JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s Hezbollah fired heavy rocket barrages at Israel on Sunday, with Israeli media reporting that a building had been hit near Tel Aviv, after a powerful Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people in Beirut the day before.
Israel also struck Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, where intensified bombardment over the last two weeks has coincided with signs of progress in U.S.-led ceasefire talks.
Hezbollah, which has previously vowed to respond to attacks on Beirut by targeting Tel Aviv, said it had launched two precision missiles at military sites in Tel Aviv and nearby.
There were no reports from Israel of damage to the sites, but broadcaster Kan showed an apartment damaged by rocket fire in Petah Tikvah, east of Tel Aviv. Footage broadcast by the medical service MDA showed cars ablaze in Petah Tikvah.
Hezbollah fired 170 rockets at Israel on Sunday, according to the Israeli military, which said many had been intercepted, but at least four people had been injured by rocket shrapnel.
Video obtained by Reuters showed a projectile exploding on impact as it smashed into the roof of a building in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.
Israel warned on social media that it planned to target Hezbollah facilities in southern Beirut before strikes which security sources in Lebanon said demolished two apartment blocks.
On Saturday, it had carried out one of its deadliest and most powerful strikes on the centre of Beirut, killing at least 20 people, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The Israeli military did not comment on the strike or the target.
Israel went on the offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in September, pounding the south, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs with airstrikes after nearly a year of hostilities ignited by the Gaza war.
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The Israeli offensive has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein highlighted progress in negotiations during a visit to Beirut last week, before travelling to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, and then returning to Washington.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday said a U.S. ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from Israel.
“We must pressure the Israeli government and maintain the pressure on Hezbollah to accept the U.S. proposal for a ceasefire,” he said in Beirut after meeting Lebanese officials.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army to deploy in the buffer zone.
The Lebanese army said on Sunday at least one soldier had been killed and 18 more injured in an Israeli strike that caused severe damage at an army centre in Al-Amiriya near the southern city of Tyre.
The Israeli military said it regretted and was investigating the incident, and that it was fighting against Hezbollah, not the Lebanese Army.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack “represents a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts to reach a ceasefire, strengthen the army’s presence in the south, and implement … 1701”.
Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208 million) to support the Lebanese army.
($1 = 0.9600 euros)
(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut; Crispian Balmer and Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem; Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Adam Makary and Menna Alaa El Din in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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