Iran Fires Missiles At Israel, Israel Retaliates With Strikes In Southern Beirut

Iran fired several missiles at Israel on Sunday, which Israel said it intercepted, breaking a ceasefire that was already very fragile after 100 days of war, and the same day projectiles were fired from Lebanon toward Israel despite the ceasefire being theoretically in effect.

The Israeli retaliation hit southern Beirut on Sunday, killing two and injuring 20, and the Iranian regime framed its missile strikes as reprisals for Israeli bombardments on the Beirut suburbs.

Africtelegraph

In a televised address, Israel’s army spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin replied to Iran’s missile warning that “The Iranian regime has committed a grave error by choosing again the path of terrorism.”

The Noovo Info account also said the Israeli army would continue its operations across all of Lebanon and intensify pressure on the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, while Trump said he wanted to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to retaliate so as not to jeopardize any final agreement with Tehran.

On Monday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said an Israeli strike on the city of Tyre left five dead and eight wounded, with four of the injured reportedly rescuers from the Red Cross.

The L'Orient-Le Jour live account quoted the ministry saying, “left five martyrs and eight wounded, including four Red Cross rescuers,” and it also reported that the Tyre municipality urged residents to avoid nonessential gatherings in public places.

Al Jazeera

In the same period, Hezbollah claimed it had forced an Israeli Hermes 450 drone to turn back after taking it for a target with a ground-to-air missile over Iqlim el-Touffah, and it also said it targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers and vehicles with a rocket salvo at Ainata (Bint Jbeil).

The lecourrier.vn report added that the Lebanese army said three soldiers were killed while patrolling aboard a vehicle on the Khardali-Kfar Tebnit road in the Nabatieh region, while the Israeli Defense Forces said they opened an investigation and stressed their operations target Hezbollah and not the Lebanese army.

As the fighting continued, the Lebanese Public Health Emergency Operations Center said the cumulative number of Israeli attack victims since March 2 had risen to 3,593 killed and 10,990 wounded, while France 24 later cited a tally of 3,637 killed and 11,188 others wounded since March 2.

France 24 also reported that the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, threatened to turn “the naval blockade [the American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz] into a new defeat for the enemy,” and it said he added that he had “no trust in the other side.”

In parallel, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was suspending its strikes on Iran “for the moment,” but would retaliate in case of a new attack by Tehran, and he also said Israel was exercising its right to defend itself “whenever necessary.”

The stakes described in the sources included the status of ceasefire arrangements and the pressure on Hezbollah, with the Israeli army ordering evacuations in Lebanon and the U.S. seeking to dissociate the two fronts even as the Noovo Info account said Iran viewed them as inseparable.