Lebanon sees deadliest day in years as Israel steps up strikes on Hezbollah

Hezbollah did not comment on the Israeli claims that it had hidden weapons in houses, but the group said in a statement that it had responded to the “Israeli enemy’s attacks” by firing rockets at three Israeli military bases in northern Israel, as well as a weapons manufacturing facility in the coastal Zvulun area north of the port city of Haifa.

The IDF said at least 125 projectiles crossed from Lebanon, and that an unspecified number had landed in the Lower Galilee and Upper Galilee regions, as well as the Carmel, HaAmakim, and Hamifratz areas, near the coast, and in the occupied Golan Heights.

One house was badly damaged by a rocket in Givat Avni, in the Lower Galilee.

Resident David Yitzhak told the BBC that he, his wife and six-year-old daughter were unharmed because they had managed to get behind the solid door of the house’s safe room seconds earlier, when a warning siren sounded.

“It’s a metre from life to death,” he said.

Israel’s ambulance service said it treated a 59-year-old man with shrapnel wounds to his lower limbs in the Lower Galilee, and that another man was injured as he rushed to shelter.

On Sunday, Hezbollah launched more than 150 rockets and drones across the border, while Israeli jets struck hundreds of targets across southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has remained defiant despite suffering a series of significant setbacks last week.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 39 people were killed and thousands were wounded after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded. And on Friday, Hezbollah said at least 16 members, including top commanders of its elite Radwan Force, were among 45 people killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Beirut.

Speaking at a funeral on Sunday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group would not be deterred.

“We have entered a new phase,” he said, “the title of which is the open-ended battle of reckoning.”