After heavy Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Hezbollah fires rockets at Tel Aviv

BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah fired a rocket at Tel Aviv early Wednesday morning, its heaviest attack on Israel yet and marking a further escalation after Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed hundreds of people.

The Israeli military said it intercepted the surface-to-surface missile, which set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The military said it hit the site in southern Lebanon from which the missile was fired.

Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile at the headquarters of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, which it blames for a series of recent targeted killings of its top commanders, as well as an attack last week in which explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies Dozens of people were killed and thousands injured, including many Hezbollah members.

The Israeli military said it was the first time a missile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel. Hezbollah claimed to have carried out an air strike on an intelligence base near Tel Aviv last month, but there was no confirmation. The Palestinian Hamas militia in Gaza repeatedly attacked Tel Aviv in the first months of the war.

The attack has heightened tensions as the region appears headed for another open war while Israel continues to fight Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A wave of Israeli attacks on Monday and Tuesday left at least 560 people dead in Lebanon and forced thousands to seek refuge.

Families have fled southern Lebanonflocked to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools converted into makeshift shelters, cars, parks and on the beach. Some attempted to leave the country, causing a traffic jam on the Border with Syria.

Israel said late Tuesday that fighter jets had carried out “extensive attacks” on Hezbollah weapons and rocket launchers across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa region in the north. The military said it had no immediate plans for a ground offensive but declined to give a timetable for the air strikes.

Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have steadily escalated over the past 11 months. Hezbollah has fired rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and its ally Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group.

Israel responded with increasingly heavy air strikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders, while threatening a more comprehensive operation.

At France's request, the UN Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on Lebanon for Wednesday.

Almost a year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel had already displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before this week's escalation. Israel has vowed to do everything it can to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will continue its rocket attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, which which seems ever more distant.

Last week's rocket fire has disrupted the lives of over a million people in northern Israel. Schools have been closed and public gatherings have been banned. In the coastal city of Haifa, many restaurants and other businesses are closed and there are fewer people on the streets. Some who had fled south from communities near the border are coming under renewed rocket fire.

Israel has moved thousands of troops stationed in Gaza to the northern border. Hezbollah says it has around 150,000 rockets and missiles, some of which are capable of hitting anywhere in Israel. The group has fired around 9,000 rockets and drones since last October.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said the missile fired Wednesday had a “heavy warhead” but would not elaborate or confirm that it was the type described by Hezbollah. He dismissed Hezbollah's claim that it had attacked the Mossad headquarters north of Tel Aviv, calling it “psychological warfare.”

The Iranian-made Qader is a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile that comes in several types and with different payloads. It can carry an explosive charge of up to 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds), according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Iranian officials have estimated the liquid-fueled missile's range at 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).

Cross-border gun attacks intensified on Sunday, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000, including many civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel for the attacks, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility.

On Sunday, Hezbollah fired around 150 rockets, missiles and drones at northern Israel.

The next day, Israel announced that its warplanes had attacked 1,600 Hezbollah targets, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, as well as weapons hidden in private homes. The attacks totaled highest number of deaths in one day in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah fought a months-long, grueling war in 2006.

An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday killed Ibrahim Kobeisi, whom Israel described as one of Hezbollah's top commanders in the group's rocket and missile unit. Military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for the rocket attacks on Israel and planned an attack in 2000 in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed. Hezbollah later confirmed his death.

It was the latest in a series of assassinations and other setbacks for Hezbollah, the most powerful political and military actor in Lebanon and widely considered the most powerful paramilitary force in the Arab world.

Lebanon's Health Ministry said six people were killed and 15 wounded in the attack in a southern Beirut suburb where Hezbollah has a strong presence. The country's national news agency said the attack destroyed three floors of a six-story apartment building.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon said that one of its employees and her young son were among those killed in the Bekaa region on Monday. A cleaner was also killed in an attack in the south of the country.

According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah fired 300 rockets on Tuesday, wounding six Israeli soldiers and civilians, most of them lightly.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 564 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since Monday, including 50 children and 94 women, and more than 1,800 had been injured, a staggering figure for a country that is still reeling of the deadly pager and walkie-talkie bombings last week.

___

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed.

___

Follow AP’s war coverage at R