BEIRUT: Urgent calls for foreigners to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday, while France warned of a “highly volatile” situation as Iran and its allies prepared to respond to the killings of high-profile figures blamed on Israel.
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Gaza war began in October, said its fighters had fired rockets into northern Israel overnight.
The Israeli military said it intercepted most of the 30 projectiles fired from Lebanon.
As Israel was on high alert in anticipation of major military action by Tehran-linked militant groups including Hezbollah and Hamas, medics and police said two people were killed in a stabbing attack on Sunday outside Tel Aviv.
The attacker, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, was “neutralized” by police and taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Witnesses and officials in the besieged Hamas-ruled area said Israeli bombings of Gaza continued, adding that nearly 10 months after Israel invaded the territory, the aggression showed no sign of ending.
France, Canada and Jordan are some of the recent governments urging their citizens to leave Lebanon.
The Paris foreign ministry said it was “urgently asking” French nationals to avoid travelling to Lebanon “due to the highly unstable security situation” and told those already there to “make preparations to leave as soon as possible”.
The United States and Britain have also issued similar warnings.
Several Western airlines have suspended flights to the area.
Qatar Airways said on Sunday that “in light of the current situation in Lebanon” its Doha-Beirut route would “only operate during daytime hours” until at least Monday.
The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, hours after Israel assassinated a Hezbollah military leader in Beirut, has sparked calls for revenge from the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” a group of militant groups backed by Iran and Tehran.
Israel has been accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack that killed Haniya, but has not commented directly on the matter.
According to the Gaza Strip's Ministry of Health, at least 39,550 people have been killed since Israel's invasion of Gaza.
Haniyeh, Hamas' political leader, has been Hamas's main negotiator in efforts to end the war.
His killing has raised questions about the viability of efforts by Qatar, Egypt and the United States to broker a ceasefire and hostage and prisoner exchange.
Fighting continued in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said eight bodies were found in a residential building in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza after an Israeli airstrike.
Medical staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in central Gaza said at least five people were killed and 16 wounded when an Israeli drone struck tents housing refugees inside the medical complex, while three people were killed when a nearby house was also attacked in the same area.
At least 17 people were killed on Saturday when Israel struck a school that had been turned into a shelter, the civil defense agency said. Israel claims the facility was being used by militants.
An AFP correspondent reported Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire in Gaza City and surrounding areas early Sunday, while witnesses said there was more shelling and shooting in the southern part of the area, as well as at least two airstrikes.
The Israeli military said its air force had struck “around 50 terrorist targets across the Gaza Strip” in the past 24 hours.
The United States, Israel's ally, said it would move warships and fighter jets into the area to protect American personnel and defend Israel.
Analysts told AFP that Iran and its allies were likely to act jointly but cautiously, and that Tehran expected Hezbollah to strike deep into Israel and no longer limit itself to military targets.
US President Joe Biden said, “I hope so. I don’t know,” when asked by reporters whether he thought Iran would back down.
Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi will visit Tehran on Sunday to meet his Iranian counterpart, his ministry said.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a report released Saturday that Haniyeh's killing “poses the greatest crisis in the Middle East in years.”
“The risk of a spiral fire is high,” he said, adding that “there is a possibility of a miscalculation that could trigger a war without restraint… and it is likely to be worse now than in April.”
On April 13, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israeli territory, launching a barrage of drones and missiles, most of which were intercepted after the Revolutionary Guards were killed at Tehran's consulate in Damascus.
The ICG said securing a “long-overdue ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip was “the best way to meaningfully reduce tensions in the region.”
Hamas officials, as well as some analysts and Israeli protesters, have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war to protect his far-right ruling coalition.
On Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet that he was “making every effort” to return the hostages and was prepared to “go a long way” to do so.
