Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Friday cut off the main international road to Syria after Israel said Hezbollah was transporting weapons through the tiny Mediterranean country’s principal land border crossing.
The strike, which Israel has not commented on, comes after 310,000 people, mostly Syrians, have in recent days fled the war pitting Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon for relative safety in neighbouring Syria.
It follows an intense night of bombardment of Hezbollah’s main bastion in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with a US news website saying Israel targeted the militant group’s potential successor just a week after it killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The escalating assaults by Israel come as it weighs retaliation for Hezbollah backer Iran’s missile attack.
President Joe Biden said on Thursday that the United States was “discussing” possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities, in comments that sent oil prices spiking five per cent.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will deliver a rare sermon on Friday, his first since his country’s missile attack on Israel, and also the first since Israel launched its wave of strikes on Hezbollah.
– Buildings shook –
Nearly a year after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Israel in its history on October 7, Israel announced it was shifting its focus to securing its border with Lebanon.
The announcement last month came nearly a year after Hezbollah started launching low-intensity strikes on Israel, in support of its allies in Gaza, forcing 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes in the north of the country.
Israel’s bombing in Lebanon has killed more than 1,000 people since the start of the escalation on September 23, according to the Lebanese health ministry, and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes in a country already mired in economic crisis.
The overnight strikes shook buildings in Beirut, with AFP correspondents in the city hearing successive loud explosions.
A target of one of Israel’s recent Beirut strikes was Hashem Safieddine, a potential successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah who was assassinated a week ago, US news site Axios said, citing three Israeli officials it did not identify.
The Israeli military did not confirm the report.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had hit “targets belonging to
Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut”.
Its Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee accused Hezbollah of using the main international border crossing out of Lebanon into Syria to transport weapons.
Coastal Lebanon shares a border with Israel, with which Hezbollah is at war and Syria.
Hezbollah has historically relied on Syria, with which it is allied, to transport arms and other equipment from its main backer Iran.
Masnaa, as it is known, is the main overland crossing out of the country, and the strike could leave thousands who are unable to fly out trapped.
Another strike late Thursday targeted a warehouse near the capital’s airport, a source close to Hezbollah said.
In Beirut, 35-year-old displaced nurse Fatima Salah said residents were “scared for our children, and this war is going to be long”.
Israel announced this week that its troops had started ground raids into parts of southern Lebanon, a stronghold of Hezbollah, after days of heavy bombardment of areas across the country where the group holds sway.
Israel told Lebanese people Thursday to “immediately” evacuate more than 20 villages and the city of Nabatiyeh.
Hezbollah said it fought off Israeli troops on the border and set off two explosive devices against advancing soldiers.
