” on the United Nations peacekeeping position in Lebanon.
Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were injured in the second incident in two days, the UNIFIL mission said on Friday.
The Israeli army said its soldiers had responded with fire to “an imminent threat” about 50 meters from the UNIFIL base in Naqura.
But Irish Army chief of staff Sean Clancy said it was “not an accidental act”, while French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed UN peacekeepers were “deliberately targeted”.
Both Ireland and France make important contributions to UNIFIL.
As Israel faced a chorus of condemnation from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres, Western allies and others, the military vowed to conduct a “thorough review.”
UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon are on the front lines of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese Health Ministry figures.
Four peacekeepers were injured, including two Indonesians who were injured on Thursday when a tank fired on their watchtower, according to UNIFIL.
Diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “complete and immediate ceasefire” the-fire”.
The Lebanese army said on Friday that an Israeli attack on one of its positions in southern Lebanon killed two soldiers.
In a show of support for Iranian ally Hezbollah, the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on Saturday visited the site of a deadly Israeli attack earlier this week, which a source close to Hezbollah said targeted Hezbollah’s security chief Wafiq Safa.
Neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed whether Safa was indeed the target of the attack, but the Lebanese Health Ministry said the raid killed 22 people.
The visit to Lebanon, a signal of defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s second-ever direct attack.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed this week that his country’s response would be “lethal, precise and surprising.”
The United States is pushing for a “proportionate” response that would not plunge the region into a wider war, with President Jore Biden urging Israel not to attack Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.
Deaths in Gaza
The Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures, including hostages. killed in captivity.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has wreaked havoc, killing 42,175 people in the Hamas-held territory, the majority of them civilians, according to Health Ministry data.
Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army besieging an area around Jabalia in the north, causing further suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said.
“The bombing has not stopped. Every minute there are grenades, rockets and fire on the buildings and everything that moves,” 35-year-old Areej Nasr told AFP after fleeing to Gaza City from Jabalia on Thursday.
On Friday, Gaza’s civil protection agency said 30 people had been killed in Israeli attacks in the area, including on schools used as shelters by displaced people.
An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy artillery shelling, explosions and gunfire further south in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood on Saturday.
Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman, issued another evacuation warning for an area near Jabalia on Saturday.
“The specified area, including the shelters therein, is considered a dangerous combat zone,” Adraee said on X, ordering residents to move to the humanitarian zone in the southern part of the strip.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)