Two people were injured Monday as Hezbollah fired around 100 rockets at northern Israel, with the Israeli military continuing to strike sites belonging to the terror group in Lebanon.
A 34-year-old man was lightly wounded by the blast of a rocket impact in northern Israel during one Hezbollah volley, medics reported. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said the man was taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya.
In a separate barrage, MDA said a 65-year-old woman was hit in the neck by shrapnel as rockets struck the area of Fassuta, a Christian Arab village. She was also taken to the hospital in Nahariya.
Another person was treated for acute anxiety, MDA added.
According to the IDF, many of the rockets were intercepted or fell in open areas. Some of the rockets impacted in towns, reportedly causing damage to a building in the border city of Kiryat Shmona and a chicken coop in Margaliot, a moshav.
Overnight and throughout the morning rocket sirens sporadically went off in Kiryat Shmona, the coastal city of Nahariya, and other communities in the Galilee Panhandle near the border with Lebanon.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported new strikes early Monday on locations around south Lebanon, long a stronghold of Hezbollah. Local media said jets hit the Nabatieh area, which the IDF also attacked earlier this week.
It came after a relatively rare night in which the IDF did not carry out strikes.
Meanwhile, schools in Beirut were closed after Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital the day before killed six people, according to local authorities, who do not distinguish between civilians and Hezbollah fighters. The IDF said it killed Hezbollah’s spokesman, Mohammed Afif, the latest in a string of top figures in the group slain in the war. Hezbollah confirmed his death and later said four other members of its media office were killed alongside him.
Sunday’s strikes hit districts of central Beirut that had so far been spared. The strikes prompted the education ministry to shut schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area for two days.
Israel escalated its bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds in late September, vowing to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by over a year of Hezbollah cross-border rocket and drone fire to return home safely. Israeli forces have also been operating on the ground in Lebanon to clear the border area.
Dozens of Hezbollah launchers and rockets were located and destroyed by reservists of the 226th Paratroopers Brigade during recent operations in southern Lebanon, the IDF said Monday.
The military said the reserve brigade has been operating in an area from which Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in the past year. The troops located several multiple-rocket launchers and mortar positions, along with caches of rockets and other equipment. They also located a tunnel system dug into a mountain in the area. Inside the tunnel, the troops found weapons, equipment, and food used by Hezbollah operatives, according to the IDF.
Caught between the two warring sides, UN peacekeepers reported Sunday that they were attacked, with minor damage caused but no injuries.
In a post to social media platform X, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon wrote that on Saturday a patrol involving French and Finnish peacekeepers in the village of Bedias encountered “a denial of freedom of movement from a group of individuals with at least one of them armed.”
The patrol continued but an hour later, when it reached the village of Maarakeh, it was fired at about 40 times from the rear, “likely from non-state actor members.”
The patrol reached the safety of a UNIFIL base in Deir Kifa, where it found some of its vehicles had been struck by bullets, though there were no injuries.
“It is unacceptable that UNIFIL peacekeepers while conducting Security Council-mandated tasks, are routinely targeted,” UNIFIL said. “It is the responsibility of Lebanese authorities to ensure that UNIFIL peacekeepers can carry out their mandated tasks without fear or threats.”
Nonetheless, it urged “all actors to ongoing hostilities… to avoid actions putting UN peacekeepers in danger.” The peacekeepers have on previous occasions suffered deaths or injuries due to the fighting but have rejected an Israeli plea that they leave south Lebanon.
According to a Lebanese political source, US envoy Amos Hochstein was set to travel to the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday for talks on a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.
However, a diplomatic official clarified to The Times of Israel that as of Sunday night, no final decision had been made on Hochstein coming to the region, adding that a decision would be made based on progress in ceasefire talks.
Talk of another visit by Hochstein followed reports in Lebanese media that a positive response to the ceasefire proposal had been submitted.
The New York Times reported over the weekend that Hezbollah’s Iranian backers had sent messages to the group saying that they supported an end to war.
Israel widened the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon nearly a year into the conflict in Gaza, which was sparked by the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s massive October 7, 2023, attack that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
In support of its Palestinian ally, Hezbollah began launching rocket and drone strikes on Israel the day after the attack, forcing about 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes. The fighting escalated amid Israeli reprisals until eventually it exploded into open war.
The attacks on northern Israel since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 43 civilians. In addition, 70 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes and in the ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.
Two soldiers have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
The IDF estimates that some 3,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.