Israeli city comes under biggest-ever attack as Hezbollah launches barrage of bombs

Israeli city Haifa has come under its biggest-ever attack, a huge barrage of bombs unleashed by Hezbollah.

The militant group in Lebanon directed 100 missiles at the northern city and its outskirts. The onslaught came as ’s military pushed on with its air and ground offensive in Lebanon.

Hezbollah acting leader Naim Kassem said in a televised statement: “We are firing hundreds of rockets and dozens of drones. A large number of settlements and cities are under the fire of the resistance. Our capabilities are fine and our fighters are deployed along the front lines.”

Israel’s Prime Minister has urged Lebanon’s citizens to get rid of Hezbollah. He added: “Do you remember when your country was called the pearl of the Middle East?

“What happened to Lebanon? A gang of tyrants and terrorists destroyed it, that’s what happened. Israel withdrew from Lebanon 25 years ago, but the country that actually conquered Lebanon is not Israel – it’s Iran.

“Iran, which finances and arms Hezbollah to serve Iran’s interests at Lebanon’s expense.”

It is believed 10 people suffered minor injuries in the attack on Haifa, when some bombs breached the Iron Dome defence system.

Those that landed exploded in the suburbs of Kiryat Yam and Kiryat Motzkin. Sirens wailed and thousands of people ran for bomb shelters during the attacks, which came in two waves at around noon. Some homes were damaged, police said.

Israel’s air force then launched retaliatory strikes against Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Hezbollah has upped its attacks on Haifa and other areas since Israel’s army launched its ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

Israel’s military claims a strike on Beirut killed senior Hezbollah commander Suhail Husseini, who was said to be in charge of smuggling weapons into Lebanon.

In addition, Israel has reiterated that Hashem Safieddine, who was in line to become Hezbollah’s leader, probably died in an airstrike in Beirut last week.

He was expected to replace Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an strike last month. Mr Netanyahu’s operations are aimed at halting a year of Hezbollah rocket attacks so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to homes in the north, close to the Lebanon border.

Some 70,000 from the north are refugees, staying in hotels in central and southern Israel. The UN estimates that 1.2million people have fled their homes in Lebanon due to Israeli strikes. More than 1,300 in Lebanon have been killed since mid-September.

Hezbollah has vowed to keep up its attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. The UN special co-ordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and Lt General Aroldo Lazaro, of UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL, called for hostilities to end.

Hezbollah’s strikes violated the UN Security Council resolution that ended 2006’s Israel-Hezbollah war, they said. Speaking yesterday on the first anniversary of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli military posts, in support of its Hamas allies in Gaza, they said: “Too many lives have been lost, uprooted, and devastated.

“Today, one year later, the near-daily exchanges of fire have escalated into a relentless military campaign whose humanitarian impact is nothing short of catastrophic.

“A negotiated solution is the only pathway to restore the security that civilians on both sides so desperately want and deserve.” Meanwhile, at least 25 Palestinians, including five children, have died in Israeli air attacks on central Gaza.

Officials in Gaza say at least 41,965 people have been killed there and 97,590 wounded in Israeli strikes since October 2023. Thousands are missing.

The Bureij refugee camp in Gaza was hit on Monday. In Israel, more than 1,180 people were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and 250 were taken captive, with around 100 still in Gaza.