JERUSALEM/BEIRUT — Hezbollah militants fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel on Sunday in response to an Israeli attack on Beirut the day before that killed at least 29 people.
Some of the Hezbollah strikes reached the Tel Aviv area in the heart of Israel and wounded seven people. The assault was one of the largest Hezbollah has mounted since it started firing on Israel more than a year ago in support of Hamas militants, who attacked Israel in October 2023 and have been warring with Israel in Gaza since then.
In addition to those killed in the Israeli attack on Beirut on Saturday, more than 65 were injured, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Israeli military officials said the attack was an attempt to assassinate a top Hezbollah military commander, Mohammad Haidar, but The New York Times quoted an Israeli source as saying it was unsuccessful.
After the Hezbollah attacks, the fighting raged on elsewhere.
Lebanon’s military said an Israeli strike on an army center killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded 18 others in the southwest between Tyre and Naqoura. The Israeli military expressed regret, saying that the strike occurred in a combat area against Hezbollah and that the military's operations are directed solely against the militants.
Later Sunday, the Israeli military said it hit 12 Hezbollah command centers in the Dahieh area, a key Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut. It said that among the targets it hit were those belonging to Hezbollah's Intelligence unit, Hezbollah's coast-to-sea missile unit, and Unit 4400, which is responsible for weapons smuggling from Iran through Syria into Lebanon.
Negotiations have been ongoing to reach a cease-fire to end the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, with the militant group and the Lebanese government agreeing to a U.S. proposal.
But Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, dampened hopes for a halt to the fighting.
“I am not convinced it is going to happen,” Borrell told reporters Sunday evening after a day of meeting with Lebanese officials. “I do not see the Israeli government interested clearly in reaching an agreement for a cease-fire.”
“I’ve heard so many times that a cease-fire is coming. ... It seems once again Israel is putting new conditions,” he said, referring to Israel’s refusal to allow France to be part of an international monitoring group in southern Lebanon as one example of a new condition.
“It seems there is not a strong appetite” from Israel for a halt to the fighting, he said.
Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the current war. Israel says it believes Hamas is still holding 101 hostages, including 35 the military says are dead.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Hamas and Hezbollah been designated a terror group by the United States, the U.K. and other Western countries.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.