Israel to Continue Operations in Lebanon Until Its Refugees Are Safe to Return

JAKARTA - Hezbollah and Israel traded barrages on Sunday, as the Lebanese militant group fired rockets into northern Israel after enduring some of its most intense bombardment in nearly a year of conflict.

The conflict - which has escalated sharply in the past week - has raged since Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel, saying it was acting in support of Palestinians facing an Israeli offensive further south in Gaza.

On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded. The attacks were widely blamed on Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.

The following day, Israel launched its heaviest bombardment of Lebanon so far.

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern outskirts targeted a senior Hezbollah commander in an attack that killed 45 people, according to Lebanon's health ministry.

Hezbollah said 16 members of the group were among the dead, including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi.

In a further intense bombardment on Saturday, the Israeli military said it had struck about 290 targets, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers.

"In the past few days we have dealt a series of blows to Hezbollah that it never imagined," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement, according to Reuters on September 23.

"If Hezbollah does not understand the message, I assure you, they will," he added.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the operation would continue until it is safe for people displaced on its side of the border to return.

It also set the stage for a long conflict, Gallant said, as Iran-backed Hezbollah has vowed to continue fighting until a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

Separately, the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said in a televised statement that the military was well prepared for the next phase of fighting, which would come in the next few days, but did not say what it would be.

"We will do whatever it takes to eliminate the threat to Israel," Lt. Gen. Halevi said in a televised statement.

Elsewhere, Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem told mourners at the funeral of one of the group's commanders killed last week in Beirut: "We have entered a new phase, the name of which is the battle of open reckoning."

Speaking at Aqil's funeral on Sunday, Qassem said Israel was trying to cripple the group, but would not succeed.

Qassem said the escalation of the Israeli conflict would lead to further displacement of its own citizens.

Israel is known to have closed schools, restricted gatherings in the north and ordered hospitals there to move patients and staff to protected areas, secure underground facilities designed to withstand rocket fire.

Meanwhile, the UN Special Coordinator in Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasscharet said in a post on X, "with the region on the brink of an imminent disaster, this statement cannot be overstated: NO military solution will make either side safer".