Israel army says sirens sound over central Israel as projectiles fired from Lebanon

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said air raid sirens were activated across central Israel, including the commercial hub of Tel Aviv, as projectiles were fired across the border from Lebanon.

“Sirens sounded in a number of areas in central Israel due to projectiles fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” the army said in a statement.

Get exclusive content with Gulf News WhatsApp channel

The projectiles were intercepted since they were heading toward populated areas, the army said.

Reports said Ben Gurion Airport has been shut down due to rockets fired towards central Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed to strike Hezbollah without mercy following a deadly drone strike on a military base in Israel, and retaliation would extend to targets in Beirut.

"We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon - including Beirut. All this according to operational considerations. We have proven it recently and we will continue to prove it in the days to come," he said while visiting the military base hit by a Hezbollah drone on Sunday night.

Hezbollah earlier said it battled Israeli troops in south Lebanon, and claimed several new attacks on Israel after its deadliest strike since the start of the war.

A drone strike on an Israeli base near Binyamina, south of Haifa, killed four soldiers on Sunday night, while another 60 people were treated for mild to critical injuries, according to the Israeli volunteer rescue service United Hatzalah.

Israeli forces on Monday launched a string of new air strikes on targets in Lebanon, including one on the north of the country which killed at least 18 people, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.

Israel also faced new criticism over their alleged attacks on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

In a call with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant discussed Sunday’s night’s drone attack and “the forceful response that would be taken against Hezbollah”, his office said in a statement on Monday.

Just before Sunday’s attack, the Pentagon said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system known as THAAD and its US military crew to Israel to further boost its allies defences against potential Iranian attack.

Israel has vowed to retaliate after two Iranian missile barrages this year.

Huge boom

“There was a huge boom and then suddenly ambulances started driving past, first one, then two, then three and more and more,” Yousef, the manager of a restaurant near the Binyamina base, told AFP, declining to give his full name for safety reasons.

On Monday Iran-backed Hezbollah said its fighters had launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa and were “engaged in violent clashes” in the Lebanese frontier village of Aita al-Shaab where an Israeli troop carrier had been targeted “with a guided missile”.

After almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli forces over the Lebanon border, Israel on September 23 intensified its strikes against targets in Lebanon and sent ground troops across the frontier a week later.

Israel has vowed to secure its northern boundary to allow tens of thousands of people displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire to safely return home.

Hezbollah says its strikes are in solidarity with its Palestinian ally, Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the ongoing Gaza war with Israel.

The Lebanon war, which saw an expansion in fighting and air strikes at the weekend, has killed more than 1,300 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.

The International Organization for Migration said last week it had verified 690,000 displaced people in Lebanon.