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HEZBOLLAH HAS LAUNCHED a barrage of rocket fire against Israel this morning, targeting an intelligence base near Tel Aviv and a naval base near Haifa, the group said.
Overnight, Israel launched extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, including in central Beirut.
One person in Israel has been injured by falling shrapnel from an interceptor rocket today, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
A “salvo of rockets” was fired against the “Glilot base of the 8200 military intelligence unit”, Hezbollah said in a statement, after claiming similar attacks on the same position last night.
Also this morning, the group said it fired rockets at another position in Tel Aviv’s suburbs.
A “salvo of rockets” also targeted the “Stella Maris naval base northwest of Haifa”, the group said in a statement.
The Israeli military said in a statement that following sirens “in central Israel, approximately five projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon. The majority… were intercepted”.
It also said that following sirens “in the Upper Galilee area and northern Golan Heights, approximately 15 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon” with some intercepted and the rest falling in open areas.
It said it was not immediately aware of any casualties.
This afternoon, Hezbollah declared its “full, complete and exclusive responsibility for the Caesarea operation targeting… Netanyahu,” spokesman Mohammed Afif told reporters, referring to last week’s a drone attack on the Israeli Prime Minister’s residence.
Lebanon’s health ministry said today that 13 people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli strike near a south Beirut hospital yesterday.
Another 57 people were wounded in the strike near the Rafic Hariri Hospital, Lebanon’s biggest public health facility, located a few kilometres from the city centre, the health ministry said.
The facility in the Jnah neighbourhood sustained minor damage in the strike, with windows shattered and its solar panels destroyed, its director said.
In the vicinity, four buildings were flattened by the strikes, said an AFP correspondent in the area.
Rescuers were still searching for survivors today, amid fears that the toll may rise further.
The AFP correspondent at the scene heard a cell phone ringing under chunks of concrete.
Among those sifting through the rubble was resident Ola Eid who said she had watched from her balcony the previous night as her neighbourhood was bombed.
“The children were playing in the courtyard,” Eid told AFP.
“I was tossing them chocolate and candy from my balcony,” she added.
“Before they could even catch them, the first strike hit, then a second. I saw the children ripped apart.”
Israel said it hit 300 targets across Lebanon in the last 24 hours.
It had earlier reported six people killed in the eastern city of Baalbek and said four rescuers had died in the south in Israeli raids over 24 hours.
Syria’s defence ministry earlier announced the death of two people in a strike attributed to Israel targeting a car in Damascus.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a memorial was being held nearby for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israel last week in Gaza.
Yesterday, the Israeli army said it had struck nearly 30 targets belonging to the Hezbollah-linked financial firm.
Subject to US sanctions, the financial institution is part of a network of associations, schools and hospitals set up by Hezbollah.
The Israeli military vowed to carry out further attacks on Monday evening, including in the southern suburbs of Beirut which have been pummelled by strikes in recent weeks.
Shortly after Israel’s military told residents to evacuate parts of the capital, the more central Ouzai neighbourhood was hit for the first time during the conflict, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers told AFP they were looking for survivors amid the devastation in Ouzai.
“They did not leave any room for people to escape. The strike came closely after the warning,” one said.
Human rights group Amnesty International said today that the Israeli military’s bombing of branches of the financial firm in Beirut should be “investigated as a war crime”.
The Al-Qard al-Hassan firm, a lifeline for many Shiite Muslims and other Lebanese in the face of a years-long financial crisis, is sanctioned by Washington, which accuses Hezbollah of using it as a cover to gain access to the international financial system.
“The Israeli military’s targeting of branches” of Al-Qard al-Hassan “likely violates international humanitarian law and must be investigated as a war crime”, Amnesty said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Under the laws of war, branches of financial institutions are civilian objects unless they are being used for military purposes. Therefore, these attacks likely constitute a direct attack on civilian objects,” it added.
The financial firm, officially registered as a charity, has been offering customers credit in exchange for gold deposits on an interest-free basis since the 1980s.
The United Nations on Monday condemned the Israeli strikes targeting Al-Qard Al-Hassan, saying they also caused “extensive damage” to civilian property and infrastructure.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif told reporters today that Al-Qard al-Hassan was “a completely civilian institution registered by law, whose services are for all Lebanese without exception”.
A senior Israeli intelligence official, briefing journalists on condition of anonymity, said the strikes were meant “to affect the trust between Hezbollah and a lot of the Shiite community that uses this system”.
Amnesty’s Erika Guevara Rosas said the Israeli military had “targeted an institution that serves as an economic lifeline for countless Lebanese civilians”.
“This, along with an evacuation warning issued less than 40 minutes before the start of the strikes, shows Israel’s disregard for international humanitarian law,” she said in the statement.
“An international investigation into the attacks” on Al-Qard al-Hassan “must be urgently initiated”, she said.
At least 2,467 people have been killed in a year of violence, according to Lebanese authorities, more than half of them since 23 September, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
With reporting from AFP
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