Hezbollah fires 200 rockets at Israel after commander killed | News on Israel-Palestine conflict

A massive barrage is launched in response to the killing of an armed group’s highest-ranking commander, as fears of all-out war grow.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it fired more than 200 rockets and drones at Israeli military positions in response to an attack that killed a senior commander of the armed group.

A Hezbollah source confirmed to Al Jazeera Thursday’s attack – the second major attack in two days – in retaliation for the killing of Muhammad Nimah Nasser in southern Lebanon a day earlier.

Nasser, also known as “Hajj Abu Nimah,” was the third senior official killed in the nearly nine months of cross-border fighting that erupted after Israel launched its war on Gaza. His death prompted Hezbollah to fire more than 100 rockets at Israel on Wednesday.

Thursday’s attack was one of the largest so far along the Lebanese-Israeli border, amid rapidly rising tensions there after the group launched exploding drones at several military bases in northern Israel and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

The Israeli military said its forces were “attacking launch positions in southern Lebanon” after “numerous missiles and suspicious aerial targets entered Israeli territory from Lebanon” and most of them were intercepted.

It was said that following the attacks, “fires broke out in several areas in northern Israel.”

Israeli media reported that a vehicle carrying Israeli soldiers was hit by a missile. There were reportedly two direct hits on two buildings, one in Akko and another north of the city. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said two women were taken to a hospital in northern Israel with minor injuries.

According to the military, seventeen alarms were raised within 90 minutes in various parts of the northern region, from Nahariya in the west to Golan in the east.

Fear of war is increasing

The increase in fighting and charged rhetoric between Hezbollah and Israeli politicians have prompted mediators in the United States, Europe and the Arab world to do everything they can to prevent a larger regional conflict.

Hezbollah says it is attacking Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian armed group Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people and capturing about 250 others.

In response, Israel launched a massive assault on Gaza that killed more than 38,000 people, mostly children and women, forcibly displaced around two million others multiple times, and devastated the long-besieged coastal enclave.

With tensions with Hezbollah rising, Israeli politicians are now warning that they could start a war in Lebanon if efforts to find a diplomatic solution fail.

It is estimated that at least 496 people have been killed in border clashes in Lebanon so far, most of them fighters but also 95 civilians. Israeli authorities believe that at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have died.

Rami Khouri, a political analyst at the American University of Beirut, said that while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to beat the war drum against Hezbollah, the military is not prepared for a second front.

“Netanyahu in particular keeps saying we will attack Lebanon. We will destroy Hezbollah. But they do not have the capacity to do so as long as they are still waging a war in Gaza,” Khouri told Al Jazeera.

He said a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was the best scenario for Israel. “Hezbollah has often said: ‘We will stop attacking Israel if Israel stops attacking Gaza.'”

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said on Wednesday that he was “very concerned about the escalation of the exchange of fire” between Hezbollah and Israel.

He warned of the potential risks for the entire region should a “full-blown conflict” occur.