Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated, with Hezbollah announcing that it has carried out attacks on military targets in northern Israel, while Israeli aircraft carried out bombing operations targeting areas in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said that it attacked Israeli military industries complexes with dozens of missiles in response for the detonation of Hezbollah’s pager devices across Lebanon.
The spokesperson for the Israeli army, Nadav Shoshani, told Agence France-Presse, “Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to take refuge in shelters in northern Israel.”
Israel under attack
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that up to 500,000 Israelis rushed to shelters during the evening in Kiryat, Nazareth, the Galilee, Migdal HaEmek, Acre, Shefa-Amr and Isfiya, as well as in several settlements in the Golan Heights and Jezreel.
It added that 12 people were transferred to hospitals in Nahariya and Afula.
The Home Front Command in Israel on Sunday announced that it had ordered the closure of all schools and other educational institutions in the northern areas of the country near the border with Lebanon, and that they would remain closed until this evening.
It also announced raising the state of alert and preventing gatherings in the northern areas of more than 10 people in open areas and 100 in buildings.
Large parts of the Lower Galilee, Haifa Bay, Marj Ibn Amer and the Tiberias region were subjected to rocket attacks, while fires broke out after rockets fell near northern Haifa.
The Israeli website Calcalist said that the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange recorded a decline on Sunday in light of the escalation of tensions inthe north.
Lebanese media reported that the Israeli’s warplanes targeted the outskirts of the towns of Jbaa, Ain Qana in the Iqlim al-Tuffah region, Mahmoudiya-Aishiya region, and the town of Aita al-Shaab in the Bint Jbeil district.
‘Two bitter choices’
An expert at the Egyptian Center for Thought and Strategic Studies, Sobhi Assila, said that the strikes that Benjamin Netanyahu is directing at Hezbollah leave it with two bitter choices.
He explained that if Hezbollah responds violently it will ignite a large-scale war that Netanyahu desires, and if the party does not respond, its image will be tarnished and Netanyahu will appear victorious.
The popularity of Netanyahu and his Likud party is increasing against the backdrop of the confrontation with Hezbollah, Assila added.
