Israel’s military said on Tuesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon overnight, a day after it launched a wave of airstrikes against the Iran-backed group’s sites in Lebanon’s deadliest day in decades.
Hezbollah on Tuesday morning said it had attacked several Israeli military targets, including an explosives factory 60 km (37 miles) into Israel, with the Fadi series of rockets.
It said it attacked the explosives factory around 4 a.m. (0100 GMT) and the Megiddo airfield three separate times overnight.
After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, also backed by Iran.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah militant cell and its artillery and tanks hit other Hezbollah targets in the south. Police in northern Israel said fragments of interceptor missiles were found in various areas.
Lebanese authorities said Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon on Monday had killed nearly 500 people and sent tens of thousands fleeing for safety.
After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since hostilities flared in October as the Gaza war erupted, Israel warned people in Lebanon to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons.
Families from south Lebanon loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people young and old. Highways north were gridlocked.
The Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, Nasser Yassin, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been set up, with the capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled what he called “Israeli atrocities”.
Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah in Lebanon’s south, east and north, including rocket launchers, command posts and militant infrastructure. The Israeli Air Force struck about 1,600 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, it said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 492 people had been killed, including 35 children, and 1,645 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon’s highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Meanwhile Turkey slammed Israel’s recent attacks on Lebanon as “efforts to drag the region into chaos” on Monday, calling for international measures against them and a halt to support for Israel.
In a statement late on Monday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said countries that “unconditionally support Israel” were helping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “shed blood for his political interests”.
“It is imperative that all institutions responsible for maintaining international peace and security, especially the United Nations Security Council, as well as the international community, take the necessary measures without delay,” it said.
NATO member Turkey has condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza , started in retaliation for Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7. Ankara also halted all trade with Israel and applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court.
On Monday, Erdogan met the leaders of Greece, Germany, Iran, and Kuwait, as well as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, the Turkish Presidency said, adding he had discussed the war in Gaza in the meetings.
Erdogan told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that steps toward peace should be taken in response to Israel’s hostility, his office said, adding that the Turkish leader also told chief prosecutor Karim Khan that Israel needed to be held accountable and that an ongoing genocide case against Israel at the ICC must be concluded.
He told Khan that Netanyahu’s government “did not hesitate to trample international law and human rights”, and that it was under the illusion that there is no power to stop it, it added.
