'Won't Tolerate...': Netanyahu Warns Hezbollah After 100 Rockets Fired Into Israel Amid Rising Tensions | 10 Points

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel has “landed a series of blows on Hezbollah”, after the Iran-backed militant group fired 100 rockets deep into the northern parts of the country. This has sparked concerns of an all-out war following months of escalating tension as the United Nations also took stock of the situation.

Netanyahu said the message should be clear to Hezbollah, which earlier said it targeted military production facilities and an air base near Haifa in northern Israel. This, the group said, was in retaliation to Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.

“In recent days, we have landed a series of blows on Hezbollah that it could have never imagined. If Hezbollah did not get the message, I assure you it will get the message,” he said in a statement.

He added: “No country can tolerate attacks on its citizens, attacks on its cities. And we, the State of Israel, will not tolerate it either,” he said.

The rocket barrage from Lebanon overnight set off air raid sirens across northern Israel, sending thousands of people scrambling into shelters. The Israeli military said rockets had been fired “toward civilian areas”; previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.

The attacks came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on September 20 killed at least 45 people, including one of Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as women and children. Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of personal devices to explode just days earlier.

Before the expansion of the war goals, Israel was focusing on crushing Hamas and securing the return of hostages seized during the militant group’s October 7 attack that triggered the Gaza war.

Here is all you need to know:

• Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said their forces will continue to pursue their war goals. In a statement issued by his office, he said: “Hezbollah has begun experiencing the impact” of Israel’s military capabilities “and they sense that they are being pursued”
• Gallant said military actions “will continue until we reach a point where we may ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes”. “This is our goal, this is our mission and we will employ the means necessary to achieve it,” he said
• One person was killed and another wounded in an Israeli strike near the border, said Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated four people for shrapnel wounds, including a 76-year-old man who was moderately wounded in Kiryat Bialik, a community near Haifa where buildings were damaged and cars set on fire. The country’s health ministry said all hospitals in the north will begin moving operations to protected areas or shelters at medical centres
• The Israeli military said it carried out a wave of strikes across southern Lebanon in the last 24 hours, hitting about 400 militant sites, including rocket launchers. Israeli military spokesperson Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said those strikes had thwarted an even larger attack. “Hundreds of thousands of civilians have come under fire across a lot of northern Israel. They spent the night and now the morning in bomb shelters,” he said. “Today we saw fire that was deeper into Israel than before
• Israeli media reported that rockets fired from Lebanon were intercepted in Haifa and Nazareth, which are further south than most of the rocket fire to date. Israel cancelled school across the north, deepening the sense of crisis
• Hezbollah said it launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles – a new type of weapon the group has not used before – at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa “in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs”. In July, the group released a video with what it said was footage it had filmed of the base with surveillance drones
• The militant group further said it targeted the facilities of the Rafael defence firm, which is headquartered in Haifa, calling it retaliation for the wireless devices attack. It did not provide evidence, and the Israeli military declined to comment on the statement
• In a separate development, Israeli forces raided the West Bank bureau of Al-Jazeera, which it had banned earlier this year, accusing it of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups, allegations denied by the pan-Arab broadcaster
• While the two sides are not seeking war, Hezbollah has said it will only halt its attacks if there is a cease-fire in Gaza. This appears increasingly elusive as long-running talks led by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have not borne fruit
• On September 20, an Israeli airstrike took down an eight-story building in a densely populated neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs as Hezbollah members were meeting in the basement, as per Israel. Among those killed was Ibrahim Akil, a top Hezbollah official who commanded the group’s special forces unit, known as the Radwan Force.

(With agency inputs)