Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in what it's calling a preemptive strike

By Joe Hernandez

Published August 25, 2024 at 3:02 AM EDT

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on Zibqin in southern Lebanon on Sunday, amid escalations in the ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Updated August 25, 2024 at 16:58 PM ET

The Israeli military said early on Sunday that it had launched a series of preemptive strikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon based on intelligence it says indicated that the militant group was planning an attack.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a video on X that the military acted in “self defense” to “remove these threats.”

Hezbollah said it was able to launch rockets and drones against Israel on Sunday, which the group said was in response to the killing of one of its top commanders in July. Israel's military said Sunday that the group had launched “over 150 projectiles” toward Israel.

U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said President Biden was “closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon.”

This photo taken from a position in northern Israel shows an Israeli Air Force fighter jet firing flares as it flies to intercept a hostile aircraft that launched from Lebanon over the border area with south Lebanon on Sunday.

The latest wave of attacks comes as Egypt hosts a new round of cease-fire talks aimed at getting Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas closer to a deal for a cease-fire in Gaza, after almost 11 months of fighting between the two sides following the surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7.

Talks were set to resume on Sunday after Israel and international mediators — including the U.S. — sent delegations to Cairo.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s strikes against Hezbollah on Sunday were not “the end of the story,” the Times of Israel reported. He made the comments during his weekly cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu said he wanted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — as well as Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — to know that the operation was “another step on the path to changing the situation in the north and returning our residents safely to their homes.”

Iran has provided money and weapons to both Hezbollah and Hamas.

On Sunday, Nasrallah said in a public address that Hezbollah delayed its retaliatory attack against Israel because of recent Israeli and U.S. military mobilization in the area, The Guardian reported.

Nasrallah said the group was targeting an Israeli military intelligence base outside Tel Aviv — not civilian infrastructure — and that it began its attack a half hour after Israel’s preemptive strikes started.

Three people were killed in the strikes in Lebanon, the health ministry said. Israel's military said an Israeli soldier on a Navy vessel was killed and two others were wounded during the attack, according to the Times of Israel.

The Israeli military said it struck more than 40 Hezbollah targets and that Israeli fighter jets destroyed “thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels, aimed for immediate fire toward northern and central Israel.”

Hezbollah and Iran had been threatening to launch attacks on Israel after the killings last month of top Hezbollah official Fuad Shukr in Beirut and the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.

But officials in Israel, Lebanon and beyond appeared wary of letting Sunday’s attacks escalate into a wider conflict.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah would “assess the impact of today’s operation” and may attack again “if results are not seen to be enough.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he spoke with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about the “importance of avoiding regional escalation and working together to ensure Israel’s defense as well as regional stability.”