Israel declares state of emergency as conflict with Hezbollah heats up
The confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah has seen its most intense day in more than 11 months and threatens to escalate further. The Israel Defense Forces' military operation against the Iranian-backed Shiite militia - recently dubbed “Northern Arrows” - has hit more than 1,300 terrorist targets across Lebanon, including the south and the Bekaa Valley, one of Hezbollah's main strongholds.
The attacks have also left nearly 500 dead and more than 1,600 wounded, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. In this regard, the Israeli army has accused Hizbollah of using Lebanese citizens as human shields by hiding weapons in residential buildings, using the same technique as Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also released a video coinciding with Operation Northern Arrows directed at the people of Lebanon in which he claims that ‘Israel's war is not against the Lebanese, but against Hezbollah’.
‘These rockets and missiles are aimed directly at our cities and our civilians,’ Netanyahu declared, calling on Lebanese civilians not to allow Hezbollah to ‘endanger their lives and the lives of their loved ones’. ‘Leave the area now. Once our operation is over, you can return home safely,’ he said.
Before launching strikes, the IDF urged Lebanese civilians to evacuate areas near Hezbollah's weapons sites, prompting a mass exodus of tens of thousands of people from the south of the country.
In addition to targeting terrorist infrastructure and weapons caches, Israel carried out an air strike in Beirut against Ali Karaki, head of Hezbollah's southern front and the group's third highest-ranking official. This attack comes just three days after the assassination of senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and other high-profile figures in the terrorist group's elite Radwan force.
The Lebanese militia, meanwhile, denied Karaki's death, assuring that ‘he is safe and has been moved to a safe place’.
As expected, the terrorist group responded to the operation by firing hundreds of rockets into northern Israel. For the first time since Hezbollah began its offensive against the Jewish state on 8 October in support of Hamas, the Lebanese militia attacked Haifa - Israel's third largest city - as well as Palestinian territories in the West Bank. Most of these attacks were intercepted by air defences and others landed in open areas, causing damage but no serious injuries.
Hezbollah continued its attacks into the early hours of the morning, launching some 20 shells into the Lower Galilee region, including the Arab-majority city of Nazareth, injuring at least four people. The IDF responded by striking Hezbollah targets early in the morning, leaving at least 10 dead in the Bekaa region, according to Lebanese media.
In the midst of this escalation, the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, has approved a declaration of a ‘special situation on the home front’ throughout the country until 30 September, citing a high risk of attacks against civilians. For the time being, Home Front Command guidelines remain unchanged and schools north of Haifa will remain closed until Thursday.
Iran says it is ‘not seeking a wider war’
The international community now fears an escalation and expansion of the conflict after nearly a year of war between Israel and Iranian-backed militias in the Middle East - Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
However, according to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Tehran ‘does not seek a wider war’, stressing that such a conflict would have no winners.
Hezbollah's recent defeats have dealt a blow to the so-called Iranian-led ‘Axis of Resistance’, which will not enter into open war with Israel over any of its regional allies, which it uses to indirectly attack the Jewish state.
Despite arming, financing and backing all these militias, Pezeshkian has accused Israel of ‘widening’ this conflict, claiming that Tehran does not want ‘to be the cause of instability in the region’.