Fears of a multifront war escalated in Israel on Wednesday as IDF soldiers traded fire with Hezbollah terrorists along the Lebanese border while Israeli forces continued to pummel Gaza by land, sea and air in their drive to eradicate Hamas.
Israeli warplanes bombed Hezbollah military sites and other locations inside Lebanon, sending massive plumes of smoke rising into the sky over the northern border.
The latest barrage came after days of missile and rocket strikes directed by Hezbollah against targets in northern Israel.
“Hezbollah and its Iranian warlord patrons are dragging Lebanon into a totally unnecessary war, into the war that Hamas started. Our region does not deserve a broader war,” Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, said in a statement Wednesday.
“We are now at a fork in the road: either Hezbollah backs off from the Israeli border… or we will push it away ourselves.”
Black smoke is seen billowing in the southern Lebanese village of Marwahin following an Israeli bombardment Wednesday. AFP via Getty ImagesAn Israeli airstrike overnight on a home in Bin Jbeil, a southern Lebanese town, killed a Hezbollah fighter, his brother and his sister-in-law, local officials and state media said Wednesday. One of the victims was identified as an Australian citizen who had traveled to Lebanon to visit his wife and take her back to Australia.
Hezbollah — which is backed by Iran and allied with Hamas — escalated the conflict on Wednesday by firing the most rockets and kamikaze drones against Israel that it has in a single day since the outbreak of the conflict.
An Israeli airstrike overnight on a home in Bin Jbeil, a southern Lebanese town, killed a Hezbollah fighter, his brother and his sister-in-law. AFP via Getty ImagesThe latest barrage from Hezbollah followed a week in which the terrorist organization volleyed a series of rockets and missiles at several IDF targets near the border. Also targeted were a Greek Orthodox church and civilian homes in the community of Misgav Am, according to The Times of Israel.
Earlier this week, an Israeli airstrike in Syria took out a top Iranian commander, prompting Iran to ominously warn Israel that it will “pay the price.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday that the Jewish state has already become engulfed in a multifront war during his address to the Israeli Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
“We have been attacked from seven arenas and we have already operated in six of them,” Gallant said, referring to Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Yemen, where IDF has not acted yet.
Bin Jbeil in Lebanon is considered by Israeli to be a Hezbollah stronghold. AFP via Getty Images“Anyone who maneuvers against us is a target,” the minister warned.
In Gaza Wednesday, Israel expanded its ground offensive into the central and southern portions of the overcrowded territory, killing dozens of people and sending thousands fleeing, according to Palestinian health officials.
The town of Deir al-Balah, which had a pre-war population of 75,000, has been inundated with hundreds of thousands of refugees driven from northern Gaza, which was ravaged by fighting and reduced to rubble by IDF’s bombardments.
One of the people killed in the Bin Jbeil attack was said to be an Australian citizen who was visiting his wife. AFP via Getty ImagesIn the nearby city of Khan Younis, Israeli shelling Wednesday destroyed a residential building next to Al-Amal Hospital, killing at least 20 people, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which runs the facility.
Over the past 24 hours, at least 200 people were said to have been killed and dozens wounded in southern and central Gaza.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Tuesday that the war aimed at stamping out Hamas throughout the Gaza Strip will last “many more months.”
The wife of the Australian national was killed in the bombardment, which also injured another relative. AFP via Getty Images“There are no magic solutions, there are no shortcuts in dismantling a terrorist organization, only determined and persistent fighting,” he told reporters, vowing to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which terrorists punched through the border defenses, slaughtered some 1,200 people and abducted around 240, among them children and the elderly.
An estimated 129 hostages remain in captivity after dozens were freed.
Hamas said it will not release any more captives until Israel ends the war. It has offered to trade the remaining hostages for large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-level terrorists, but Israel has refused.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least six Palestinians during an overnight raid in the refugee neighborhood of Nur Shams, according to Palestinian health officials.
An Israeli military statement said IDF forces on a counter-terrorism operation came under attack by militants who threw explosive devices at them. The attackers were struck by an Israeli Air Force aircraft.
In the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike was said to have killed at least 20 people. Xinhua/ShutterstockMore than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, mostly in skirmishes with Israeli forces.
Since the launch of Israel’s ground offensive, more than 21,100 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, have been killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and terrorists.
Israel, which is facing mounting pressure from the global community to reduce civilian casualties, says it is doing what it can to spare noncombatants — and blames Hamas for putting them at risk by operating among them in densely populated urban areas, which the group denies.
The Israeli military said that 166 of its soldiers have been killed in action since the start of the campaign.
With Post wires
