BEIRUT: US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein is expected to arrive in Tel Aviv on Monday as the US pushes to stop violence along Israel’s border with Lebanon spiraling into a deeper conflict.
Hochstein is believed to be carrying a message from the US urging restraint, and calling on Israel to avoid any large-scale military action.
The Israeli government is due to meet on Sunday to discuss its response to the escalating conflict with Hezbollah, either through diplomatic efforts or a large-scale military operation.
The meeting comes amid growing internal pressure to facilitate the return of settlers who were forced to flee their homes in northern Israel about a year ago.
Hostilities continued as caretaker Information Minister Ziad Makari expressed his support for Lebanese journalist Amal Al-Khalil in condemning Israel’s “intellectual terrorism and psychological warfare.”
The minister called Al-Khalil, a correspondent for the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper, after she received death threats from Israeli sources via her phone.
Hezbollah on Saturday rained dozens of rockets on northern Israel, mainly in the areas of Rosh Pinna and north of Lake Tiberias, and carried out attacks with assault drones.
The strikes were in response to attacks by the Israeli military on residential buildings in southern villages, especially Al-Ahmadiyya in Western Bekaa and Kafr Rumman in the Nabatieh area.
In successive statements, Hezbollah said it launched an assault drone attack on the headquarters of the 810th Hermon Brigade at the Ma’ale Golani barracks, and struck the 282nd Artillery and Precision Missile Brigade headquarters in Yiftah Elifleet, northwest of Lake Tiberias, with Katyusha rockets.
Sirens sounded in Avivim in the Western Galilee.
An Israeli army spokesperson said that 55 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward the Upper Galilee since early morning.
Israeli media reported that Hezbollah was expanding its range of fire, focusing on Safed, the Tiberias area, and Rosh Pinna.
Sirens were also heard in Safed, Ami’ad, and Dovev in Western Galilee, and Yiftah.
Large explosions rocked the Upper Galilee, and rockets were reported to have landed in the Kahal area, south of Safed.
Explosions were heard in the artillery bunkers in Zaoura in the Golan Heights after a rocket salvo was launched from Lebanon. Sirens sounded in several nearby settlements.
Hezbollah said that it hit the Northern Corps reserve headquarters, the Galilee Division reserve base, and its logistical depots in Ami’ad with dozens of Katyusha rockets.
The militant group also claimed to have destroyed an Israeli Merkava tank on the Roueissat Al-Alam-Zebdine road with a guided missile.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said that an Israeli airstrike on a building in Kfar Rumman, in the Nabatieh region, on Friday left 13 people injured, with one person requiring hospital treatment.
Hezbollah mourned the loss of one of its members, Abbas Hamada, 34, from the town of Qammatiyah in Mount Lebanon.
The Israeli army carried out a series of airstrikes and artillery attacks on several border towns in the southern region.
A spokesperson for the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, claimed that security forces targeted rocket launch sites that were used to stage attacks on Galilee in the morning and toward Upper Galilee late on Friday.
Adraee said that warplanes targeted a military building in Kfar Rumman, while Israeli artillery shelled areas in southern Lebanon.
Israeli reconnaissance aircraft and military drones continued to fly over the villages in the south, reaching the outskirts of the city of Tyre, while flares lit up the skies over border villages adjacent to the Blue Line in both the western and central sectors.
