Mutual attacks on the Israeli-Lebanese border are increasing – and they are becoming more deadly | World news

The landscape in southern Lebanon is changing almost daily as villages are reduced to rubble by an increasingly dangerous barrage of attacks between the Israeli military and Hezbollah.

Since October 8, when Hezbollah first fired rockets at Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians following Hamas attacks, the two sides have struck each other nearly 5,000 times.

The majority of the attacks came from Israel, but an analysis by Sky News’ data and forensics team shows that Hezbollah is changing its tactics and its attacks are now penetrating deeper into Israeli territory than ever before.

This is Alex Crawford’s report:

We are with UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and can regularly hear the sound of explosions on the horizon.

When the rockets land, we occasionally see clouds of smoke.

“It’s going to be a hot day,” says Lieutenant Colonel Jose Irisarri with cheerful understatement.

And he doesn’t mean the weather, even though the thermometers are approaching 40 degrees Celsius and the so-called “blue helmets” are all wearing heavy body armour.

“You have to be ready to go into the bunkers,” we are told. They tell us that they recently spent nine hours straight underground while the crossfire continued above.

If we join them, there appears to be an increase in mutual attacks between the Israeli military and the Iranian-backed Lebanese. Hezbollah Battle group.

The pattern is unpredictable, but overnight there was a major Israeli attack on two Hezbollah commanders in Safad al Battikh, a village that had not been hit before, which also injured nearly two dozen civilians.

Hezbollah fighters responded with a barrage of counter-rockets. Their partners in Yemen, the Houthis, also responded. send a drone to Tel Avivinto a building a hundred meters from the US embassy. One person died in the attack.

“We expect it to be quite active here,” says Lt. Col. Irisarri.

The lieutenant colonel is part of the Spanish battalion in the eastern sector along the so-called Blue Line – the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel, where UN troops have been trapped in an uncomfortable situation between the warring sides for more than nine months.

He tells us that three more Lebanese villages were hit in the hours before we arrived.

As we drive off in a heavily armored UN convoy, we hear constant radio traffic. They are receiving information from other UN colleagues about the possibility of further attacks.

We are told that one of the areas they want to take us to is now closed.

“Perhaps attacks are being planned, but we don’t know for sure,” Lieutenant Colonel Irisarri tells us over the radio. “We have to return to base.”

“Every two days, even every day, we see one or two destroyed houses. And two or three days ago they were not destroyed,” he adds as we drive past the razed houses and shops.

Dozens of communities on both sides of the border are now destroyed ghost townsAbout 60,000 Israelis have fled their homes, while an estimated 100,000 Lebanese have left their villages.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah group began its latest attacks from Lebanon a day after Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7.

Since then, the two sides have engaged in increasingly dangerous and deadly mutual attacks that have escalated and intensified, raising global fears that these attacks could lead to an even wider regional war.

Hezbollah is the strongest partner of the so-called Axis of Resistance led by Iran, which also includes the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria.

During our trip with the UN, we see that large parts of Kfar Kila and other nearby Lebanese villages that we pass through are largely in ruins. We were last in this area eight months ago, and it is now destroyed almost beyond recognition.

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The UN troops we accompany are making their way through this devastation under their blue flags and tell us that they are observing changes in the landscape almost daily.

Their UN base is located in a particularly vulnerable spot between Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, Lebanon and Israel – and attacks have already taken place just a few hundred meters away.

“We see everything from here,” says Captain Gonzalez. “We have seen white phosphorusDrones flying around, fighter jets flying around, artillery strikes, air strikes… We’re in the middle of it.”

A few days earlier, we took part in the Shiite Ashura commemorations in Beirut, which were attended by thousands.

The focus of the commemorations is a speech by their leader Hassan Nasrullah, in which he assures his followers that they will defend Lebanon by all means. Hezbollah, he goes on to say, does not want war, but is prepared for it.

Palestinian flags are scattered everywhere among the numerous Ashura commemorative flags. Hezbollah still firmly links its attacks to the fate of Gaza.

Without a ceasefire, these attacks are likely to continue – and they will become increasingly deadly and dangerous.

Reporting with cinematographer Jake Britton, special producer Chris Cunningham and producers Jihad Jneid and Sami Zein.