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Hezbollah rains rockets on Israel after strike kills commander
Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since the beginning of the regime’s war on Gaza in October.
“We will increase the intensity, strength, quantity and quality of our attacks,” said senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, speaking at the funeral of commander Taleb Sami Abdallah, who was killed in Tuesday’s Israeli strike, AFP reported.
In Doha, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed calls Wednesday for a diplomatic solution between Israel and Lebanon and said a long-sought Gaza cease-fire deal would “take a tremendous amount of pressure out of the system”.
Hezbollah in statements said it launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at three bases and a barracks in northern Israel.
The group said it also struck a “military factory” with guided missiles “in response to the assassination carried out by the Zionist enemy”.
Taleb Sami Abdallah was killed along with three Hezbollah comrades in an Israeli strike on Jouaiyya.
A Lebanese military source said the commander was “the most important in Hezbollah to be killed... since the start of the war”.
More than eight months of cross-border violence has killed at least 468 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 89 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israeli authorities say at least 15 Israeli soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border since the violence erupted on October 7.
Meanwhile, deadly fighting rocked Gaza on Wednesday as US top diplomat Antony Blinken on a Middle East tour pushed for an elusive truce and captive release deal to end the war raging since October 7.
And in Geneva, a UN investigation concluded on Wednesday that Israel has committed crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza, and that both parties to the bloody conflict were guilty of war crimes.
US Secretary of State Blinken arrived in Qatar on his latest regional crisis tour, to promote a cease-fire deal outlined by President Joe Biden on May 31.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators were studying a reply Hamas issued late Tuesday, but there was no news of a breakthrough as Hamas has insisted on a complete end to the war, a demand rejected by Israel.
Hamas and their allies Islamic Jihad said that their response calls for “a complete halt to the ongoing aggression on Gaza”.
Hamas proposed amendments including a cease-fire timeline and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a source familiar with the talks said.