September 21, 2024 - Israel-Hezbollah conflict

Israel is “extensively striking” southern Lebanon after uncovering plans for a Hezbollah rocket attack on its territory, according to Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.

The intensity of airstrikes Saturday is among the highest recorded since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel last year in support of Hamas amid Israel’s war in Gaza.

The Israeli government warned a possible Hezbollah attack could happen “within a short time frame.” Citizens are under expanded restrictions amidst the warnings.

Here are other headlines you should know:

More about the strikes:

Rocket barrages from Lebanon into Israel: 

Remember: 

Mourners:

Western warnings:

Meanwhile in Gaza:

Rescuers sift through the rubble at the scene of an Israeli strike that targeted Beirut's southern suburbs a day earlier, as search and rescue operations continue on September 21.

At least 82 people have been killed in Lebanon over the past few days as a result of Israeli attacks and the detonation of communication devices, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Saturday.

Thirty-eight of them were killed in the strike on southern Beirut that targeted several Hezbollah commanders on Friday, Abiad said. Among them were three children and seven women. Search and rescue operations are still ongoing. 

Some 2,950 people were injured by the pager detonations, Abiad said. Of those, 777 are still in hospital and 152 in critical condition. 

Many of the injured have lost their vision partially or completely, Abiad said, adding that some 2,087 surgeries have been conducted so far. 

The vast majority of the injured were civilians who were in stores and supermarkets at the time of the attacks, the minister said, describing Israel’s actions as a “war crime.”

A day after an Israeli airstrike leveled a building in Beirut’s southern district and Hezbollah stronghold, rescue teams on Saturday dug through the rubble in search of survivors. 

As funerals were held for some of the more than 30 people killed in the attack, hopes for those still missing were beginning to fade.

Still, families waited for news on a nearby street, as others walked away in tears. Some tired ambulance and civil defense workers took turns to rest nearby, their clothes covered in dust.

The strike leveled one building and damaged several in the densely clustered neighborhood and its narrow streets. 

Municipality and civil defense workers inspect the damage in adjacent buildings in Beirut on Saturday, September 21.

The Israeli strike leveled a building in Beirut and destroyed the first floor of an adjacent building, pictured Saturday.

Members of the media were allowed to film the site of the attack Saturday.

The Israeli strike leveled a building in Beirut and destroyed the ground floor of an adjacent building, pictured Saturday. Civil Defense teams continue removing the rubble in the background. 

Rescue workers remove the rubble of the collapsed building on Saturday afternoon. At that point there was little hope to find survivors.

The damage in surrounding buildings reveal parts of homes and shops in southern Beirut.

Warning of a possible Hezbollah attack “within a short time frame,” the Israeli government is extending emergency guidelines further south for civilians, limiting public and outdoors gatherings.

For months, the guidelines have already been in force for Israel’s northernmost communities. But with rising fears of Hezbollah retaliation for a number of Israeli attacks in Lebanon this week, the rules will now apply “from Haifa northward,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in an address Saturday.

Under the guidelines, beaches are closed, outdoors gatherings are limited to 30 people and indoor gatherings are limited to 300 people. Workplaces and schools may continue operating as long as a shelter is available.

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, on September 21.

Israel said it is “extensively striking” southern Lebanon after uncovering plans for a Hezbollah rocket attack on its territory.

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said dozens of Israeli fighter jets are striking the launchers that the military claims were to be used in the attack.

Hagari said the IDF struck southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood on Friday, killing senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and 15 other commanders that were plotting to strike Israel.

“They met in order to plan terror attacks and infiltrations into Israel territory. But we knew where they were and got ahead of them with a precise and powerful operation,” Hagari said.

The Israeli military said it is carrying out a new wave of strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces did not provide details on the scale of the strikes or the exact location.

Lebanese state news agency NNA reported that more than 50 air raids happened in multiple parts of southern Lebanon in less than 40 minutes on Saturday night local time.

Planes targeted towns in the western part of the country, including Tir Harfa, Shihin, Al-Jibeen, Zibqin and Al-Duhayra, NNA reported.

Heavy drone activity was observed during strikes targeting the outskirts of Tuffahta and Al-Baysariya, according to the agency. Other strikes were reported around the Deir Amas valley in the Tyre district.

People stand next to coffins during a funeral for three Hezbollah members who were killed by an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 21.

Hundreds of mourners gathered outside a cemetery in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern district and a Hezbollah stronghold, for funerals for the militant group’s fighters and members for the third time this week.

Yellow sachets mark families of the dead in the crowd of mourners, this time bidding farewell following Israel’s strike on southern Beirut on Friday.

Zahraa was wearing a badge with a picture of her 18-year-old son, who was killed in 2008, while she consoled a friend who lost a son in Friday’s attack.

Zahraa, who lost her son in 2008, attends the funeral to support her friend, the mother of a fighter killed on Friday.

In the crowd, some of those wounded from the pager and walkie-talkie blasts this week could be spotted through their injuries. A man with a bruised face and a patch covering his eye told CNN he was injured this week. He waved his bandaged hands, signaling he didn’t want to elaborate.

It’s been a week of funerals, but Hezbollah members and supporters told CNN their morale remains high. Om Fadel lost her brother early in this conflict and says other family members were injured in Friday’s strike.

“Yes, loss is difficult, but patience and time heal wounds. Victory is the most important thing,” she said. “We won’t back down.”

Zahraa said her other children are on the same path as her killed son.

“If we all told our children to stay home, who would defend us?” she said. “We are defending a nation, not a specific sect. We are defending the Sunnis, the Christians, the Armenians, the Druze. Our sons are defending the borders of this country.”

Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported that Israeli aircraft carried out a total of 111 airstrikes in one hour on Saturday. 

It said the strikes occurred between 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. local time.

The Israel Defense Forces earlier said about 180 targets have been struck in southern Lebanon on Saturday. According to the IDF, approximately 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israel.

For context: The intensity of airstrikes Saturday is among the highest recorded since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel last year in support of Hamas amid Israel’s war in Gaza.

In late August, the Israeli military said about 100 fighter jets had “struck and destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels” in more than 40 areas of southern Lebanon in one day. 

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike in Jezzine, Lebanon, on September 21.

About 180 targets have been struck in southern Lebanon on Saturday, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli Air Force “struck thousands of launcher barrels that were ready for immediate use to fire toward Israeli territory,” the IDF said.  

Lebanese media reported Israeli strikes in a wide area of southern and eastern Lebanon on Saturday, saying they also caused forest fires.

Fires broke out in northern Israel as well, after Hezbollah claimed to have fired multiple barrages into the country on Saturday, including targeting the Israeli military’s Beit Hillel barracks with Katyusha rockets. The IDF earlier said that approximately 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israel.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan attends a press conference in Beijing on August 29.

The “risk of escalation is real” between Israel and Hezbollah, amid a moment where the threat is “more acute,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Saturday.

Asked if the Israeli strike in southern Beirut that killed at least 37 people, including high-level commanders of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, was an escalation in his view, Sullivan pushed back, saying that “the United States is not going to score keep like that.”

He continued, “There’s a number of different ways to look at this strike. The chief way I personally look at it goes back to the discussion we were having before, which is, it was a strike against a senior terrorist who has both Israeli and American blood on his hands.”

Remember: Friday’s strike in southern Beirut killed high-level figures of Hezbollah, including Ibrahim Aqil, the leader of an elite unit who had a $7 million bounty on his head from the United States for his suspected involvement in the 1983 strike on the US Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, as well as the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks, which killed 241 US personnel later that year.