Israel-Lebanon latest: Israel denies being behind pager attack as over 300 rockets fired over border

Israel has denied having any involvement with a deadly exploding pager attack which injured thousands of people across Lebanon and Syria.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog said he “rejects out of hand any connection” to the audacious operation carried out against Hezbollah on Tuesday.

At least 39 people were injured and 3,000 were wounded after the Shi’ite militia’s pagers and walkie-talkies simultaneously detonated across the Middle East.

Just hours after Hezbollah launched around 150 rockets over Lebanon’s southern border into Israel on Friday, an apartment block around 70 miles north in Beirut was flattened by an Israeli airstrike.

The Israeli military said it had carried out a targeted attack, which ended up killing 31 people, including 15 Hezbollah operatives, as well as wounding 68 others.

The strike was the third devastating blow to the Shi’ite militia in four days after the explosion of the group’s pagers and walkie-talkies killed over 30 and wounded hundreds in a suspected Israeli attack.

One of those slain was Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, after multiple missiles tore into the side of the building he was in the basement of while meeting other Hezbollah members.

Aqil, 61, was described as one of the group’s “top leaders” by Israel.The Independent takes a look at who he was below:

Israel’s military said on Sunday that it intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” launched from the east, and that no damage or injuries were reported.

Earlier, an official in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a grouping of Iran-backed armed factions, said they launched cruise missile and explosive drone attacks at Israel.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged rocket fire across the southern Lebanon border in the most intense skirmish since the war in Gaza began almost a year ago.

The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets inside Lebanon after the Shi’ite militia launched just over 100 rockets at northern Israel.

Israel closed schools and in many northern areas of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early on Sunday, with reports of rockets hitting Haifa, around 17 miles from the Lebanon border.

The Israeli defence minister has warned that his country’s new phase of war “will continue until our goal is achieved”.

Yoav Gallant, who said this week Israel was launching a new phase of war on the northern border, posted on X on Friday: "The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes."

Tens of thousands of people have left their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel‘s military said it is striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after the Lebanese group’s initial response to deadly remote explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies days earlier.

This comes shortly after more than 100 rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon early today, with some landing near the northern city of Haifa, as Israel and the Hezbollah militant group appeared to be spiralling toward all-out war following months of escalating tensions.

Israeli troops raided the offices of the satellite news network Al Jazeera in the Israeli-occupied West Bank early today, ordering the bureau to shut down amid a widening campaign by Israel targeting the Qatar-funded broadcaster as it covers the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera aired footage of Israeli troops live on its Arabic-language channel ordering the office to be shut for 45 days. It follows an extraordinary order issued in May that saw Israeli police raid Al Jazeera’s broadcast position in East Jerusalem, seizing equipment there, preventing its broadcasts in Israel and blocking its websites.

The move marked the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country. However, Al Jazeera has continued operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, territories that the Palestinians hope to have for their future state.

There was no immediate acknowledgement of the shutdown by Israeli forces.

Al Jazeera denounced the move as it continued broadcasting live from Amman in neighbouring Jordan.

Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire in the early hours today, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost a year of war across Lebanon’s south.

Hezbollah has claimed rocket attacks on military targets in Israel’s north.

The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets yesterday, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels and said it would continue to strike targets of the Iran-backed movement.

Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many northern areas of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early this morning.

Sirens sounded all night as multiple rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by Israeli aerial defence systems, the military said.

Israeli media reported that a number of buildings were hit directly or by falling missile debris, and ambulance services said they treated some lightly injured people. No serious casualties were reported.

Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli Ramat David Airbase with dozens of missiles in response to “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon”, the group posted on its Telegram channel early today.

The successive barrages of rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah at Ramat David are the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began.

Iran-backed Iraqi militants in a statement also claimed an explosive drone attack on Israel early today.

At least seven people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza school, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

The strike hit Kafr Qasem School in Gaza City at around 11am (8am GMT) local time on Sunday as it was being used to shelter displaced people, the ministry added.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted Hamas fighters and it had used aerial surveillance to limit the risk to civilians.

Hezbollah has said it will keep fighting Israel until it agrees to a ceasefire in its war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza – triggered by a Hamas-led rampage in southern Israel on 7 October.

US officials say that is unlikely anytime soon. Israel wants Hezbollah to cease fire and withdraw forces from the border region, adhering to a UN resolution signed with Israel in 2006, irrespective of any Gaza deal.

Anticipating retaliation, the Israeli military restricted gatherings and raised the alert level for residents of northern communities. The alert went as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, signalling Israel thought Hezbollah could strike deeper than it had since the war with Hamas began.