Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy fire on Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost a year of conflict across Lebanon’s south and Hezbollah firing rockets deep into northern Israel.

The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets on Saturday, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels, and said it would continue to hit more targets.

Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many northern areas and ordered hospitals there to transfer their operations to facilities with extra protection from rocket and missile fire.

There were no government directives from Lebanon on Sunday morning.

The conflict — which sharply escalated over the past week — has raged since Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel after Israel went to war with Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, triggered by the Hamas-led rampage in southern Israel on October 7 last year.

Sirens sounded across Israel throughout Saturday night as multiple rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by Israeli aerial defence systems, the military said.

Several buildings were struck, including a house badly damaged near the Israeli city of Haifa. Rescue teams treated wounded but there were no reports of deaths. Residents had been instructed to stay near bomb shelters and safe rooms.

Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli Ramat David Airbase with successive barrages of missiles, in the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began.

An official in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a grouping of Iran-backed armed factions, said they launched cruise missile and explosive drone attacks at Israel at dawn on Sunday as part of “a new phase in our support front” with Lebanon.

“Escalation in Lebanon means escalation from Iraq,” the official said.

The move will stoke fears the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon could spiral into the rest of the region.

The UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasscharet, said in a post on X that “with the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer”.

The escalating attacks come less than 48 hours after an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah commanders in a suburb of the Lebanese capital. The death toll from that strike had risen to 45, the Lebanese health ministry said on Sunday.

Hezbollah said 16 members including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among those killed on Friday in the deadliest strike in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.

New phase

Hezbollah says it will keep fighting until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.

US officials say that is unlikely anytime soon. Israel wants Hezbollah to cease fire and withdraw forces from the border region, adhering to a UN resolution signed with Israel in 2006, irrespective of any Gaza deal.

In southern Lebanon on Saturday, people described huge explosions that lit up the night sky and shook the ground as Israel carried out its latest strikes.