Khiam, Lebanon, October 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher

Israel said it had struck Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Sunday, while officials in Gaza said they were still trying to recover bodies from the rubble after an Israeli strike.

Many were dead or missing following the airstrike on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza late on Saturday, the health ministry in the Palestinian territory said. Israel said it was investigating reports of the incident.

It marked an intensification of Israel’s offensives against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, days after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had raised hopes of an opening for ceasefire negotiations to end more than a year of escalating conflict in the Middle East.

With US elections approaching, officials, diplomats and other sources in the region say Israel is seeking through military operations to try to shield its borders and ensure its rivals cannot regroup.

Israel is also preparing to retaliate for an Iranian missile barrage earlier this month, though Washington has pressed it not to strike Iranian energy facilities or nuclear sites.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was the subject of an assassination attempt by “Iran’s proxy Hezbollah” on Saturday when a drone was directed at his holiday home. In a call with former US President Donald Trump, the prime minister reiterated that Israel would make decisions based on its own interests, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

The strike came two weeks into a major assault around the town of Jabalia, just to the south of Beit Lahiya, where Israeli troops backed by tanks have been trying to root out remaining Hamas fighters.

Over 5,000 Palestinians left Jabalia via designated routes, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on social media platform X.

BEIRUT STRIKES

In Lebanon, Israel stepped up its bombardment of southern Beirut from Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, it said its air force attacked Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut as well as an underground workshop for the production of weapons.

Fighter jets killed three Hezbollah commanders, including Alhaj Abbas Salameh, a senior figure in the group’s southern command, the Israeli military said in a statement.

Reuters witnesses saw smoke rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs, once a densely populated zone that also housed Hezbollah offices and underground installations.

The Lebanese military said on Sunday three of its soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on an army vehicle in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah made no immediate comment on the strikes, but said it had fired missiles at Israeli forces in Lebanon and at a base in northern Israel.

Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted a year ago when the Iranian-backed group began launching rockets in support of Hamas.

At the start of October, Israel launched a ground assault inside Lebanon in an attempt to stabilize the border region for its citizens who had fled rocket attacks in northern Israel.

Over the last year, more than 2,400 people have been killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, with more than 1.2 million people displaced, most in recent weeks. Fifty nine people have been killed in northern Israel and the Golan Heights over the same period, say Israeli authorities.