Hezbollah targets Kiryat Shmona, bases deep in Israel 'in defense of Lebanon'

Hezbollah attacked Tuesday Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel with a salvo of rockets, "in defense of Lebanon," after the Israeli military hit dozens of targets in several areas of southern Lebanon overnight.

Hezbollah also fired overnight volleys of Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets at the Megiddo military airport west of Israel's Afula, the Ramat David air base near Haifa, the Amos logistic base and the Zikhron explosives factory.

Hezbollah said it launched the missiles at the Israeli military bases, hours after 180 of its projectiles and an unmanned aerial vehicle crossed into Israeli airspace, sending people in the city of Haifa running for shelter.

Israel announced dozens of new air strikes on Lebanon Tuesday, a day after 492 people, including 35 children, were killed in the deadliest bombardment since a devastating war in 2006.

"Overnight ...the IAF (air force) struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in numerous areas in southern Lebanon," the military said in a statement, adding that its artillery and tanks struck additional "terrorist targets" in the area of Ayta al-Shab and Ramyah.

Israel’s military said that 100 rockets had been fired from Lebanon into northern Israel since the early hours of Tuesday morning, setting several fires and damaging buildings.

The rockets came in five volleys throughout the morning, the largest of them containing 50 rockets toward the Upper Galilee area. The military said it had struck the launchers where the rockets were fired. Another heavily-targeted area was southeast of the Israeli city of Haifa.

Rocket sirens blared throughout the morning in Israel’s north. Video circulating on Israeli media showed explosions on the highway, with drivers pulling over and lying on the ground next to their vehicles.

Galilee Medical Center, a northern Israel hospital, said that two patients arrived to the hospital with minor head injuries from a rocket falling near their car. Several others were being treated for light wounds from running to shelters and traffic accidents when alarms sounded.

In Lebanon, Monday's raids killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and wounded 1,645, according to the health ministry, which said "thousands of families" had fled their homes.

"Everyone is heading (to Lebanese capital Beirut) with their children and their belongings -- it's the first time we see such panic since 2006," said Lebanese journalist Nazir Reda, who was driving to his hometown near the Israeli border to get his family away from the violence.

Longtime foes Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in near-daily cross-border exchanges of fire for nearly a year, since October 7.

Monday's bombardment of Lebanon was by far the largest, not just in the past year, but since the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006.

That war killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers, and devastated large swathes of Hezbollah's strongholds.

- 'Operation Northern Arrows' -

Israel has dubbed its large-scale raids on Lebanon "Operation Northern Arrows" after announcing earlier this month it was shifting the focus of its firepower from Gaza to Lebanon.

World leaders have expressed alarm over the rapid escalation on the Lebanon front, with U.N. chief Antonio Guterres's spokesman saying he was "gravely alarmed" and the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell warning "we are almost in a full-fledged war".

France and Egypt called on the United Nations Security Council to intervene, while Iraq requested an urgent meeting of Arab states on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

The Pentagon said it was sending a small number of additional U.S. military personnel to the Middle East after thousands were deployed earlier alongside warships, fighter jets and air defense systems.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity at the assembly, said that Washington opposed an Israeli ground invasion targeting Hezbollah and had "concrete ideas" on how to de-escalate the crisis.

G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement that "no country stands to gain" from escalating conflict, warning of "unimaginable consequences" if a regional war broke out.

- Device blasts -

The violence between Israel and Hezbollah escalated dramatically last week, when coordinated communications device blasts that the militants blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000.

Then on Friday, an Israeli strike on southern Beirut, a bastion of Hezbollah, killed its elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Akil.

An Israeli military official, who cannot be identified, said the military is seeking to "degrade threats" from Hezbollah, push them back from the border and destroy infrastructure.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nations and world powers to deter what he called Israel's "plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns".

He said he was cancelling a scheduled cabinet meeting to fly to New York to "make further contacts" with world leaders to try to end the violence.