Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire after Lebanon suffers huge casualties

Israel’s military said on Tuesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon overnight, a day after it launched a wave of airstrikes against the Iran-backed group’s sites in Lebanon’s deadliest day in decades.

Hezbollah on Tuesday morning said it had attacked several Israeli military targets, including an explosives factory 60 kilometers (37 miles) into Israel, with the Fadi series of rockets.

It said it attacked the explosives factory around 4 a.m. (0100 GMT) and the Megiddo airfield three separate times overnight.

After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, also backed by Iran.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah militant cell and its artillery and tanks hit other Hezbollah targets in the south. Police in northern Israel said fragments of interceptor missiles were found in various areas.

Lebanese authorities said Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon on Monday had killed nearly 500 people and sent tens of thousands fleeing for safety.

After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since hostilities flared in October as the Gaza war erupted, Israel warned people in Lebanon to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons.

Families from south Lebanon loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people young and old. Highways north were gridlocked.

The Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, Nasser Yassin, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been set up, with the capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled what he called “Israeli atrocities.”

Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah in Lebanon’s south, east and north, including rocket launchers, command posts and militant infrastructure. The Israeli Air Force struck about 1,600 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, it said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 492 people had been killed, including 35 children, and 1,645 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon’s highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.