The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched at least five anti-tank guided missiles into northern Israel on Sunday, a day after Iranian officials warned that the Lebanon-based group was poised to join Hamas’ fight by opening a second front against Israel.
The attacks marked the latest in a series of skirmishes on Israel’s northern frontier with Lebanon, according to The Times of Israel, which reported that Israeli forces responded by shelling the sources of the missile fire and striking sites belonging to Hezbollah.
The prospect of a widening Israel-Hezbollah clash in the north came as Israeli forces, backed by a growing deployment of U.S. warships in the region, continued to prepare for a much-anticipated ground assault on the Gaza Strip in the south.
Israeli forces carried out drills on Sunday along the border of Gaza, home to the militant Hamas, which on Oct. 7 launched a massive terrorist assault that killed more than 1,300 Israelis and at least 27 Americans. About 150 people have been taken hostage by the group, including some U.S. citizens.
A week of Israeli airstrikes have already demolished entire neighborhoods in Gaza but failed to stem barrages of rocket fire into Israel from Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
Palestinians have fled from northern Gaza since Friday, when Israel’s military told some 1 million people to evacuate to the southern part of the besieged territory ahead of an expected ground offensive in the war sparked by Hamas’ deadly attack.
Medics in Gaza warned Sunday that thousands could die as hospitals packed with wounded people ran desperately low on fuel and basic supplies. Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave are reported to be struggling to find food, water and safety.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,329 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted, more than in the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted more than six weeks. That makes this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.
Meanwhile, fears of escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, which could lead to a direct Israel-Iran war, are continuing to rise.
Following the Hezbollah missile fire into northern Israel on Sunday, the Israeli military said it was restricting an area of more than two miles wide along the Lebanon border, ordering civilians not to enter, according to The Times of Israel.
The publication reported that Hezbollah claimed responsibility for Sunday’s strikes, and that one civilian was killed and three were wounded when a missile struck a construction site in the northern Israeli town of Shtula.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters on Friday that he met with Hezbollah leaders and heard firsthand about the group’s readiness to fight against Israel. He urged Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza immediately.
“I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place,” Mr. Amirabdollahian said, according to English-language media accounts of his remarks. “Any step the resistance will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.”
“I want to warn the war criminals and those who support this entity before it’s too late to stop the crimes against civilians in Gaza, because it might be too late in a few hours,” the foreign minister said.
While Hamas surprised most military and foreign policy analysts with the scope and precision of its well-coordinated surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7, the Gaza-based group’s strength as a legitimate fighting force pales in comparison to Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
“The Israeli nightmare scenario is that the first punch is from Gaza and then the uppercut comes from Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is much more powerful by orders of magnitude,” Michael Doran, senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute, told The Washington Times earlier this week.
Should it join the fight, Hezbollah would bring considerable capabilities. The group boasts that it has more than 100,000 trained fighters, though most outside estimates put the true number between 25,000 and 50,000. Hezbollah receives significant funding and material backing from Iran, as Hamas does, but most analysts say its fighters are better trained, have more effective weapons and far more rockets, and are more battle-tested as a major ground fighting force.
The Biden administration has warned Iran, Hezbollah and all other actors to stay out of the conflict.
“For any country, for any group or anyone thinking about trying to take advantage of this atrocity to try to widen the conflict or to spill more blood, we have just one word: Don’t,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday during a visit to Israel. “The world is watching and so are we, and we aren’t going anywhere.”
The State Department said Sunday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would return to Israel on Monday after completing a six-country tour through Arab nations aimed at preventing the fighting from igniting a broader regional conflict.
• Ben Wolfgang contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.